What is Samhain?
Samhain is also known as Hallowe’en, the spookiest night of the year! The veil is thinnest between our world and the spiritual realm, so it’s a perfect time for doing spellwork and creating rituals to receive messages from our ancestors and guides.
But in the Pagan and Wiccan (witchcraft) traditions, Samhain is also a celebration of the changing of seasons and honouring of Mother Earth as our abundant provider; she’s always delivering exactly what we need.
It’s also known as the Witches’ New Year. If setting intentions on January 1 feels unnatural to you (or they never seem to last), it’s probably because you’re deeply in tune with the rhythms of nature. Your body is telling you that this time of the year, when we are most intuitive, is a much more potent opportunity for tuning in and receiving guidance.
Samhain (pronounced saah-win) falls on April 30 in the Southern Hemisphere, and October 31 in the Northern Hemisphere (when Hallowe’en is traditionally celebrated).
It is the third and final harvest festival in the Wheel of the Year, and marks the end of autumn shifting into winter. This is the yin part of the cycle: slow, dark, inward-focused, releasing and letting go. All around us, animals start preparing and gathering resources for winter. Our ancestors would have stockpiled firewood, picked the last pumpkins and started fermenting cabbaged.
As humans with heating and lighting, and jobs that continue year-long, it is easy to miss what a huge shifting point this is in our world. Instead of carrying on with the productive, fast-paced mode we enjoyed during the summer months, matching this slow rhythm of winter means you will be rewarded with invaluable insight and bounds of energy once we emerge back into spring.
Winter isn’t typically seen as a season to celebrate, because it is viewed as an unwelcome shift away from the fruitful, colourful, warm and fun energy of spring and summer.
But winter comes with its own gifts that you won’t want to miss:
- Heightened intuitive powers and enhanced witchy magic
- The sweet relief of being messy and dark and still (aren’t you sick of just ‘working’ and being ‘out’ all the time?)
- The delightful burden off your shoulders of just letting. stuff. go. Mmhmm.
(These are the same gifts that women have access to on their monthly bleed, and also everyone has with the dark moon phase).
As the days get colder, we are invited to embrace the darkness and endings that need to happen; if you don’t slow down, Mother Nature will find a way to do it for you (usually in the form of the flu).
Samhain Rituals
Here are my favourite Samhain rituals, curated and collected over the years.
1. Create an ancestors altar
Your seasonal altar gets a spooky twist for this Sabbat! Create a space on a shelf, table or cabinet where you can dedicate an altar to any ancestors, guides or spiritual animals you’d like to receive guidance from.
Decorate with:
- Photographs or mementos of your ancestors or guides
- Orange or black candles (bonus points if you sit them in mini cauldrons)
- Produce of the season (apples, pumpkin, acorns, rosemary)
- Dark-coloured crystals (obsidian, smoky quartz, bloodstone)
This space is for you to reflect on your intentions for the rest of the season and infuse power into your Samhain rituals.
2. Cover your clocks
This is the perfect way to slip into the slow, yin go with the flow energy that Samhain is shifting us into. On the night of Samhain until the following morning, cover your clocks and try to hide your phone as well. And notice what you perceive; this simple shift may open your third eye and senses to magical, spiritual energies.
Abandoning the construct of time completely for one evening sounds absolutely delicious, and will likely make you realise how ruled by structure and productivity our lives usually are.
3. Samhain Candle Spell
Samhain is a fire festival, so a candle spell is the perfect way to practice divination and receive guidance when the spiritual realm has so many divine messages waiting for us!
- Take your journal to your Samhain altar. Perhaps place a new offering on the altar for the guides you wish to come through (especially pumpkins or hot apple cider!).
- Cleanse the space with incense or sage.
- Light your candle and take a moment to ground yourself with deep, slow breaths.
- Watching the flame and allowing your eyes to soften out of focus, call the ancestors and guides you’d like to receive messages from to come present (either naming specific ancestors or asking generally any ancestors who have guidance for you).
- Allowing yourself to be hypnotised by the flame, notice any images, feelings or words that come through for you. Notice them without judgment, even if they are confusing or strange. This is how ancestors pass on messages to us. Write them down; they may make sense to you at a later point in time.
- Stay in this meditative space until the candle has burnt down completely or you feel complete. Thank your guides for their messages and release any final things you’d like to let go of with 3 deep breaths.
Our luxurious black & gold journals perfectly match the energy of Samhain. This Witches’ New Year, start your own journalling or spellwork habit for a magical year ahead!
Hoping that this Samhain will wake up women everywhere to their innate magic! Witchcraft is not something that requires special tools or knowing the ‘right’ spells – your intention and attention are the most important tools you’ll ever need.
Love,
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