Blessed Samhain
 

For most of you, tonight will be the prime evening for dressing up the kids and taking them trick or treating. Maybe you'll even smear on some greasepaint, and head out for some revelry with your pals, walking around in character, being someone else for the night.

Whatever you do, be safe, and perhaps even be mindful that the celebration you know as Halloween has its roots in the Old Ways. For those of us who call ourselves witches, tonight is Samhain, "Summer's End".

Tonight, as you walk among the fallen leaves and feel the crisp air upon your cheeks, as you see the little ghouls and goblins scurrying about on their rounds of symbolic tribute collection, remember that this night is the celebration of the last harvest. It is the night when we give thanks to the animals we have slaughtered for our winter sustenance, the night when we give over our streets and homes to the spirits of our ancestors who once again walk among us. The veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, our gods and goddesses are drawn near, awaiting our acknowledgement and thanks. Perhaps those of you with clear skies will see their presence tonight in the red and green swirls of the aurorae which have been so prominent of late.

Tonight, we will honor those gone before us by setting a place at our celebratory table, eating in silence as we remember them and once again give them life, if only in the world of our minds. We will ruminate upon the tale of Persephone and her descent into the Underworld. We will speak of how her mother Demeter mourns her, and ponder the snowy Winter which will soon descend upon us in the wake of her grief for her daughter.

Tonight, the Sun King begins his journey through the Underworld, and we await his emergence and rebirth on Yule. In our anticipation of his return, we will bring forth our implements of divination, and seek to reveal that which is hidden, hoping to illuminate the coming year. Tonight, we celebrate the New Year, and we prepare for our long Winter's nap.

Thanks for letting me share a bit of my highest of holidays with you all. Wish me a happy sixth anniversary!

Paganism is as much of a crock as Christianity. Thank you. :)

(Blessed samhain to the pagan peeps.)

Yes, yes. Happy sixth anniversary to you and the old witch.
And happy sixth anniversary to her and the old witch.



:D

In your opinion. Thank you

Religion is a crock...spirituality is not... :)

Shut up Slang...you're a fucking heathen anyway. :)

So if you're religious you smoke crock pot.:)

No, no...at our religious ceremonies, we often have crock pots for the potluck.

40 people at our Samhain celebration tonight. We had to go to the big new community center instead of the old one where we are always by ourselves, so we had a Young Life party going on in the room next to us, complete with a Disco band, and a Christian seminar in the room across the hall from us.

Fortunately, none of us were burned at the stake tonight.

Well......there's always tomorrow. :)

Secular western culture has this bad tendency to trivialize religious holidays. I know that tomorrow I'll go over to Barnes and Noble and see them putting up the Christmas decorations. "Baby Jesus will cry if you don't take advantage of these savings!!!"

< gear change >

I didn't see the aurorae tonight, but I did see them Wednesday night. The entire northern sky was green; very pretty. I know it's end of October because the Pleiades, Subaru, the Seven Sisters were directly overhead. Someone was trying to place some ominous significance to that conjunction a few years ago, but I growled at them that the Pleiades is always at the zenith on Halloween night at midnight. Is there any special significance placed on them in your Samhain celebrations, Elspode?

I know that the Romans moved Christmas to near the Solstice celebration from the month of April for marketing reasons, but I always feel the changes of season are significant anyway. I always find out when those days occur, and make a special effort to sit out in the backyard and note the sky, the moon, the constellations, the smell of the earth, etc.

What's all this about cars and people in the sky? That sounds dangerous. Must be a Seattle thing...

Gee whiz, I hope they're wearing their saftey belts.

[dustbin]It's interesting isn't it. The pagan festivals celebrating the thinness of the veil (our priest used essentially the same words last weekend) becomes All Souls Day or El Dia de la Muerda as society goes Christian, while maintaining that celebration of those lives which have passed before us and touch us still, only to be utterly trivialized by the amazing destructive force that is modern consumer culture.[/of history]

Anyway, enjoy the holiday Spodester.

No, I'M the heathen ...

Me and El will get together and turn you into a toad ... or we might let you have a choice and turn you into a newt, or a wombat or something. But NOTHING cool, got that? No wolves, monkeys, or horse-forms for you, young man!

s'taken.

Wait! You don't know, do you? This is kind of neat! Look at a Subaru's hood ornament/symbol. Looks familiar doesn't it? The Japanese call the grouping of stars "Subaru".

We've got a few uncompleted overpasses here, so Subarus overhead might not be an impossibility.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "She turned me into a newt! I got better..."

None of which I am aware. The eight Sabbats we observe are solar celebrations. There are also Esbats, or lunar celebrations, held on each New Moon and Full Moon. These, we celebrate only within our coven, as opposed to the mega Sabbat frolics, where we have had as many as 75 people. We seldom have fewer than 30.

When planning spellwork, astrological considerations can come into play (and often do), and constellations are involved there, but only those of the Zodiac (the major constellations which lie in the plane of the ecliptic, and thus those through which the Sun passes over the course of Earth's annual rotation around it...so, even then, it is solar based).

What the hell? He's already a tree...

Might it be getting time for you to seek out other like-minded souls in your new vicinity? I'm sure you know about this site, but go check out www.witchvox.com . There's a place to search for local groups and activities for anywhere you might happen to be.

Wren and Fritz do a great job on this site...best witch site on the Internet, no contest...plus, they are extremely groovy people.

Good point. But he's a neat tree. Mebbe we could trade it in on a dogwood if he really ires us?

I must take issue with that. Sycamores are dirty, nasty, messy and dangerous to humans. Really not befitting a man of his stature. :)

that is actually the strike pattern from pearl harbor...how fucked up is that?

COUGAR,
just busy at work....ive been lurking a bit, but been to busy pining over you to take the time to reply to your posts...it just hurts too much to know that I can't have you