Trick Or Treat!

All Souls Night, Samhain is the most sacred and high holiday of all the celtic festivals of all rituals. Samhain combines a number of elements: The last  of three  agricultural harvests, the wild harvest, the transition of the fall foliage season into the onset of winter weather and the commemoration of The Day of the Dead.It is a time for remembering our ancestors and our departed loved ones, and a solemn time should be set aside for contemplating the mystery of Life and of purging the false from the mind, heart, and soul. It is not a festival of the Celts alone: The Romans called it "Cereris Mundus Pated", the doors of Orcus are open, the voices of the ancestors can be be heard.  With them it was also the last of three harvest festivals, akin to Lughnasa, Mabon and Samhain. Hekate, friend of Demeter/Ceres and Proserpina/Peresphone ruled especially over the last of the three, as Cerridwen ruled above Celtic Samhain.  This is a time to communicate and hear the other side, a time of death, remembrance of ancestors and what we are because of them. It is a time of letting go, a time when the veil is the thinnest between the worlds. We can penetrate the veil and get messages from people who have passed this road before us to help us in this life. It is a time when we look at death hopefully trying to find meaning in that. heal the source of our deepest wounds....and those we have inflicted on others around us.....before time fails us. It is a time when we can learn to confront the ultimate truth. The true victory of the self is in the Cauldron of Cerridwen. Now we must look at the nature of our motives and at the results of our Death as taught by the ancient ways. Samhain is a time of introspection,an estranged time, full of power, partaking of both the first and the second half of the year, yet belonging to neither. It is akin to dawn and twilight. Samhain was probably originally celebrated on the new moon closest to the now customary date of October 31, or the 11th full moon of November. the month of fog and mists, Nebelung, it was called by Germanic tribes. It was their season to remember the dead warriors and their glory, of all who have fallen in battle.