While children everywhere were celebrating Halloween last weekend, dressed in ghoulish outfits and knocking on doors for a trick or treat, the Pagans in our communities were celebrating Samhain, the Feast of the Dead, the beginning of the Celtic Year.

In Celtic traditions Samhain marks the move from light to darkness, the first day of winter, the time when the veils between this world and the Otherworld are at their thinnest and when Deities, deceased loved ones and ancestors can draw close to us and be remembered. The “Jack o’lantern” pumpkin lamps that we now associate with the Halloween festivities echo the skulls of the ancestors that the Celts placed outside their doors to guide the spirits of their loved ones back home.

The Celts would light a sacred bonfire, play traditional games, such as apple bobbing, and practice divination. This was a joyous celebration, and a time for reflecting on the past and moving forward to the future, as the Pagan view of death incorporates notions of new beginnings and rebirth.

Samhain is a time for wisdom and for calling upon the Crone aspect of the Divine Feminine to transform our darker aspects in her cauldron of transformation.

In the quiet of winter we can withdraw and reflect on the aspects of ourselves that we wish to change and the past hurts that we need to let go of, and in the dark safety of this silent time we can make the preparations to re-emerge, refreshed and renewed at Imbolc (January 31) when Winter becomes Spring.

Rhian Gibbings