Samhain Greetings and Special Rituals

The veils are parting between the worlds of form and formlessness. Perhaps you find yourself thinking about your beloveds who have passed into Spirit long ago, or who have dropped their forms more recently.

Maybe you are dreaming of them, feeling like they are visiting you at night, or sensing their presence at any time of the day or evening. Potent times to tune in most readily are at dawn and dusk, as these are already liminal times – times at the edges, times when we are between one thing (the full light of day) and another (the full darkness of night).

The veils are growing thinner every moment as Samhain grows nearer;
they are parting to open portals between the worlds.

For witches this is the most sacred holiday/holy day of the year.
It is, for everyone, the most magical time, whether realized and acknowledged, or not!

There is a precious opportunity at this time to connect more easily with those who’ve passed, to remember them, honor them and also to open to guidance. If you have difficult relations with your ancestors, I suggest you call for one to come to you who is truly your kindred. There is always at least one, even if you don’t know their name or life story!

Your remembrances can include friends & loved ones of any and all species; furry, feathered, clothed in bark or those who once crawled or slithered on the Earth, but are no longer embodied.

Witches hold a special place of honoring for those who’ve passed into Spirit in this past year, since last Samhain. Your ritual of remembrance can be as simple as calling a circle to hold you, and to create sacred space, lighting a candle indoors and spending some quiet time in meditation, remembering. Or you can create an elaborate altar with photos, flowers, mementos, crystals, bones and other sacred objects.

You can gather alone or with others.
Indoors or outside.
Around a candle, a cauldron, or around a great bonfire.

More Rituals for the Ancestors

You can create
an ancestor plate
and fill it with food
and drink you know
they enjoyed when they
were alive.

I honor my Russian Jewish ancestry by some of the foods I put on the plate (vodka and rye or pumpernickel bread, for starters!), and my Witchy ancestry and present self, by leaving the plate at a triple crossroads, sacred to the goddess of the crossroads, Hecate, also known as the Queen of the Witches.

The triple crossroads is magically symbolic
of Birth, Death, and Rebirth… and also of Past, Present and Future.

You can also leave your ancestor plate out overnight on your kitchen table, or near a window in your high-rise apartment.

All that really matters is that your ritual is sincere, that it comes from your heart and soul and communicates your love.

In Honoring the Dead we reaffirm and Celebrate the great gift and treasure of being Alive.

Ancestor rituals span all cultures on Earth

Another variation is to leave out a plate for the Faeries, which research & personal conversations have taught me is not only a Celtic tradition, this too spans many indigenous cultures across the globe, where the faeries are known by many different names.

Samhain is when the faerie folk leave our world and journey back to the Otherworld until Beltane (circa the eve of April 30th). I like to leave out an offering of flowers, chocolate, cream, drizzled with honey, maybe a heart-shaped stone. Sometimes a song. Faeries love beauty. I have found a special place that I sense is their portal in and out of our dimension, and that is where I leave my plate of beauty for them, to wish them well on their journey. And because I will miss them while they are gone … until they return again. Nature and Life itself are all about cycles of transformation.

One memorable year, one of my dearest friends was in Australia. She put out a plate to welcome the Faeries back into our world, because it was Beltane where she was. We later realized we’d done our rituals acknowledging the gateways between the worlds, at the same moment, half-way across the Earth from each other. I was saying good bye when she was saying hello. That was pure magic!

It is also
Witch’s New Year…

a potent time to release the old and welcome the new into your own life, as you are an integral part of nature’s ongoing cycles of Life — Birth, Death, and Rebirth.

Each Samhain, I do the following ritual around a fire. I collect strips of white birch bark from the forest floor when I encounter them so I’ll have it for this night. If you don’t have birch bark to write on, use paper… imbue it with magic by your intention, and it will be so.

~*~ One more ritual for you ~*~

White Birch Bark Ritual

Gather some white birch bark from a fallen tree or branch. Let it dry thoroughly. White birch bark peels off the tree in strips and represents shedding what is no longer needed—what you’ve outgrown yet may still be clinging to.

It is often used in rituals related to death and rebirth. Never peel the bark off all the way around a living tree trunk, because that can seriously harm or even kill the tree.

When you want to initiate a change in your life, meditate and ask for guidance to see how you are holding yourself back from being your whole, true self. Ask to be shown what you could choose to release in order to live more fully and with less fear. It may be a familiar theme that you are being asked to take to a deeper level; or something you’ve never looked at before may reveal itself to you.

Write a phrase or word…

…or draw an image that symbolizes whatever it is you want to let go. This could be any physical habit, habit of mind, or old belief that is no longer serving you. Make sure it is something for you to do, or stop doing—not some way in which you want someone else to change. Whenever we think getting someone else to change is the key to our happiness, we are not seeing the truth. We can only be responsible for our choices, not someone else’s.

Writing what you are letting go, on this bark “paper” that represents beginnings, symbolizes how endings are always followed by new beginnings.

Rebirth follows death as spring follows winter.

Release whatever you have written on the birch paper into a ritual fire.

When you burn the bark, say aloud what you are releasing, or say it silently to yourself. Either way, you have powerfully initiated a change, and now the day-to-day work begins. It is spiritual-growth work you’ve chosen for yourself, so persevere and it will be worthwhile.

Many witches do this ritual on Halloween night (our New Year’s), but I have introduced this ritual at New Year’s Eve parties and found it well-received then too. Everyone enjoyed doing something meaningful as one year ended and the new one began. If there’s a need for this ritual in your personal life at any time though, then that’s when you do it!

Love and Green Blessings,

~*~ Robin Rose ~*~