Working with the Energy of Samhain
Samhain is the Irish fire festival that represents the midpoint between the Autumn Equinox & Winter Solstice. This year the true date of Samhain is 7th/8th November. In Irish (Gaeilge), it’s pronounced Sow-wen.
The 4 cross quarter days in the wheel of the year are the sacred fire festivals: Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh, & Samhain. This year Samhain falls on the date of the blood moon eclipse.
This is the Celtic new year. So it’s all about allowing the ashes to consume what needs to be released. Cleaning house, cutting ties, closing doors. The eclipse only intensifies this call for release and surrender. Embrace the opportunity to choose something new, work on yourself during the darker months, and emerge a higher version of yourself in the early days of Spring: Imbolc.
A powerful time to purge and release. Movement medicine may be needed in order to release any trapped emotions or energy stored in the body. Tap into your Mars. Dance is a powerful way to unlock trapped energy in the hips. Dance has always been used as a way to celebrate the fire festivals. Music and movement. A medicine as old as time, found everywhere across the world. This fire festival and eclipse is asking you to honour all that needs to go. Let the old be burned. Release and reset. Listen to the call of Winter.
What needs to die in order for you to be reborn?
A time for candle offerings, deep cleaning your environment, smoke cleansing.
What have you been procrastinating? Use this energy of death and renewal to finish things you’ve been putting off. Take time to deep clean. Take time to get on top of certain tasks. You’ll feel better for the sense of completion. Completing and releasing gives you space to welcome in new and more abundant things; the theme of the new year.
The fire festivals serve as a point of pause and reflection. A place within the wheel of the year where we can slow down and check in with ourselves. Honouring the seasons and connecting to the traditions of late Autumn/Early Winter is a great way to connect to the Samhain energies. Seasonal foods are my favourite way of nourishing my body as we ease into the next cycle in the great wheel. I also make sure to incorporate warming foods and spices (ginger & cinnamon) into teas and meals as often as I can. Generating internal warmth and focusing on womb warmth aids us women in our hormonal cycle and helps ease symptoms of our bleed. A time of us to slow down, gather around flame - be that bonfire or candle - and honour every emotion, every dream, every sensation. Give worry to the flame and take strength from the light in this dark season. Honour the Yin. Go slow.
Honouring your Ancestors
Samhain is also a time for honouring your ancestors and those who have passed into the next life. However you choose to work with your ancestors, now is a beautiful time to honour and care for them. Light candles for them, say prayers and blessing for them. Offer their favourite things on your ancestral altar. There isn’t a wrong or right way to work with the energy of this day. Just be mindful and use your intuition.
Points of Reflection:
Our ancestors are within us always: our dna, our blood, our bones. Connecting to the power that courses within you is a powerful thing. But this also means that generational pain, addictions, and other misfortunes can reside within you. The empowering part is you can be the end to it all. And the start of something extraordinary, something beautiful filled with ease, and something breaking old energetic bonds.
What ancestral stories are you ready to release? (limitations, addictions, emotional patterns, relationship patterns etc.)
How are you being called to heal generational wounds?
Which new path are you forging for your ancestral line to come?
What pattern are you going to break this coming year?
Offerings:
The barrier between worlds is traversable during Samhain, so offerings are prepared that are left outside villages and fields for the fae, or Sidhe. This is to show respect and to keep the mischief makers away from people, livestock and children.
Seasonal fruits, grains, flowers, and vegetables also make beautiful offerings for graves, altars, and places of worship. Milk and ale are known favourites of spirits found around grave yards. They are also enjoyed by the fae.
Rosemary is a powerful offering for this time of year. When sitting with a small fire or bonfire, offer the flames rosemary with the intention of clearing and connecting to ancestral memories. Rosemary is a herb often associated with boosting memory and attention. This herb is also used for this reason for occult reasons. Rosemary - marós - is a herb with powerful protection qualities and an association with bringing memories to the forefront. Offering marós to the fire will aid you in ancestral connection whilst protection you during a time of the Otherworld being within reach.
Carving pumpkins is an American tradition that evolved from the Irish immigrants who settled across the Atlantic. It is traditional in Ireland to carve turnips and leave them outside the home as a form of warding off unwanted spirits and the fae. It should be said though that in modern times, both turnips and pumpkins are carved across Ireland and the British Isles on 31st October. Traditions are always evolving and changing.
Bonfires are an important part of the Halloween celebrations and originate from this Irish festival. During Samhain, bonfires were lit to protect and cleanse the community for the coming new year. These fires were also seen as a channel for closer interaction with the world beyond the living — the Otherworld.
Samhain Practises Quick Guide
Smoke Blend: Spearmint, mullein, rose, and lemon balm.
Cleansing Bath: Salt (of your choosing), clay, rose, rosemary, pine. Or a rose and milk bath.
Flower Essence: Honeysuckle, Cerato, Wild Oats, Gorse
Essential Oils & Blends: Ginger, sage & cinnamon blend. Cypress, neroli, orange, sandalwood used individually or blended however you desire.
Offerings & Altar Decorations: Leaving wine, ale, honey and milk for graves and standing stones. Burning sacred herbs like rosemary, mugwort, motherwort, and mullein in the fire. Leaving acorns and conkers on your altar. Lighting candles for ancestors and speaking prayers. Offer oats and milk to the sea in thanks for the healing energy, fish and seaweed.
Kitchen Witchery: Time of the year for fire cider and oxymels! Nourishing medicine that’s quick and simple to make. I recommend always having ACV and honey in your home, that way you can always make some medicine from what you have in your kitchen. Get creative. Your fire cider could include any or a mixture of the following: onion (peel on), garlic, chilli, pepper, turmeric, jalapeños, cloves, rosemary, lemon (peel on), ginger root and more!
Nature: Reciting poetry, blessings and/or prayers to the trees is a long held tradition for the fire festivals. For Samhain, offer prayers of renewal, blessings of greatness to come, and poetry on the beauty and inevitability of death. For Samhain is a festival acknowledging and celebrating death as part of cycle of life. Honour the changing of the trees. Soak in the smell of soil and leaves lining the woodland floor. Find joy in every season.
Home Protection: Leave a mixture of salt and rosemary outside your doors to ward off unwanted energies. Light candles in windows. Use your intuition and lean in to what you’re called to use.
This was a very quick guide on how to work with the energies of Samhain. This is a sacred holiday in the Irish wheel of the year and was considered the High Holiday in time gone by. I hope this encourages you to check in with yourself and touch base with the world around you as we enter into the Yin, dark, and Otherworldly time of year.
Blessings for the coming year.
Grá Mór,
Em
