What Is Samhain? What to Know About the Ancient Pagan Festival That Came Before Halloween

Dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating are popular Halloween activities, but few probably associate these lighthearted fall traditions with their origins in Samhain, a three-day ancient Celtic pagan festival.

For the Celts, who lived during the Iron Age in what is now Ireland, Scotland, the U.K. and other parts of Northern Europe, Samhain (meaning literally, in modern Irish, “summer’s end”) marked the end of summer and kicked off the Celtic new year. Ushering in a new year signaled a time of both death and rebirth, something that was doubly symbolic because it coincided with the end of a bountiful harvest season and the beginning of a cold and dark winter season that would present plenty of challenges.

According to historian Nicholas Rogers, author of Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Samhain was a “time of stock-taking and perhaps sacrifice” — including probably animal sacrifice — during which “pastoral communities [prepared] to survive the winter.”

Rogers also notes that little is firmly known about the particulars of the holiday, since the limited sources available are either folkloric literature like the Celtic sagas and Roman authors who would have likely “trashed” the traditions of a culture with which they were often in conflict.

To understand what we do know about Samhain, it’s important to recognize how the structure of the year’s calendar affected the Celts’ religious practices. According to The Guardian,…

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Crafting Your Own Sacred Schedule – Part 7

(Parts 1, 3, 5,7 for this topic will be posted on Coven Life. Parts 2, 4, 6, 8 will be posted on Witches of The Craft)

Follow, Your Roots

Not only is it important to acknowledge the patterns of the land where you live, but you may also find exploring your roots very inspiring. Where are your ancestors from? What traditions and celebrations did they observe historically? You probably won’t find books on these subjects in the New Age section of the library or bookstore — instead you’ll want to wander over to anthropology and folklore sections. If a particular tradition or day really resonates, consider how you can sincerely explore it. Are the people who live in that area today still observing it? Can you find videos online of the festivities? It might be worth a trip to immerse yourself more and see what you can discover about your roots.

Crafting Your Own Sacred Schedule – Part 3

(Parts 1, 3, 5,7 for this topic will be posted on Coven Life. Parts 2, 4, 6, 8 will be posted on Witches of The Craft)

Celebrating the Deceased

There is a tendency to think of the dead at certain times of the year, such as Samhain. But if you work with the spirits and deceased enough, you will find they are around us all year long all year long. I celebrated my loved ones who have crossed over on their birthday. Some people my choose to celebrate the deathday, but I prefer the birthday [Side note: I celebrate both days]. Why? Well, on a technical level I tend to only remember the season of someone’s passing, not the actual date, so that’s not really helpful. The main reason for using their date of birth, though, is that I want to celebrate their life and the impact they had on the world while they were alive.

Crafting Your Own Sacred Schedule – Part 1

Parts 1, 3, 5,7 for this topic will be posted on Coven Life. Parts 2, 4, 6, 8 will be posted on Witches of The Craft

What days of the year are most important to you? Are you making a place for them in your practice, or are you by-passing them altogether? What makes your year go’ round? These are important points to consider when finding your life rhythm and setting a sacred schedule for your own Wheel of the Year.

All too frequently, new practitioners approach this path and feel they must absorb a whole new system directed by a book. That includes celebrating the Wheel of the Year down to the letter, even if it doesn’t make sense for your location, background, beliefs, myths, real life experiences, and so on. This approach can leave you feeling out of touch with what’s happening around you or even make you wonder if you’re doing witchery all wrong.

But there are very few hard and fast rules in Witchcraft — instead, they’re are many suggestions and recommended guidelines. The Wheel of the Year model, as it appears in most books over the last fifty years, is a relatively new construction pieced together from different traditions, I’m not pointing out this fact to knock the system — it does work well for many people. Yet it can be all to easy to forget that the Wheel of the Year is a guideline, not a rule to be adhered to religiously or exclusively. The intention behind its information is to give modern Pagans a cycle they can connect with. How you mark or celebrate the seasons, mythic changes, and important dates will depend heavily on the foundation of your personal practice.

Take into consideration that the popular version of the Wheel of the Year is heavily steeped in Celtic myth. What if you wish to delve into your Slavic, Japanese, or Brazilian heritage? Every culture has its own vibrant collection of myths and sacred days. Sometimes they overlap with the eight sabbats, similarly landing on solstices, equinoxes, or the cross-quarter days, but sometimes they don’t. For example, the Slavic/Russian sun-oriented fest of Kupala occurs in early July while Obon, a Japanese festival that honors the dead falls in mid-August.

There’s also the problematic trappings of culture that insists on separating the sacred from the secular. Big festivals and fest days help bring a community together, but that doesn’t mean they are more special or powerful than days that have a deep personal meaning in your own life. When we are able to see the correlations between the big moments and our day-to-day lives, we enhance our ability to connect with the world around us. The more we can honor and celebrate the seawsons in our own lives, the deeper our practic becomes.

Have a Magickl and Blessed 2020 to Our Brothers, Sisters, and Guests

To all of our Sisters, Brothers, Guests no matter which hemisphere you live in. From Lady Beltane and Elders of Witches of The Craft, Coven Life, and Heart’s Spirit Online we wish you and your family a happy, healthy, loving, and bountiful New Year.

Simple Explanation of How Coven Life Tries to Incorporate Northern and Southern Hemispheres Esbats, Sabbats, and the Open Chats

Coven Life’s Coven invites anyone who would like to attend any of our gatherings and/or open chats to join us. The dates and times along with the link for Coven Life’s Chatroom can be found under Coven Life’s Events found on the right hand side of covenlife.co Homepage. Lady Beltane has to approve your entrance into the Chatroom. She does this weekly and up to 5 minutes before a father in or open chat.

Being the Coven’s High Priestess I want our members and guests to know our coven covers the difference in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres Sabbats and Esbats. Alternating the celebration date between the Southern’s regular calendar and the Northern one, as there is a small window when both hemispheres have the same date. I use Melbourne, Victoria, Australia for time and date in the Southern Hemisphere because that is the closest time to where our wonderful Priestess Hypatia lives. I use Central Time for the Northern Hemisphere because I live in that time zone.

I believe for a coven to truly be spiritual family we need to celebrate the things we have in common as well as our differences. This will include starting in the new year, based on the Celtic, on the day after Samhain (pronounced sow-en) November 1, 2019 in the North. This is going to seem like my math is way off but for next new year day but our year is going to be 18 months long so we can celebrate the new year using the Southern Hemisphere’s Wheel of the Year and it’s Samhain is celebrated on May 1st. So our our next new years day will be May,1,2021. We will start including regular holidays around the world not just in the United States. I have found a list of international holidays that I will post soon. Please read it over and if a major holiday from your country is missing please put it in the comment section. Thank you!

What is Juneteenth?

Juneteenth is an annual holiday which occurs on June 19th and is observed in the United States. It is one of the oldest celebrations of the abolition of slavery in the world. While this holiday isn’t an official government holiday in any U.S state, it is recognized as a ceremonial observance in roughly half of the U.S states and is observed as a “partial staffing holiday” in Texas – which means that government offices do not close on this day but some employees are allowed to take the day off by using a floating holiday.

When is Juneteenth?
This year (2019)	June 19 (Wednesday)
Next year (2020)	June 19 (Friday)
Last year (2018)	June 19 (Tuesday)

History of Juneteenth

The history of Juneteenth can be traced all the way back to June 19th of 1865. This is when the Union Army, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended and that all former slaves were now free. Although President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, slavery hadn’t ended in Texas because there weren’t enough Union soldiers in the state to enforce the new order. However, the sound defeat of General Lee in April of that year and the arrival of the Union soldiers under Granger strengthened the forces sufficiently enough to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.

While the original reason for why Texas was over two years behind in freeing slaves is lost to the fog of time. However, there are a few stories that have been passed down through the generations to explain the delay. The first story tells of a messenger who was on his way to Texas to deliver the order of freedom when he was captured and murdered. Another possibility is that the plantations ignored the order so they could maintain their free working force.

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Granger read General Order Number 3 to the people of Texas. This order stated: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.” Reaction to this order by the former slaves was as varied as you could imagine. Some of the slaves stayed on under their former masters in a working capacity, while others left immediately after the order was read. Some of the headed North and others head to other parts of the South looking for family members they may have been separated. As more and more families united, they remembered fondly the day they acquired their freedom and began to celebrate it as Juneteenth. The day gained further prominence during the Civil Rights Movement.

Where is Juneteenth celebrated?

United states – All except am. samoa , az , hi , md , mp , mt , nd , nh , sd , ut , virg. is.

From Juneteenth

In Honor of the Women, Men, and Aminals that Served Our Country

This will be the only post for today. Please light a candle in memory of the people and animals who have died over the centuries to keep the restof of us safe.