Samhain
Samhain, celebrated on October 31st, is one of the most ancient and profound festivals on the Celtic calendar. Samhain has always been a night of thresholds. The old Celtic word means “summer’s end,” and that is exactly what it was: the last breath of the harvest before winter closed in. This is the time when the fields are laid bare from months of growth and harvesting, the leaves have begun to change color and fall to the ground, there is a chill bite to the air itself around this time and the days feel precipitously shorter, like they are racing toward the Solstice. Animals begin to prepare for winter, their coats change, they seem wilder, more voracious in preparation for the upcoming cold as they prepare themselves. Even our own animals, our cats and dogs, start to snuggle closer to us for warmth and safety. My cats sleep a lot, and while they are all older than twelve with the exception of the big bad beige four year old practically a kitten Archie, they are sleeping and resting a lot more and are eating a lot more than they do the rest of the year. We bring down our Winter clothing and begin making preparations for being out and about in the cold and darkness and the dreaded Daylight Savings that always follows the Sunday after Halloween.
Ancient people knew these rhythms all too well and follow a similar theme to our modern descent into the dark time of year, but with way less comfort, security, safety and technology. For the Ancient Celtic people, from whom we get Samhain which evolved into our modern Halloween, this was more than a seasonal change. Time itself bent at Samhain and reality was something more enigmatic and untethered from the normal day to day. They would slaughter animals and prepare the meat for the long winter and bring those that needed to survive until Spring into some sort of protective space. They prepared the final harvest for Wintering, and built giant bonfires as a reminder that even in the darkness, the light would return. They kept hope alive even when it seemed a fools errand. The Celts understood what we often forget: that every death carries the seed of new life. That is why many modern witches still call Samhain the New Year.
The Celtic Festival of Samhain
For the ancient Celts, Samhain was more than a calendar date. From what we know from anthropological and archeological evidence, they did not use calendars in the way we do, they used the weather and more importantly, the stars. Astrology was alive and well in most ancient cultures and the cosmos was a respected and venerated guide, teacher and for some, home to their ancestors. For the druids and Celts, ancient people from the northern parts of Western Europe, this was the moment when one year ended and another began, when the light half of the year ended and the dark half began. Herds were culled, the last of the grain stored, and meat salted for winter. Families brought their animals close for shelter, and communities gathered for the great bonfires on the hills. Every hearth fire in the village was extinguished and then relit from the sacred communal blaze, a symbolic act of renewal that bound the people together in shared fate and faith. Fire was a comfort, a protection, and a reminder that even as the nights lengthened, the light would always return.
The Celts also believed that Samhain was a time when the veil between worlds was at its most porous and permeable. You can think of it as realities, dimensions, or overlapping worlds, but the point was that people across cultures believed this was a time when spirits could cross over into their reality, and vice versa. The living and the dead could cross paths, and the Otherworld pressed close to our own. Ancestors were welcomed with offerings of food, and meals called “dumb suppers” were eaten in silence with a place set for the departed. Masks and costumes were worn not for revelry but for survival, disguising the living from less friendly spirits or malevolent demons roaming the night. Divination thrived in this liminal hour. Druids read the flames, young women scryed in bowls of water, and omens were taken from wind and fire. Samhain represented a time when mysticism drew closer to reality, not just in the imaginal, but in our relationship to it. We see this in our own modern rituals, where divination and mysticism really ramp up in October. We can feel the change, and maybe we are reinterpreting tradition, or maybe we are remembering, but either way, this is the time of year when more people feel drawn to the esoteric and mystical.
From Samhain to All Hallows’ Eve
As Rome spread into Celtic lands, new layers were added to these older rites. Feralia, the Roman day of the dead, and Pomona, the goddess of orchards, both mingled with Samhain’s rituals. Pomona’s symbol was the apple, and from her feast we likely inherit apple games and divination. Some even postulate that the apple inspired later turnip and root vegetable carvings and decoration, which led us to our modern affinity for the pumpkin, a very American addition to this ancient Frankenstein’s Creature of a Holiday. As Christianity spread like wildfire throughout Europe, it made sense that the Christian church sought to sanctify the popularity of the season. In the ninth century, November 1st was named All Saints’ Day, with November 2nd as All Souls’ Day. October 31st became All Hallows’ Eve. You know what they say, if you cannot beat them, join them, and that is what the Church did with Samhain and many other holidays, festivals, and celebrations. But let us just stick with Samhain and Halloween here.
Now, about those lanterns. Long before pumpkins, people in Ireland and Scotland carved faces into turnips, or large beet like root vegetables called mangel-wurzels. They were called neep lanterns in Scotland and were set on windowsills or carried on dark lanes to frighten away wandering spirits. The practice ties to an older folklore of ghost lights called will-o’-the-wisps, sometimes nicknamed jack-o’-lanterns, the eerie lights said to lure travelers off safe paths. The Irish story that stuck to this custom is the tale of Stingy Jack. Jack was a trickster who trapped the Devil more than once and wrung promises from him, then lived such a mean life that when he died heaven would not take him and hell could not claim him. The Devil, keeping his word, gave Jack only a single ember from hell’s fire to light his way as he wandered the earth forever. Jack hollowed out a turnip, tucked the ember inside, and became a restless soul with a lantern, seen on dark roads and peat bogs. People carved their own grim little faces into turnips to scare Jack and other spirits off, or to light the way home through the long autumn night.
When Irish and Scottish immigrants came to North America, they found pumpkins in the fields and quickly switched. Pumpkins were bigger, easier to carve, and plentiful, so the turnip lantern grew into the glowing jack-o’-lantern we know today. What began as a warding device in a season of thin veils became a symbol of welcome at the door, equal parts protection and play.
Witches, of course, became forever tied to this season. Their image at Halloween is not accidental. Women who practiced herbs, healing, divination, and midwifery carried echoes of Samhain’s liminal wisdom, and so the witch became the archetype of the threshold-keeper. Black cats, once thought to be their spirit companions, prowl the night as guardians and omens. Even the broom, a simple household tool, became a symbol of flight between worlds, sweeping boundaries clean and carrying its rider across unseen thresholds.
As time went on and Christianity dominated, people continued to dress up in costumes, leave offerings, and practice divination. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried these customs to North America, where they mingled with other traditions that gradually became our modern Halloween. Pumpkins replaced turnips for lanterns, Stingy Jack’s cursed wandering became the jack-o’-lantern, and guising and souling evolved into trick-or-treating. Safety was always part of the ritual. Celts masked themselves to blend with spirits. Children once went door to door for soul cakes under the watch of their neighbors. Now kids carry flashlights through suburban streets. Halloween has always balanced danger with protection, mischief with ritual, fear with play.
All Over the World
While not a Halloween anthem, I am humming ELO’s All Over the World while typing this out, so hopefully it makes sense and I will try to avoid anything too musically lyrical. Samhain may be Celtic at its root, but this season of death and remembrance belongs to us all. All around the world, cultures have marked this turning of the year with rituals of connection to the dead. The details differ, but the heart is the same. Death comes for us all. Across time and place, people have chosen to meet that truth not only with mourning but with connection. Honoring the dead at this turning of the year is about remembering that we are links in a chain, that we walk paths once walked by our ancestors, and that we too will one day be remembered. This season reminds us that we are never separate from those who came before, nor from those who will come after.
Probably the most popular holiday after Halloween is Mexico’s Dia de los Muertes, which offers a unique cultural take on death, remembrance and ancestor veneration. Cemeteries glow with candles, music, and color. Families build ofrendas, altars stacked with marigolds, sugar skulls, photographs, and the favorite foods of their loved ones. The belief is that the veil lifts and the dead return for one night to feast and be remembered, and so the living meet them with joy instead of sorrow. The marigold, the flor de muerto, is said to guide the spirits home with its bright petals and strong scent.
Pchum Ben is a Cambodian festival that stretches for two weeks and honors as many as fifteen generations of ancestors. Families bring rice and offerings to temples, believing that the restless spirits of those without descendants to tend them can also be nourished through this ritual. It is an act of both duty and compassion. To feed the dead is to feed the bonds of family itself.
In Japan, Obon is one of the most beloved festivals of the year. Ancestral spirits are invited home with lanterns, honored with dance and feasting, and then sent back to the other world with floating lights carried down rivers or set out to sea. The flickering lanterns are both guide and goodbye, gentle reminders that the living and the dead share the same flow for a time before parting. The Hungry Ghost Festival is held during the seventh lunar month in China, when the gates of the afterlife are believed to open. The living provide offerings of incense, food, and elaborate paper effigies burned to supply the spirits with houses, clothes, and even cars in the other world. It is both a ritual of care for wandering ghosts and a way of maintaining balance between the realms of the living and the dead. In the Philippines, Undas is a two-day gathering that draws whole families into cemeteries. People clean and decorate the graves, share food, and spend the night in vigil. Children run between headstones while elders tell stories, laughter mingling with prayer. The dead are not gone; they are simply part of the celebration.
Even in Europe, where Christianity layered itself over older practices, the old rhythms persist. On All Souls’ Day, families light candles and tend to the graves of their loved ones. In Poland, Slovakia, and across Slavic countries, entire cemeteries blaze with light, row upon row of candles illuminating the November night. It is both communal and intimate, each flame a prayer, each grave a link in the chain of memory.
From marigolds in Mexico to lanterns in Japan, from rice offerings in Cambodia to candlelit cemeteries in Poland, the message is consistent. We may mourn, but we also remember. We may grieve, but we also celebrate. These traditions remind us that connection is stronger than separation, and that to honor the dead is also to honor life.
The Mystical and Mythological Thread
I am an unapologetic lover of mythology, as I am sure you already know, and Samhain is one of those festivals where myth, magic, and story rise up all around you. So naturally, it is my favorite. This has always been a time of year when I felt the most energized and alive. Costumes, pageantry, spookiness, mysticism, mystery, imagination, artistry, darkness, candy. Halloween has ticked all the boxes for me since childhood. The Celts believed the veil separating their world from the spirit world was thin at this time of year, so they listened for the voices of ancestors. In astrology, Scorpio season holds the same key. Scorpio is the sign of shadow, secrets, endings, and transformation. Its creatures are the scorpion, the serpent, the eagle, and the phoenix. Each one is a lesson in metamorphosis. The scorpion teaches survival and the willingness to strike when threatened. The serpent sheds its skin and is renewed. The eagle soars high above and sees with clarity. The phoenix burns to ash, only to rise again in brilliance. Scorpio season is an initiation into the cycle of descent, death, and renewal. This is the same pattern Samhain embodies.
Myths across the world echo this descent into shadow and return. In Sumerian tradition, the goddess Inanna descends into the underworld. At each of the seven gates she is stripped of a piece of her power until she stands naked before her sister, Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. Inanna is killed and hung on a hook, but through intervention and her own transformation she returns, forever changed. In Greece, Persephone is abducted into the underworld by Hades. Her mother Demeter’s grief causes the earth to wither. Persephone eventually returns, but as both the maiden of spring and the Queen of the Dead. She becomes the promise that even after death, new life will bloom. In Egyptian belief, the soul journeys through the Duat after death, facing guardians, trials, and the final weighing of the heart against the feather of Ma’at. A light heart earns eternal life, while a heavy heart is devoured. The trial is not about punishment but truth. Death reveals the true weight of a life.
Norse mythology gives us Odin, who sacrifices himself on the World Tree, hanging for nine nights in order to glimpse the runes. His symbolic death gives him wisdom. Baldr, the shining god, descends into Hel after his death, a reminder that even the most radiant are not spared. In Celtic lore, the Aos Sí, aka the “fae folk”, slipped into the human realm more easily at Samhain. Mortals who wandered into their halls often returned transformed, or not at all. These stories are not tales of despair. They are initiations. They teach us that death is not an ending but a passage, not destruction but transformation. To descend is to be remade, reborn. That endings are followed by beginnings. Samhain reflects this wisdom perfectly. It was always a night of divination, when people tried to sneak a peek beyond their ordinary boundaries and catch a glimpse of something extraordinary. For all of this, the root is that Samhain is about hope, with some spooky, goth seasoning.
Divination almost always has a romantic strain to it for the young and unattached, and so rituals and divination to ascertain potential romance was abundant this time of year. Apples were peeled in long curls, dropped on the floor, and read for the shapes of lovers’ initials. Nuts, the kind from plants, were placed in the fire to foretell the loyalty of one’s sweetheart. If a nut popped and leapt apart, the love would not last. If it burned quietly, it was a good match. Young women gazed into bowls of water or mirrors by candlelight, hoping to see the face of a future husband. Dreams on Samhain night were considered prophetic, especially if one went to bed having eaten special foods such as apple tarts or hazelnuts. Druids read the flames of bonfires, and farmers watched the winds for omens about the winter.
Even the figure of the witch carries this liminal wisdom. Once healers, midwives, and keepers of folk magic, they became symbols of Samhain’s threshold between life and death. Their black cats were thought to be spirit allies, and their brooms were not just tools but charms of protection and boundary-keeping. In this season of thin veils, the witch is less a caricature than a reminder of the old ways of watching, listening, and guiding through the dark.
Even today, echoes of these practices remain. Tarot cards, rune casting, scrying mirrors, dream journaling, and even Ouija boards all surge in popularity at Halloween. Some approach them in jest, others in earnest, but the impulse is the same. This is the night when time grows soft, when the unseen presses close, and when human beings feel compelled to ask questions. Will the harvest last? Will love come? What lies ahead? Halloween’s enduring mystery is that it allows us to touch the unknown. Through myth, ritual, and divination, we remember what our ancestors always knew: that life and death are part of one fabric, that endings contain the seeds of beginnings, and that in the dark, transformation begins.
Rituals for Samhain
The ways to honor Samhain today are many, both solemn and playful. What makes Halloween so unique is that it is this unique amalgamation of Celtic fire rites, Roman festivals, Christian saints’ days, and the ancestor traditions of countless cultures. To celebrate it consciously is to embrace both our own heritage and the threads we share with humanity everywhere. Halloween is a Ghoulash (see what I did there?) of so many unique cultures, which is one reason I think it’s so popular with so many people.
The Celtic Hearth and Fire: At Samhain, every hearth was extinguished and then rekindled from the sacred communal bonfire. You can echo this by turning out the lights, even just for a moment, and relighting a candle as a symbol of renewal. Fire was protection, continuity, and hope in the darkness.
The Dumb Supper: An old Celtic custom, still practiced in many pagan households today. Families set a place for their departed, eat in silence, and open themselves to subtle signs, a faint whisper that comes from nowhere, the flicker of a light, the feeling of some other presence. It is grief transformed into communion. If you’re not interested in being wasteful, you can create Dumb Supper’s for the wildlife in your area. We unintentionally did this with our seasonal pumpkin display which the squirrels my husband so kindly feeds decided to devour and leave the pumpkin carcasses like something out of a horror film. You can also go through your pantry and donate to local food banks, shelters or programs that help those in need.
The Jack-o’-Lantern: In Ireland, it was a turnip; in America, it became the pumpkin. Carving a face into food was both humor and ward, a reminder that even fear can be made playful. Light a jack-o’-lantern with intention; to ward off harm, to guide ancestors home, or simply to laugh at the dark. One trick is to carve the pumpkin from the bottom and if you really want to scare someone, carve that turnip and haunt their dreams. A face carved into a turnip and lit from within is way more terrifying than the gleeful orange pumpkin. Google it and see. I dare you ; )
Divination Games: The Celts cast lots and scryed in fire, but Samhain games often centered around apples and nuts, remnants of Pomona’s Roman harvest feast. You can bob for apples or toss nuts on the fire, but you may find you prefer to sit with a tarot or oracle deck in lieu of hardcore fruit scrying of old.
Mexico’s Ofrendas: Día de los Muertos teaches us to honor our ancestors and celebrate them. Build an altar with flowers, food, and photos, and invite your loved ones to share a meal, snack or drink with you. You can create an altar in your home, in nature or at a grave site. Marigolds are said to guide the dead home; even a single flower can carry that intention.
Japan’s Lanterns: During Obon, lanterns are lit and floated down rivers to guide spirits home. A modern ritual could be lighting a lantern or candle, indoors or outdoors, and dedicating it to someone you love. The flame carries remembrance, but also release.
China’s Offerings: At the Hungry Ghost Festival, families burn paper effigies of houses, clothes, or money to give comfort to wandering spirits. We can adapt this as a ritual of release: write what you want to let go of on paper, burn it safely, and let the smoke carry it away.
Europe’s Vigil Lights: In Poland, Slovakia, and across Catholic Europe, All Souls’ night sees entire cemeteries glowing with candles. To participate in that lineage, light a candle at dusk on Halloween night, place it in your window, and let it join the sea of lights that humanity has always offered to the dark.
Each of these rituals, whether from Samhain’s fires or the ofrendas of Mexico, shares the same heartbeat: remembering, connecting, and protecting. They remind us that this season is not just about ghosts and scares, but about kinship across time.
What Halloween Remembers
What fascinates me most is how we face death now. The Celts honored it with fire and silence. We face it with masks and candy, with horror movies and jack-o’-lanterns, with parody and play. But both are acts of reverence. Both acknowledge that death is near and that we cannot look away, so we find ways to honor it, soften it, laugh at it, and carry it.
When you really get to it, Halloween is the child of Samhain, or great, great, great grandchild. It still carries the bones of the old rites, the fire, the disguises, the food for the dead, the thrill of walking through the dark in borrowed skins. But it has also become our cultural mirror, a night when we rehearse death with sugar and laughter, when we let children try on fear in safe doses, when we remind ourselves that every ending is the seed of a beginning. In the end, Samhain and Halloween both teach the same truth. Life and death are never far apart, and the line between them is thinner than we think.
