Samhain/Halloween

[meridian_rose]

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Samhain also known as Halloween, Hallowe'en, All Hallows Eve and Allhelgona amongst others takes place on the last day of October. It is the end of summer, where only summer and winter are recognised as seasons. In certain traditions this is the start of the new year. It is followed by All Saints Day in the Church calendar.

It is believed that the Veil between the worlds is at its thinnest at this time and so it is both a time to be wary of spirits – hence the jack'o'lanterns to scare away evil spirits – and to remember the ancestors. Some people hold a dumb supper at which their loved ones who have passed over are welcome at. It is an idea time for divination, be it through tarot cards, runes, scrying, or other means.

Apples are traditional for this festival, plain for apple bobbing, and covered in caramel as toffee apples/candy apples. Pumpkins are carved into lanterns, though any squash can be used, and before the American influence of pumpkins took over, the more traditional turnips and swedes prevailed in Ireland and Britian.

Colours include black, orange, grey, deep blue and deep purple. Stones like obsidian and amethyst are appropriate for October.

munanna introduced me to Allhelgona; the Swedish version of All Hallow's Eve - full name Alla Helgons Dag which translated to English would be "All Saints Day". For the protestants of the Swedish Church it's the time to go put flowers and little white candles on the graves of their loved ones. I saw a place of memory last year which didn't only have candles and flowers but tiny notes as well. Which sounds a lovely way to remember loved ones.

Some pagans worry about the more fun aspects of Halloween, like eating sweet foods, dressing up, and watching scary movies. The pagan about.com guide puts it like this: Think of Samhain and Halloween like this - one is spiritual, one is secular. There's no reason they have to be mutually exclusive at all. You can still observe the fun and silliness of Halloween -- and pig out on candy, if you like -- while maintaining the more somber traditions of honoring the dead at Samhain. The reverse follows; there's nothing pagan about putting on a costume for fun, and paganism has no exclusivity on honouring ancestors.

Soul Cakes –Discworld readers are familiar with the Soul Cake Duck, and this is the origin of that reference. Soul cakes were traditionally baked as a gift for the spirits of the dead. In many European countries, the idea of "Souling" became an acceptable alternative for Christians. The cakes took many different names and shapes -- in some areas, they were simple shortbread, and in others they were baked as fruit-filled tarts. Still other regions made them of rice flour. Generally, a soul cake was made with whatever grain the community had available. That text comes this site which has four recipes if you want to try baking something for the festival.

The goddess known as Cailleach in Scotland and parts of Ireland is the embodiment of the dark mother, the harvest goddess, the hag or crone entity… In some stories, she appears to a hero as a hideous old woman, and when he is kind to her, she turns into a lovely young woman who rewards him for his good deeds… Cailleach rules the dark half of the year, from Samhain to Beltane, while her young and fresh counterpart, Brighid or Bride, is the queen of the summer months. This site gives an overview of a winter deity. She's on my mind since she, like almost every other woman in the BBC show Merlin was shown in a bad light as the sacrifice demanding gatekeeper of the torn Veil. Given the overall events of that episode, I sort of want to write fix-it fic that incorporates her dual aspect of crone/maiden and giver of life as well as giver of death.

Across the world, in the Southern Hemisphere, it is Beltane, a fire festival full of fertility symbolism – the time of Brighid rather than the Cailleach.

Comments

[sheryden.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in reading that fix-it fic!

[meridian_rose]

Maybe one day :D Wrong knight in icon but yeah, the knights are my favourite part of Merlin right now :D

[meridian_rose]

I haven't done more than skim it, but I found this and thought it might fill the fix-it fic desire :D

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7454785/1/Daughter_of_the_Cailleach

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

I always love your pagan holiday posts. <3

My husband and I got married by a High Priestess with pagan vows. /random

[meridian_rose]

I am always learning new stuff about you :D That is just awesome - maybe more details later, privately if need be? I don't know anyone who's had an actual handfasting in real life.

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't care. If you're interested, here you go:

My husband and I aren't really very religious for various reasons I'll not get into, though part of it is that we live in the Bible Belt of the U.S. and all the religious 'options' here are just various types of Christianity, and they're all heavily patriarchal and intolerant and just no.

When we decided to get married, we initially wanted a justice of the peace, but the only one within 100 miles had very few dates and charged A LOT of money for performing the service anywhere but his office in the court house. So we started looking into religious options. All of the various denominations of Christian preacher we talked to wouldn't marry us unless we converted to their religion and let them baptize us and we paid to become members of the church. We thought about just lying and saying we were the right religion, but in the end we were too uncomfortable with it.

So it looked like it was going to be the justice of the peace we couldn't really afford, because we were pretty poor at the time. My husband was talking about it with a professor he worked with, because at the time he was a graduate student, and she casually mentioned that she was pagan and a High Priestess. In the U.S., you can get married by any religious official so long as they are in "good standing" in their congregation. So we asked her about it, and she said that she would love to.

Now this is what really stuck with me, and has endeared me to the pagan faith ever since: She gave us a book to read, and told us that she didn't care if we didn't share her beliefs, she would still perform our handfasting because it was a celebration of life and it didn't matter if we didn't believe in her goddess, it didn't make the ceremony any less meaningful or her goddess any less present.

So she registered online as a religious leader and filled out all her paper work so the ceremony would be binding in MS and everything.

We got married on the Summer Solstice, in a gazebo in the center of the local zoo because we like animals and it seemed appropriate for a pagan ceremony to have all these representations of nature. And the zoo didn't charge us anything so long as we didn't ask them to close, which we didn't. So that was kind of neat, because there were like families and little kids just wandering by our wedding and watching, and one little girl pointed and shouted "Look mommy, a princess!" Which of course, made me feel awesome.

We were fastened with two cords: I brought white to our marriage, for strength and truth, and my husband brought pink, for friendship, romance, and happiness.

And then we did the pagan vows, which talk about circles of life and death, but most importantly to me they say "I am only yours for as long as I wish to be" and "this is a union of equals" in sharp contrast to the Christian vows.

Part II

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

Of course, our very Christian relatives were scandalized, but they couldn't ruin it for us. They still lament it though, why we couldn't just get married in a church by a priest like normal people.

And I'm just like... I've never done anything else how you expected/wanted me to, so I should start now because?

You should have seen my grandmother's face though, at the part of the vows that goes: "Yours is the face I will greet in the day, and yours is the name I will scream in the night."

Re: Part II

[meridian_rose]

Oh, that is so lovely :D Thank you for sharing :D It sounds wonderful and genuinely romantic - and personally meaningful :D

It's odd because when my sister was having her civil marriage I kept saying it was too much of a big deal and in the USA you could just go to the courthouse in your lunch hour - according to every New York drama I've seen anyway. Just proves how different each state is.

You can't get married outdoors in the UK which sucks - it has to be enclosed and licensed, so a room inside a ruined castle or a hotel ballroom is okay but not a stone circle. There are some awesome out there options like this; http://www.carnglaze.com/ but still.
So I always said I'm not fussed about being married but let's say I was going to for the legal purposes - the only season my sister did marry in the end, for the protection it gave them both - I'd do it in the least flashiest way possible at the registry office. And then I'd have something meaningful on the beach, in the woods, just him and me and nature, making vows I really meant :D
And then a quick party - we'd have to figure out some sort of webcam so all my online friends could drop by :D

Re: Part II

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

Yes that was it exactly. I wouldn't have had a larger ceremony at all if my family wouldn't have fussed about it. We invited the bare minimum of people we could get away with, and had a party afterwards at the pub where we got engaged. Yes I got engaged at a pub/ But in the end, I loved our wedding. Married at the zoo with tigers and children with balloons as witnesses = perfect.

Here's a picture, because I find I want to show you:

Re: Part II

[meridian_rose]

Aw, that's lovely :D Thank you :D

Re: Part II

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

Eeee! Your wedding sounds beautiful and I love this picture :D

*is stalking Lisa's journal days after the storm*

Re: Part II

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

<3

[boondock-angle.livejournal.com]

Lovely post about Samhain <3 I do the soul cakes myself... but then again any excuse for me to bake I enjoy and tend to gravitate too.

I am just starting to study the more Celtic gods and goddess and I didn't know that about Brighid and Cailleach... so that was neat!

[meridian_rose]

Celtic myth is a major focus within my eclectic practice but I hadn't heard about the direct Brighid/Cailleah comparison before so there's always more to learn :D

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

I love these posts, by the way - I know I've said that before, but it's always nice to hear about the symbolism - I file it away in my head for possible future use in a fic, often ;D

I stopped watching Merlin because I felt it jumped the shark at some point in season 2. Sad, because Anthony Stewart Head as Uther is just great ;)

[meridian_rose]

It's always nice to have people comment :D

Well Uther left about three eps into this season. In season three there was Morgause and she had UST with half-sister Morgana and hotness with King Cenred. Plus, Gwaine :D Now I really just watch for the knights - Gwaine and his hair - see icon - in particular :D

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

Without Uther I don't know what the point would be - but I didn't watch far enough to meet either Morgause or Gwaine, so idk ;)

Also - that is a beautiful icon ;D