Samhain: A Threshold Between Worlds

Honoring the Harvest, the ancestors, and the Shadows

As October wanes and the last leaves fall, we come to one of the most potent and mysterious festivals of the year: Samhain (pronounced sow-in), the ancient Celtic festival that gave rise to what we now know as Halloween. This is the witch’s new year, the closing of the harvest season, and a liminal time when it is said the veil between the worlds is thinnest.

It is a time for honoring the dead, feeding the spirits, and tending our inner altars. A time to reflect, release, and prepare for the inward journey of the dark half of the year.

🌑 The Lore of Samhain

Samhain marks the end of the Celtic year, falling halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It was believed to be a sacred threshold, a night when the dead could walk among the living, when fae and spirits crossed more easily into our realm.

Bonfires were lit to guide and protect. Offerings of food were left for wandering souls. Ancestors were honored at hearth and table. And divination was practiced to glimpse the coming year.

Much of this lore has been folded into modern Halloween traditions: costumes as protection from wandering spirits, jack-o’-lanterns carved to ward off mischief, and feasts and sweets to honor and appease unseen visitors.

🕯 Ways to Celebrate Samhain

You don’t need a coven or ceremonial tools to honor this night. What matters is intention. Here are some simple yet powerful ways to celebrate:

✴️ Create an Ancestor Altar

Gather photos, keepsakes, candles, and offerings of food or flowers. Speak aloud the names of those you miss. Tell their stories. Invite their wisdom to walk with you into winter.

✴️ Host a Silent Supper

A silent meal served in honor of the dead. Set a place at the table for your ancestors, eat by candlelight, and listen inward. What messages rise in the quiet?

✴️ Light the Way

Carve pumpkins, light candles, or make a small bonfire (if safe). Traditionally, light was used to guide the spirits, and ourselves, through the dark.

✴️ Divination Rituals

Pull tarot cards, scry with water or a mirror, or simply journal. Samhain is a powerful time for intuitive work and messages from beyond.

✴️ Release Ritual

Write down what you are ready to release with the ending of this year’s cycle- old habits, heartaches, fears. Burn the paper safely and scatter the ashes outside.

✴️ Make Seasonal Magic

Craft herbal charms, brew mulled cider, or make a protective incense with rosemary, mugwort, and clove. Let your home feel like a cauldron of warmth and wonder.

🎃 Witch’s Notes on Halloween

Modern Halloween, costumes, candy, haunted houses, is rooted in these old rites, even if it's become more playful and commercial. But that play has magic, too.

The dressing up, the blurring of identity, the delight in fear and fantasy, they all echo the core of Samhain: crossing thresholds, facing the dark, honoring transformation.

So whether you are tending your hearth or wandering the streets in disguise, know that you’re part of a lineage of those who’ve danced through the shadows, with lanterns in hand and hearts wide open.

🌘 A Closing Blessing

As the wheel turns and the nights stretch long, may you feel the presence of your beloved dead. May your grief be met with grace. May you walk gently through the veils, and may your inner fire stay lit through the cold season to come.

Wishing you a Blessed Samhain, and a spirited Halloween.