The pagan year ends on Oct. 31 at Samhain (pronounced sow-ehn). Samhain is the old Celtic name for this holiday and the one we continue to use today. As a belief system connected to an agrarian calendar, our year reflects natural cycles. All around us, the trees are in the middle of their annual transition…
Tag: samhain
The intersections of older spiritual practices and modern life are interesting and complex. Halloween season is a bubbling brew of history, belief, contemporary attitudes and goofy good times. Within paganism, the world of Earth-centered spirituality, October is the season of the ancestors and contains our New Year on the 31st. Our cycle ends, and then…
The Wheel of the Year has turned once more. Samhain is past and the days grow shorter and darker till Yuletide reaches us. This is the season of shadow and quiet, of the inward spiral. I think of the time from mid-October till Yule as Veil Season. Although many people focus their Ancestral work specifically…
This short sermon was offered for the October 25th, 2020, streaming service at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. Full text below. This is one of my favorite parts of the year. I think I am a constant disappointment to my friends who love beaches and summer. It’s just not my thing. Give me gray,…
*October 31st marks one of the High Holidays in the widely-used Pagan Wheel of the Year – Samhain. Out of all our holidays, I’d say this one gets the most press. Our celebration of the end of the growing season coincides with all that is spooky in the larger culture. This time of endings in…
October 31st marks one of the High Holidays in the widely-used Pagan Wheel of the Year – Samhain. Out of all our holidays, I’d say this one gets the most press. Our celebration of the end of the growing season coincides with all that is spooky in the larger culture. This time of endings in…
“The green world around us will appear to slip into death or sleep. The truth, of course, is that deep beneath the winter soil, the plant spirits are recovering: healing, resting, growing and rooting deep for their rise in springtime. When we follow the cycle of the inward spiral, we can take advantage of the…
You know, it really is lovely when a journalist elects not to go the sensationalist route when writing an article about modern day Paganism. As an ‘out,’ public Pagan, I’ve had the anxiety-laden role of being a ‘token witch’ for someone’s piece several times. I think Wyatt Massey did a really great job here in…
I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Carol Campbell of Music Alley Radio (a program on Arlington’s WERA 96.7) on October 25th. We talked witches, crows, otherworlds, elves, ancestors, Kindred Crow and all sorts of other seasonal fun stuff. My interview starts @17:00. Listen live right here.