A Samhain ritual

In popular current culture, Halloween is about the end of summer, and darkness, and death and transformation and about all the scary things that come with all that death, darkness and transformation. We wear costumes to confront our fears, channel our ancestors or transform into our dreams and we eat pumpkin pie to enjoy the last harvest of the year…Our Halloween celebrations inherited these themes from our Celtic ancestors' Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) celebrations. The two holidays are very closely related—our Halloween was born out of Samhain and is part of the natural cycle of transformation, of death and rebirth, of loss of one thing to be replaced by another.

…But if we look back to the tradition of Samhain, we remember that the darkness and scariness of transformation is also an invitation to light and life. We learn to embrace and enjoy those things that seem dark and scary to us because we know that they will also lead us to growth. Our ancestors who shared their Samhain celebrations with us knew that each loss makes way for new possibilities—we cannot have daytime without sleep, or inspiration without introspection, or spring without fall and winter. So today we embrace loss and even death to invite new life.

The themes that unite Samhain's aspects are the close of the growing season—the final harvest; reunions with, and remembering of, our ancestors; and transformation or change as the quiet dark winter gets the earth ready for spring's rebirth.

The leaves are off the trees, animals have migrated south or going into hibernation, the ground is becoming covered with frost in the mornings, and the fields are empty or prickly with rotted harvest stubble. The sun is lower on the horizon and daylight is shorter.

The year is a circle of time and each day leads to the next. Even though the days are now shorter, darker and colder, they are giving nature a rest and helping the world get ready for its burst of activity and rebirth in the spring. Nature is not just dying away, it is gestating and getting ready to be born anew. This is clearly a time of transformation.

We are celebrate the darkness because it leads to light. We celebrate: the quiet preparation for rebirth and the trust that we have in the world that this fall and winter will prepare us well for spring. We go willingly into the darkness to transform ourselves just as the trees willingly drop their leaves to make way for the new buds.

In the quiet darkness we feel closer to our ancestors who have died and left us and it feels right to ask them to rejoin us in spirit at this time of year. We honor and remember them and ask them to share qualities of themselves that will help us to transform and be renewed. We think of things that were part of their lives that we wish we had more of in our lives now.

Let us invite our ancestors to be with us in this time of darkness and transformation, let us honor them and thank them for the gifts they have shared with us and that live on in and around us. And if we are moved to, let us invite them to help us renew ourselves over the next season with one of their special qualities.

Maybe you had a great aunt who had chutzpah, or a pet who understood gentleness, or an ancestor with uncommon strength. Invite whomever you'd like to honor, and ask them if they will help you learn what you liked best about them.

As the pomegranate is passed to you, you could say the name of the person you'd like to remember and a quality that you want them to share or help you to learn about,

Invocation (with credit to Ashleen O'Gaea, the lines that don't rhyme have been altered from her original):

"On the wheel of the year, now does winter begin,
the world is austere and we all turn within.
We vow there to face the shadows we find,
and work to unlace all their power to bind."

We invite our ancestors here to join us
both those we knew well and those we've only heard of
"…and ask them to kindly share their wisdom and relief
and release in the smoke all our fear and our grief

This task do we claim as we celebrate Samhain
and swear by the flame behind Jack's cheery grin."


I invite from memory my childhood dog, Lady, and honor her for being great company, and invite her to share with me her wisdom on being so gentle and easy to be with.

I also invite the mother and grandmother of my friends, she passed this last year. I remember that she smiled with her whole face including her eyes, I ask that she share that spirit of joy and hope that her memory can teach me to smile as broadly and warmly as she did.

…the pomegranate has been passed to you…