Samhain

Although I have a sort of regular schedule here to post on Wednesdays and Saturdays, sometimes something important comes along that I feel makes it worthwhile to break that schedule. I consider a major Sabbat in the pagan year, a Celtic festival, one of those times.

While for many, this is Halloween, a time for costumes and candy, for others it is the Day of the Dead celebrated with parades of skeleton masks, for yet others, it's the sacred All Hallow's Eve. The Catholic Church often usurped pagan holidays for their own significant days and November 1st, All Saint's Day is one example as this was a sacred day to the Celts long before All Saint's Day.

Samhain (pronounced sow-en), a Pagan Sabbat and Celtic festival is one of the major holidays in a Gaelic year. This day is when the veil between this and the other side is thinnest and contact most easily made. If your dreams are reflecting this, it would not be a surprise.

On the week-end, I dreamed of a friend dying, who is still alive, and was going to a memorial service for her while I tried to think of the right words to describe her life. Now this friend is not one near me, not even one I've met other than through the Internet, but in the dream she was in a house next to mine before she died in a town where I do not live.

The same night, my husband dreamed that he was observing a site that students had been building a platform. The students were not yet there. One of the smaller boards moved and was carefully placed in a particular alignment. He sensed they were spirits. His words are in quotes. Theirs in italics.

"Who are you?"
Ghee.
Another board moved.
"There are others?"
Yes.
"With you?"
From before me.
"Why?"
The alignment is important to see what will happen.

As the students arrived, he asked them why they were building the platform. And they answered to understand why the signs were left in the rocks. And they planned to spend nights to observe what happens. 

He said the dream ended when he woke, as I rolled over and the cat scratched at the door. He wanted to get back into it, but the connection had been broken.  

Samhain is a time for such dreams and for us to pay attention to them. Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic new year. It proves to be a good time to let things go, remember what they were but release them. It can be a time to remember ancestors. Some set up altar tables of mementos to this end. 

It is also a good time to look toward what comes next. When I turn over a calendar, there are words that go with it. For October, the words below seemed very apropos for this day. The photo is from a few years back in our yard.