samhain southern hemisphere...the coming of winter

Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. At this time all the harvest must be gathered in -- barley, oats, wheat, turnips, and apples -- for come winter, the faeries would blast every growing plant with their breath, blighting any nuts and berries remaining on the hedgerows. Peat and wood for winter fires were stacked high by the hearth. It was a joyous time of family reunion, when all members of the household worked together baking, salting meat, and making preserves for the winter feasts to come. The old year had passed, and the leaves fallen from the trees. It is the time of year when the earth has gone dormant.

Today in our lives this is a good time to look at wrapping up the old and preparing for the new, to face old fears and surmount them to understand our shadow and begin to live in harmony with ourselves. Think about the things you did in the last twelve months. Have you left anything unresolved? If so, now is the time to get those things in order. Once you’ve gotten all that incomplete matter cleared away, and out of your life, then you can begin looking towards the next year. You can spend this ‘darker ‘time of the year meditating on your inner wisdoms and tilling the soil for new seeds to sow just before spring. Samhain is a good time to do a psychological housecleaning. On a slip of paper, write whatever you want to leave behind when the old year dies — fear, self-limiting attitudes, bad habits, and so on. Then burn the paper in a ritual fire. For many Pagan and Wiccan traditions, Samhain is a time to reconnect with our ancestors, and honor those who have died. This is the time when the veil between our world and the spirit realm is thin.

Samhain literally means “summer's end.” In Scotland and Ireland, Halloween is known as Oíche Shamhna, while in Wales it is Nos Calan Gaeaf, the eve of the winter's calend, or first. With the rise of Christianity, Samhain was changed to Hallowmas, or All Saints' Day, to commemorate the souls of the blessed dead who had been canonized that year, so the night before became popularly known as Halloween.

‘Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius."
Pietro Aretino