Welcome to day one of the The Real Witches of Halloween Blog Tour! All month long, you can click on a blog about Halloween written by actual Witches. You can learn what it means (and doesn't mean) to us as a holiday, how we celebrate or ritualize this day, and much much more.
Click here for the Witch_Blog page, so you can read us all, one day at a time!
For me, there's Halloween (a secular fun holiday that I love) and then there's Samhain (the actual sabbat on the Wheel of the Year that I celebrate as a religious holiday).
Halloween is going to be so much fun now that I have a kid. (How cool is it that I get to re-live all the best stuff again?!) Halloween is an awesome holiday- adults love it, but kids win on this day in a huge way. Dress up, sweets, pranks, parties, and decorations all make this day a boatload of awesome for any kid. This year, we are teaching Rowan how to say "trick or treat" and have a little pumpkin basket for him to gather candy in that he has been playing with. Because of his obsession with elephants (he asks to see them multiple times a day), his Nanny is making him an elephant costume. We are going to take him trick or treating on this small Appalachian town. He's gonna love it.
Halloween is a holiday that most Americans understand and participate in. It is a cultural touchstone that he can share with his peers.
Conversely, for me- Samhain is a religious holiday. It is when we Witches commune with the dead- the veil between the worlds is thin and we rip it down completely to allow the dead to come through to commune with us and experience corporeal existence and its pleasures once more. We prepare foods for our ancestors that they loved, for example.
I will be teaching my son about Samhain as well as Halloween. We have a dead altar to feed and clean, and then we will be picnicking in the cemetery where generations of his relatives reside.
How do you celebrate Halloween and/or Samhain?
Lovely post - thank you so much for being part of my blog tour :-)
ReplyDeleteI hope you post photos of Rowan in his elephant's costume - I'm a big fan of those creatures too. I bet he'll look so cute!
Blessings
Lyn
How lovely that you separate the secular and spiritual aspects of the holiday. I do the same. I'll celebrate by honoring the death and the spirit of death. I'll also do some baking with my little Princess and of course, we'll go for a bit of trick-or-trick ;-)
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of picnique-ing in the cemetery, Halifax has some pretty beautiful historic cemeteries that would be perfect for Samhain.
ReplyDeleteI really wish we lived in a house, since we live in an apartment we don't get any trick or treater's.....
I agree with you- there's both Samhain and Halloween, and we plan on celebrating both :)
Thanks everyone! Looking forward to the rest of the blog tour. And yes- I will post pix of Rowan in his first trick or treat costume!
ReplyDeleteI'm confused. When I click on the link - it goes back to a September post where people that want to blog can sign up. :-(
ReplyDeleteSorry to be confusing. I fixed the link so it goes to the main witch-blog, which will link to each guest blog daily!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of a picnic in the cemetary! how very cool, bet you'll turn some heads also LOL
ReplyDeleteThis year will be my first Samhain alter and ritual, I am just going to try something simple, as I am still learning! great post!
BB,
Susan
I can't wait to see the elephant costume! I am another who does the 2 part Halloween/Samhain celebration. Brightest blessings!
ReplyDeleteSamhain is so holy. Just to be aware of everything around us...
ReplyDelete