by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
Samhain is the most misunderstood of all the Sabbats. The fundie-xians refer to “The great god Samhain who steals children unless bribed” and so on.
Samhain is a Celtic/Gaelic word that means “End of Summer”. Why? Because the Celts had only two seasons, Summer and Winter. Summer started on May Day and ended on November Eve. Winter started on November First and ended on May Eve. Therefore Oct-Nov was ‘The End of Summer” and so Samhain.
Samhain has many ways to be pronounced, most wrong. In England it is “Sow-wen,” in Scotland it is “Sav-een”. Only Americans pronounce it “sam-hane” which is wrong.
Other names are All Hallows, Halloween, Hallowe’en and so on. I’ll ignore the Druid and Saxon names as irrelevant to a Wiccan message.
There are two times when the Veil between the World of the Living and the Realms of the Dead are thinnest. Samhain and Beltane. So traditional Lore is that the clocks stopped at Sunset on 31 October and didn’t start until Sunrise 1 November. The hours between sunset and sunrise were out-of-time and then you could enter the Land of the Dead and the dead could walk-the-earth. Thus it was dangerous to go out in case you stumbled through one of these places where the Veil is thin and accidently enter the Sidhe. Remember Washington Irving’s classic novel Rip Van Winkle? This is one thing that could happen if you weren’t careful.
So we put out protections to keep the harmful dead away but we invite our Beloved Dead back for one last party. Since we love our Grandmother who died some months back, this is our way of saying ‘bye, we miss you” so we place a plate of her favorite food at the dinner table and ask her ghost to visit one last time before she is reincarnated into another live.
Modern Witches do the same for their favorite pets who died that year by placing their favorite pet food out. We don’t fear our loved one’s return because they love us too.
And to reaffirm life in the midst of death, we encourage sex.
Samhain is also the New Year. So we party like it’s 2006 because tomorrow it will be a new year.
And it is the time when the influences of the year shift from the Goddess to the God.
The catholic church tried to ban Samhain but failed so following the dictates of Pope Gregory, they invented All Souls Day and All Saints Day to steal the holiday. In England they invented Guy Fawke’s Day for the same reason, to prevent pagan celebrations.
So, Samhain is the most complex of all the Sabbats with a little bit of everything tossed in.
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
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