We are only twelve days away from Samhain, the festive day which signals the end of the old year and the birth of the new. Samhain is the period of the third and last harvest of the season. Once it was the time when cattle were slaughtered and their meat smoked or salted for winter, a time withour corner stores and supermarkets, refrigerators, television or any electrical appliances. Nights were dark and the night sky was the playground for comets, planets and stars.
Druids and bards walked the land. It is the season when the veil between the worlds was the thinnest and the dead could travel between. Many families set an extra place at the table for an honoured relative. Many donned costumes so that the King of the Dead could not recognize them and force them to follow him back into his dark realm.
The wearing of costumes to transform our appearance is not the only custom that was adopted by the modern day Halloween celebrations. Pumpkins and apples were an important part of the ancient celebrations. Bobbing for apples has ancient roots.
For modern druids, Samhain is still the beginning of a new year, a new turning on the Wheel of Life. Druids are not the only earth-based religion to celebrate samhain. It plays an important role in the Wiccan calendar as well. It is a time to honour our ancestors, to look ahead and consider the path we are walking and to look back and see where we have been.
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