Samhain, The Druid New Year

Last night, around 1 a.m., I looked out my bedroom window and was treated to one of those rare, but exceptionally beautiful sights, that always remind me why I enjoy this time of year so much, the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis.

This opportunity, to watch the heavens dance, is unusual here and usually only happens towards the end of October and the middle of March when the atmospheric conditions are just so.

We are only ten days away from Samhain, which is the beginning of the Celtic year. 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. 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.