Samhain/Samhuinn: Our Home Altar

Statue of Badb

Samhuinn is a complex holiday - an old one, but one that has changed many times over the centuries, and the Neo-Pagan version is in many ways as different from the historical version as the contemporary commercial version of Hallowe'en. For a historically informed account of the British calendar of festivals, I suggest looking at Prof. Ronald Hutton's book 'The Stations of the Sun' which is very educational and well-researched. While I draw from historical traditions, I don't emulate them entirely, and I don't strictly follow the rituals for Samhain of Wicca or any other Neo-Pagan groups that use the Gardner-Nichols eight-fold year; in this respect I'm somewhat eclectic.

There are two specific and distinct aspects of Samhuinn for me; one is the aspect of ancestor worship, paying respects to the honoured dead, and contemplating both familial and ideological ancestors, and the other is seeing Samhuinn as the start of the Dead Time until the Winter Solstice, where light and lengthening days return. I don't think there's any historical precedent for the concept of the Dead Time, but I've seen similar ideas in other Neo-Pagan writing, although it doesn't seem that ubiquitous. 

Skulls on the altar

For most people reading this, some concept of ancestral practice will already be familiar, so I won't explain that in too much depth, especially as that isn't something represented on this altar. Effectively, the ancestral practice is about reaffirming the link between those in the present and those who came before both in terms of being mindful and thinking about them, and in terms of reinforcing a spiritual connection at a time when the boundaries between this world and the Otherworld are particularly thin, which will have different connotations depending on personal beliefs as to the nature of the afterlife/afterlives, whether they believe in reincarnation or not, etc. I personally do believe in reincarnation, but other Neo-Pagans and Reconstructionalists have different concepts of an after-life with different ideas about how fixed after-life states can be.

Samhuinn 2018. 

In the past I have had a more Morrígan based Samhuinn altar set up - the one from 2018 is pictured, with my victorious Morrígan/Macha statue centrally, on a pedestal clad in red (a colour associated with the Morrigan, being the colour of blood) brocade cloth. Badb is on the left, hard to make out in these darker pictures as all the candle-flames are above Her statue. In front of the cloth-covered pedestal is a Samhain card with overt iconography of the Morrígan that stays permanently the rest of the year at my multi-aspect shrine to the Morrígan on the mantle-piece. I now focus more on Badb as a psychopomp than on the victorious war-Goddess aspect of the MorríganThe crowned skull is on the right, my best approximation at the time of (Brythonic/Welsh deity rather than Goidelic/Gaelic deity) Arawn, King of the Underworld/Otherworldv (in Gaelic mythology, who is King of the Otherworld changes, and each King serves a term, in Brythonic mythology Arawn is the constant King)
. 

Samhuinn altar 2019 - note the lack of a statue of the Morrigan

My altar for 2019 is blacker than the previous one, with a grey and black scarf at the base and the black and white pentacle altar cloth moved to Badb's pedestal. I wanted the altar to be sombre, funereal, a memento mori. Bloodshed isn't really the sort of death I want the altar to represent, more for it to be reflective, to be a place to contemplate our own mortality and the finite time all things have, as well as the cyclical nature of things. 

Next year I would like to incorporate my figure of an Ankou - a type of psychopomp spirit, very much like the Grim Reaper, but also like a Dullahan in some ways - a corpse (skeletal, usually, but sometimes as an undead old man) that drives a cart or wagon. Like a Dullahan, an Ankou is not a personification of death, or a death deity, but a psychopomp spirit that is subordinate to Death itself. There are various different stories about who became an Ankou and why. The Ankou figure I have is hand-made clay, quite simply designed, and is also a cone-incense burner, where the incense smoke comes out from under the hood, and he holds a 'soul' (a greenish marble). 

Samhuinn altar, frontal view. 

I would also like to put a representation of The Cailleach on my altar next year, as she is the Gaelic (especially Scottish) Goddess of the winter, who spreads her cloak of snow across the hills, and we get ice and snow from November through to February in varying amounts (it's actually between Winter Solstice and Imbolc that we get the most snow, and there's sometimes still snow on the hills in April and May!). Samhuinn marks the transition between autumn and the depths of winter. In the last decade, it's been noticeably wetter, warmer and less snowy in the Highlands, a result of climate change; putting a representation of the Cailleach on my altar will also be a reminder of what we as a species are doing to our planet. 

The purple card at the front of the altar has a sigil a friend within our Open Circle designed to reflect our group being connected, even though we couldn't actually meet up on Samhuinn for a ritual this year due to clashing schedules.  

As I am Goth, it is very easy for me to decorate my altar for this holy-day of death, as skulls and black fabric are part of my normal household decor for other parts of our home. As a Gothic person, I probably contemplate mortality and death more than the average person, and have a fascination with the macabre, which I think makes it easier for me to connect with this holiday in the abstract sense, rather than as grieving or honouring anyone specific, although some of my deceased family that I knew as well as ancestors who died before I was born and the historical people who have inspired and influenced me are honoured elsewhere. 

Lughnasadh/Lammas: Our Home Altar

Lughnasadh and Lammas are two names for holiday between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox on the 1st of August. The name 'Lughnasadh' relates to Lugh, the Irish deity and 'Lammas' is an Anglo-Saxon term for the 'loaf mass'. They were two different celebrations as Gaelic and Germanic cultures were different, although they had similarities.

In the Gaelic festival, it was a festival of the god Lugh (the name literally means 'Lugh's gathering'), in memory of his foster-mother Tailitu, or in modern Irish Gaelic 'Tailte', who died from exhaustion in clearing the plains of Ireland for agricuture. The modern Scottish Gaelic word for both the festival and the month of August is Lùnastal. Traditionally it was a day for sporting events, as well as feasting. I have my own interpretation of Tailte and the sacrifice of the wild order of things to agricultural order of things, but that is a topic for another blog entry, maybe next Lùnastal.

Lammas comes from 'hlaf-mas' in the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons, the loaf-mass, and a harvest festival, the first, celebrating the wheat (grain) harvest. In what is now England, according to dark-ages Christian syncretism, a loaf blessed at this festival was thought to have beneficial properties.

The Lammas altar, with home-made bread from Raven! 

I am living far enough North that even with climate change and milder weather, the fields aren't always harvested already by the actual August 1st date of Lammas; it is important to note that English summers are much warmer (these days often reaching 30C, sometimes quite a bit above that), and especially in Southern England where I grew up, things are harvested earlier. The thing to note about any agricultural calendar is that it will vary according to local conditions, and the Neo-Pagan version of the Wheel of the Year is effectively an adapted mixture of Germanic, Celtic and solar agricultural calendars. Another thing of note for Neo-Pagan celebrations in comparison to historical festivals on this date is that before the industrial revolution, a LOT more people were involved in farming, and mixed livestock and agrarian farms were more common than modern farming where farms often specialise in one type of produce. Even amongst Neo-Pagans who garden for food, few will actually be growing grains themselves, as the land required to cultivate enough grain to make something is usually more than those who don't actually farm have. (I have one patch of something that's probably rye from where some bird-seed was scattered by accident, but it's barely big enough to make a corn-dolly or Brigid's cross!). This leaves a question: what do agrarian harvest festivals mean to a contemporary Pagan?

The most obvious thing is that while we may not individually grow wheat (or barley, rye, oats, rice etc.), most of us consume them. There is now a complex industry that grows, mills, and bakes, and that industry massively impacts the planet. Remember Tailte? In medieval myth she was a queen, but this is likely the mythological reinterpretation of a deity from a Christianised perspective, as a Goddess that dies so that the wilderness may be cleared for agriculture to flourish, she seems like someone very relevant to a time when we're becoming increasingly aware that human intervention needs to be in balance with the natural world, and also the awareness that with all forms of agriculture, some things must die so that what we want to eat my thrive; even organic farms require pest management.

To me, it is an important time to give thanks to all the people who work hard so that we get to eat, to conveniently buy food from shops (although I'm slowly trying turn my back garden into a vegetable garden!), and to especially think about the impact of agrarian farming, good and bad. Nothing in this world can be fairly glosses into simple generalisations, and it is a good time to look at those complexities, to reflect on how to be more compassionate and ethical as shoppers, thinking of both the ecological impact of what we buy, and the impact on the people who grow things, thinking of the governmental policies that help and hinder farmers, and help and hinder the environment, about the careful nuances and balances that need to be made so we can support people whose livelihoods are about feeding us, and simultaneously support the planet that sustains us.

[It is interesting that the first Eco-Village in Wales to usher in the One Planet Development system is called 'Lammas' and that the local planning rules say that the inhabitants needed to have sustainable land-based enterprises.]

In more symbolic terms, it's the first harvest festival, and like Mabon (where we also celebrate the metaphorical fruits of our labour alongside the literal ones), it's a time to celebrate out achievements (personally, I think it's a good time to celebrate sporting achievements, especially). 

Now I have introduced what Lughnasadh and Lammas are, I will describe and explain the altar I built to celebrate it. The most obvious thing on the altar is the large pentagram candle-holder. Pentacles and pentagrams are the primary symbols of Wicca, but I am not really Wiccan any more - however, their symbolism in Wicca is a representation of the five Classical elements, which I do not take literally as elementals, but use as a framework to appreciate the natural (and sometimes arteficial) world - whereas traditional Wiccans invoke the 5 elements, or the Watchtowers, often as literal elemental spirits, for each element I write a paragraph about those things in the natural world - eg. writing about how I can see the sea/firth from the top of the hill, hear the nearby stream, feel the rain that falls, etc. for Water, talking about the stones of the mountains, the quarried stones of the local architecture, the earth in my garden, etc. for Earth, the flames of my fire-pit and the warmth of the sun for Fire, the breeze the rustles the leaves, the breath of my meditation, etc. for Wind, and the energy of the ritual itself, my soul, and that of every living thing for Spirit or Energy, etc. I like this framework, it's a good starting point for thinking about things around me, a set of arbitrary categories that make a good format for reflection.

Another thing that's likely obvious, especially from the first photograph, is that the altar is full of gold and yellow - a bright yellow altar-cloth with two golden-yellow napkins with the sort of spiraling circular art that spans the cultures broadly categorised under the umbrella of 'Celtic' from La Tène metal-work to the Book of Kells, a golden candle in a dish that is glazed from olive to almost amber like the shades of ripening corn, and although it is hard to see in the photographs because the brightness makes them appear white, the tealight candles are yellow beeswax. Yellow is a colour associated with agrarian harvests, from fields of ripe wheat and barley, to yellow maize. It is also associated with the sun, something the god Lugh is also associated with (although he is not a direct parallel of Apollo, there is a reason he was often associated with him in 19thC late-Romantic thinking; they are both associated with the arts, poetry, athleticism, light, and truth).

The main feature of this Lughnasadh/Lammas altar is a loaf of home-made bread baked by Raven. He has been experiementing with different types of bread, inclding trying to make gluten-free bread that's still crusty, and this is his most recent attempt at the latter. Eating this bread was an important part of our ritual. 

New chalice!

I have a new chalice! I picked it up in a charity shop, and it was either £1.50 or £2.50; either way not much. I liked that it is ceramic - earthenware - and that the abstracted dark designs in the glaze remind me of ravens. It is a wine-goblet, so food-safe unlike some of the decorative metal chalices that exist. My previous chalice - the red glass one that was on the altar for Beltane - has unfortunately become too chipped to use, so was put in the glass recycling. 

The pair of off-white candle-holders are Raven's. I think there's either three or four in total, but we only used two this time, mostly for practical lighting rather than symbolic reasons. 

Home-made bread, candles and chalice

The wand you can see on the right of the altar is mine - it is made of oak, and was carved by a friend of mine as a birthday present about 12 or 13 years ago. I wrapped it with threads. I am actually thinking of getting a new wand made, one that is thinner and lighter, slightly shorter - basically, one slightly less chunky for home rituals, reserving the larger one for group rituals where I wouldn't want a thinner wand to be damaged in transit. I am also thinking of getting a stave made, or even carving one myself (although carving and 3D art in general is not something I am particularly competent at). 

Wand, leaf-blade athame, and and pentacle oil-burner

Another thing I retain from when I was Wiccan is the use of an athame. My athame is not black-handled or steel-bladed like the traditional Wiccan ritual knife, but instead has a varnished wooden handle and a brass blade in a leaf-blade sort of shape. It is an old letter-opener that I got from things being thrown out of a building about to be demolished, with a blade shape reminiscent of Bronze Age swords from Ireland and other parts of Europe, and being brass (a copper-zinc aloy) it is not too dissimilar from bronze (a copper-tin alloy). If I were a rich witch,  a replica of a Bronze Age sword would definitely be something I would definitely commission, but currently that is out of my range of affordability.

My altar for Lughnasadh/Lammas is relatively simple compared to altars set-up for the other holidays so far, but hopefully it is a helpful example of an altar for the festival. I will continue the series with altars for Mabon, Samhain/Samhuinn and Winter Solstice. I endeavour to be educational with these posts, and to both inform the curious who may be new to Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft, and to dispell misconceptions about these practices being something 'dark' or 'evil'. 

Summer Solstice: Open Circle Ritual

I'm still working on my series of posts on the Wheel of the Year, used as a seasonal ritual framework by various modern Pagan/Neo-Pagan groups, including Wiccans and Druids. The celebration that is probably most famous as a Pagan holy day is the Summer Solstice. I attended more than one Summer Solstice celebration, and this post is about the one I attended as part of the Highland Open Circle/ It was a small private gathering at one of the member's home. 

Solstice Altar
Photo by Lynnie K

Midsummer is the celebration of the longest day - in the Northern hemisphere, this is June 21 or 22 (as our calendar year is imperfect in relation to the solar year, it is not always the same day). While Beltane is the start of summer, Midsummer is the season's peak. In Scotland, the warmest months are usually actually July and August, making Lammas, the next holiday, closer to summer's peak in terms of weather, but late June is pretty warm too. There's different terms for the Midsummer Solstice in different traditions and languages. I call it Midsummer's Night (quite traditionally English; you may recall the Shakespeare play) and it's linked with St John's Eve in much of the British Isles; a common case of a local holiday being linked with a Christian one. I've seen the Scottish Gaelic term for the holiday being Féill Sheathain, and the Druidic term is Alban Hefin (Light of Summer) and the Wiccan term, taken from the Anglo-Saxon, is Litha. Ancient cultures also had a significance for the Summer Solstice, as can be seen from the building of megalithic architecture aligned to the Summer Solstice, most famously at Stonehenge. We have comparatively little on the religion of the ancient pre-Roman Celts, let alone the cultures before that who built megalithic monuments; archaeological evidence can only tell of some of what happened physically, without the written word, it is difficult to interpret the meaning and mindset that accompanied the actions.

Solstice Altar. Photograph by Lynie Kutler

One of the most interesting things about the Open Circle is the diversity of traditions and backgrounds of our members. We're inclusive of many forms of occultism, witchcraft, Paganism, Neo-Paganism and pantheism/animism, so our celebrations tend to be a mixture of cultures and traditions reflecting the attendees' paths. Not everyone in the group is out as Pagan, so I can't comment too much about who believes what, but there are Norse Pagans, Wiccans, Druids, Chaos Magicians, traditional Witches, and even a Christian witch in the group, and we've had people from non-European traditions/non-Western traditions join from time to time, too. Our altar reflects a mixture of traditions, and also sometimes items that are souvenirs from the travels and experiences members have had that have influenced their spirituality, but aren't part of their tradition directly, or which are connected to the season we're celebrating. The gathering allows us to discuss our different experiences, and to have a collective altar that has elements that are deeply meaningful to all of us, as there is something special from each of us on it, and many things that become meaningful through their ritual use.

Elemental Ritual Masks and altar from above. Photo I took myself.

I brought the small sun plaque underneath the sun candle-holder at the front of the altar, and the elemental ritual masks. In many forms of Neo-Paganism, especially those that are Wiccan-derived, the Classical elements are honoured in Aristotle's form as Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Aether, or as it is more commonly termed 'Spirit'. In Wiccan ritual structure, part of the opening sequence is to call the elements, either to invoke spiritual entities seen as Guardians of the Watchtowers (a concept brought from the Golden Dawn occult framework, but simplified and altered to fit in Wiccan ritual), or as a way to acknowledge the different aspects of the natural world. Personally, I prefer the latter method. I made the masks for participants to better embody the elements they were honouring, and to take the self out of the equation a little for those who are nervous about speaking in front of a group. For the element of Fire, I painted a mask to look like flames, for the element of Water, I painted it to look like a tropical sea, using dimensional paint to make cresting waves for the hairline, eyebrows and nose, for the element of Earth I tried to make the mask look like geological strata, for the element of Air I painted it with shimmery silvery paint and then used more dimensional paint to make little clouds for the eyebrows, and for the element of Spirit (or 'Energy' in my practice) I painted it with metallic dimensional paint over purple, with metallic shimmer paint too, to try and make it look like lightning. You will see a sixth mask, this is a Nature mask I made for the Beltane ritual which I was asked to bring this Solstice too. 

Sun bowl , mirror plaque and orange candle. Photo taken by me.

As our ritual was indoors (it was predicted to rain), and the host does not have a fireplace, we had a large orange floral candle as our ritual centre rather than a bonfire. Many of our rituals have had an outdoor fire, especially as several of those who regularly host, myself included, have fire-pits. The fire or candle in the middle represents the sun, and remains lit for the whole of the ritual. It's ina nice big brass sun bowl for fire-safety reasons - candles have a tendency to melt and drip, and their wicks can shift. Always be careful when you use candles in your rituals. 

Gecko image next to the sun bowl. Photo taken by me.

It was nice to get together as a group - the Open Circle has been difficult to organise this year as we've all had a very hectic time, and those of us who usually do most of the organisational work, running the rituals and moots, etc. have had problems with our health (I mentioned that in May I had significant issues with my mental health). We've not been meeting up as a Circle very regularly, let alone me for many workings or rituals.

In my next post I will write about my visit to Druid Temple stone circle - a circle formed by the remains of a cairn. I went there in the evening after this ritual, and did some meditation.