A Hallowed Eve

My Cat-o-Lantern

This year I have felt a strong yearning to participate in Samhain rituals and observances. I've felt it very keenly for the past few weeks, even before my move. I think it is a way of my spirit telling me that it needs to realign itself with the natural world and start the new year with a grounded perspective. As a result I've been doing some Samhain research and looking for ways I can celebrate it in my highly Catholic parents' house without offending my mom who blames people falling away from the Church as a result of "new age" and "occult" ideas. I already had to fend her off years ago and try as I might  I have yet to properly educate her on the differences between "new age," "occult" and "paganism."

My ideas so far are consisting of:

• a private ritual in my room this evening
• baking pumpkin bread as a celebration of the harvest
• placing candles in my window to guide spirits on their way
• offering apple cider
• scrying, tarot reading and/or runecasting
• making incense or bath salts for the sabbat

I would love to dress up, but I don't have a costume and my silly stupid game has an event I'm hosting at 7pm tonight. That and I told we don't get many trick-or-treaters around here so I'm not too sure of what will be going on around here this evening.

Whatever your plans for Samhain are I hope you fair well this hallowed eve.

A Sign?

A really cool thing happened. The day after I arrived in my new town (Anacortes, WA) the local paper had an article about a pagan group in the next town over, Forest Moon Grove. I found this a bit of a sign that I'm supposed to be here. Here was an article about paganism and active pagans in my new home. Granted there's not much on their page, but it's definitely something for me to look into and get involved with. My parents are highly involved with the Catholic church here so not sure how open they would be if I did get involved wit this group. First I have to let them in on my pagan leanings and see how well that goes over.