SAMHAIN
v.2
TOOLS:
Black Tableware, Cornbread for Dumb Feast Skull Candle in middle of Altar
with food from Coveners, White Votive bags in Garden, Harvest Figure on
front yard bench, Jack OıLanterns for directions, Candy Corn for Trick-or-Treating,
plus the regular tools.
1)
Proceed to basement in silence holding white candles, lit.
(click here to see a candlelit photograph of the altar)
2)
Each participant proceeds to pre-determined quarters and places candles
on table. The ancestral food lies before all.
3)
North: A drum slowly beats. All turn to North, signal-hands raised to
North.
East: Incense is added and swung to East and signal-hands raised to East.
South: A red candle is raised and lowered to South and signal-hands raised to South.
West: Water in a shell is raised and lowered to West and signal-hands raised to West.
North is sealed by drum.
4)
All join hands and circle is cast by walking deosil 3x round.
Each person places food down on the plate with candle.
All eat cornbread silently.
White candle is lit.
5)
Dedication
This is the time life gives pause to honor death. The veil is lifted. All who have gone before are honored. We call on thee, Umbria, cauldron stirrer, to stop and remember with us our dead.
6)
Chant - Raise Power
Umbria, Umbria, Umbria,
chanting as ³Um² sound.
(Drum beating rises in volume).
³We are a Circle Within a Circle,
Ever Expanding, Ever Changing²
7)
First - we recognize those loved ones who have passed.
Each person says name(s) of those they remember 3x using bell, then all say name once.
Second - We remember those in our community known and unknown and those who perished that September morn.
Say ³innocent victims all.²²
Third - (circle expands) We remember those who lost their lives before their time be it here or in their own country. Those who through no fault of their own - who died because of race (drum beat), gender (drum beat), religious beliefs (drum beat), died in battle (drum beat), or by disease or by accident or murder (drum beat)....
Fourth: We encompass our Mother the Earth and remember - all those dead before their time, animals killed by poachers (drum beat), animals killed by torture (drum beat), all unecessary deaths (drum beat). We remember the innocent in the past and present (drum beat).
8)
Time of the Season by Riannon-Lia
Chorus:
Itıs the time of the season
For the Crone to appear.
The time of the season
for her to draw near.
It is time for those,
who with her will go.
And in to her cauldron,
These souls she will throw.
Itıs time for transformation,
The center of life.
Take off the mantle,
of gloom and of strife.
Into the center,
Into the heart,
Into the grave,
Our bodies will part.
Into the chasm
We are renewed.
We will be born,
a new life issued.
9) Meditation - Visiting the Crone.
10) Where there is death, there is also life. Babies are born every minute. New plants are seeded, our animal brothers and sisters also give birth - celebrate life, your life and all those who innocently begin a new life .. letıs live in joy!
We see children trick or treating in costume. Letıs become children ourselves this Halloween night.
All go out into the yard and yell ³Trick or Treat² around the yard and in front. Pass around candy corn to each other.
11) Return to covenstead.
Sing Halloween songs.
Talk about happy times we had
with those gone.
Cakes and Ale.
Close circle silently.
