(This festival fell on the 25th of April in 2009. For information on the Southern Wheel of the Year, click label at end of post.)
Last year (2008) was my first Samhain. I was still learning the very basics of the Wheel of the Year and had too much information swirling round in my head to have a focussed idea of Samhain.
This year I stripped it down to the essentials: the Horned God dies and winter sets in. And, as Samhain fell on Anzac Day (similar to Memorial Day/Remembrance Day), I tied it in to the ritual.
Before the ritual I had a special dinner for my ancestors. I recited the names of all my deceased relatives that I know of and told them what they meant to me when they were alive. I also named my great-grandparents and told them what my grandparents had told me about them.
The ritual itself was fairly simple. I lit a candle for the Horned God and thanked him for being there and rambled on for a while about his importance on the Wheel and about Samhain being the time of his death.
I had a red poppy wreath on the altar to represent Anzac Day and I talked about Gallipoli and World War II and about how they touched my family and friend’s families and asked that a friend currently serving in Middle East would remain safe.
Then, within the ritual, I extinguished the Horned God’s candle.
That was it really. I left my altar up for the three nights of the Dark Moon and the extinguished candle will remain there until Winter Solstice.
The Southern Wheel & the Wuruma Wheel
Since I started celebrating the Wuruma Wheel I have been a lot less confused about what to include in and exclude from my Southern Wheel (European-based Wheel) festivals and rituals.
I had been trying to tie in the local Wheel (Wuruma Wheel) and its representations and it was not working very well.
Now I have the Wuruma Wheel to work from and I am celebrating the festivals of the two Wheels on separate dates. This avoids confusion.
The next festival is Wuruma Samhain on the 31st of May.
Samhain 2008
Wuruma Wheel explanation & dates
Southern Wheel explanation & dates
