Season 1, Episode 12: Samhain Magick

 ​ I sort of opened a can of worms when I made the Mabon podcast. Usually I don't talk that much about myself personally, but you all gave such wonderful feedback on that particular episode, and I thought, what the hell, let's do an episode like that for Samhain too, and maybe in a couple months I'll record one like this for you.

So, this is going to be a shorter episode of the podcast, and today I'm sharing exactly how I celebrate Samhain. Samhain is celebrated on the eve of October 31st into November 1st here in the Northern Hemisphere. I think it's around April 30th in the Southern Hemisphere. It's most often associated with Halloween.

While it's not solely a harvest festival, it does mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. This was the time when animals were butchered and the meat put up for the winter, so death and dying play a major part in this particular Sabbath. It's a time to remember ancestors and honor the thinning of the veil between worlds.

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Wind Moon Magic. That's magic with a k.com. Samhain is often

referred to as the witch's new year, a time when practitioners of witchcraft mark the end of one cycle and the beginning of another on the wheel of the year. As the final harvest festival of the year, it symbolizes the culmination of nature's bounty and the onset of the darker, introspective months that lie ahead.

The veil between the physical and spiritual realm is at its thinnest, allowing for heightened divination, ancestor communication, and just, it's a really nice time for reflection, personal growth, and transformation. It's a time to honor and remember those who have passed, to release what no longer serves us, and to set intentions for the coming year.

So what do I do at this time? Let's start with what's on my altar, which, I admit, I set up on October 1st, because I was just too excited to wait any longer. For Mabon, I mostly shared what was on my kitchen altar. That is still set up, but I've switched out the crystals, the animal, and added a decorative planchette.

This year I put smoky quartz and black tourmaline out, along with a black cat statue, it's actually a pepper shaker, and a cloche that has fairy lights from Michaels. So, a little more decorative and not quite as chock full of meaning. But the main altar setup for this Sabbath actually happens on my stair landing, where I have a long, shallow shelf.

All the stuff up there comes down and is replaced with framed photos of departed ancestors. I worked really hard over the years tracking down family photos, getting prints, and figuring out how I wanted to frame these to feel really special. I'll share a couple Instagram stories showing exactly what I've done.

Anyway, ancestors from both mine and my husband's side of the family are displayed here, along with some candles and a garland of marigolds. We live about 15 minutes away from a farm stand that every year they sell the most beautiful marigolds you've ever seen. So I always buy a big bundle to turn into garland.

Marigolds hold significant symbolism in the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which here in the American Southwest has merged with some aspects of Samhain in modern Halloween celebrations. In Dia de los Muertos, marigolds are often referred to as flowers of the dead, and they're used to honor and remember deceased loved ones.

They're chosen for their vibrant, golden orange color, which guide the spirits of the departed back to the world of the living. I love marigolds, too, because of their strong association to protection magic and psychic abilities. Some say marigolds can help open the third eye. So they're a powerful plant ally when it comes to divination, but most of all, I love their sunny, bright energy at a time of the year that's pretty dark with short days and bare trees.

For me, they're just full of hope and optimism and a reminder that the solstice is just a few short weeks away. Also, here with the photos I have a few sentimental items that belong to departed ancestors who I personally knew. For instance, I have a music box that my aunt received one year for Christmas from her father, my grandfather, just a couple days before he passed away.

It's a reminder of both of them. Stuff like that. I use rechargeable candles, and for the duration of the time that this altar is set up, I will keep those candles lit around the clock. Then, throughout the house I have smaller reminders of the season on the fireplace mantle. My little cat doll that I mentioned before is now dressed in deep plum colored silk, and still wearing her monarch butterfly wings, along with some black tin spooky houses you can put candles inside.

Outside, the scarecrow I mentioned that I make around Lunasa gets spiffed up a bit and moved to the front stoop. We have a porch swing, and there he will sit until early November when I compost him. He is sufficiently creepy and surrounded by our pumpkins that we will carve for Halloween night. And let's touch on that for a minute.

If Samhain is the witch's New Year, I consider Halloween and all the traditional American revelry to be like going to a New Year's party. My neighborhood is popping on this night. It's magical in its own right. Neighbors who are rarely seen or interacted with all gather in their driveways with chairs and fire pits.

Almost every house is decorated to some degree. Movies are projected onto garage doors. Some even host open bars with mixed drinks for the adults and non alcoholic cider for the kids. The candy flows, music plays, and hundreds of kids droop up and down the streets in their costumes. We're talking an area that's only three city blocks, but I'd say 80 percent of the neighborhood is out and having a party.

I love it. So that's the Halloween piece of this. Do I dress up? Of course, but not really so much in a costume. Just the way I wish I could dress every day. My fantasy wear. So usually some sort of dark cottagecore witchy forest dress that is totally impractical for my day to day life. We, of course, carve and decorate pumpkins each year.

This year, we successfully grew a couple huge birdhouse gourds, so I think we'll also carve and hang those. I mentioned making the marigold garland, but we also adorn that with monarch butterflies that we make from coffee filters and clothespins each year. The monarchs are said to represent the spirits of the departed returning for a visit.

You can also make marigolds from tissue paper if you want something to save and use again year after year. I did that one year. But once I discovered the farm stand that was selling fresh ones each year, that went straight in the trash. It was getting faded and dusty, and I'm really not a fan of storing things.

The fresh garland can be composted each year. On the front door, I also hang a wreath of rosemary, marigold, and monarch butterflies. If you're thinking this doesn't sound very witchy or Halloween y, you would be right. I like to keep my decor and decorations, for the most part, upbeat, and I really try to avoid the gross horror elements.

That's just not pleasant to me in the home. My home is my haven, and I always try to keep it beautiful, joyful, even in a time of year when we're being more introspective and honoring death and those that have passed beyond the veil. And this leads me to a side note about cultural appropriation. I am not of Latin American descent, nor is my husband.

And traditions such as the use of marigolds and monarch butterflies come from Latin America and specifically Mexican culture. However, I grew up in the American Southwest, surrounded by these traditions in my own community. The Catholic church I attended as a child was largely Hispanic, and always bedecked for Dio de las Muertes.

I grew up surrounded by these traditions and this imagery, so here I am, an adult, using these same elements in my own celebrations. Is that cultural appropriation? I'm not sure, honestly. Cultural appropriation is complicated, and if you try to find an answer to this question, there's a million shades of nuance to pick through.

But here's how I look at it. I'm integrating these traditions into our celebration of the season in a very respectful way. I'm not monetizing these aspects of my practice. I'm not selling garland on Etsy or some such. So I don't think it is. But I fully acknowledge that there may be some people who consider this appropriation.

And to that I say... Well, to that I say, sorry, but I'm not sorry. I'm in my 40s, and these traditions have been present in my life for that entire time. They're part of the visual language of the season for me, and they're staying. Alright, moving on. Let's talk about ritual and spell work. I do a lot of divination and ancestor work now.

I'm sure you guessed that. So, the traditional Rider Waite tarot deck comes out, the runes, and I always make some time to do a bit of scrying and also automatic writing. The ease of these practices at this time is palpable. Just a reminder, because I don't say it every time, but this seems like a good time to remind you all, please ward and protect yourself.

All kinds of entities are looking for an opportunity to communicate right now. Be selective, like you're selective about friends and lovers. At least, I hope you are. Don't just let anyone into your psychic space. Not without protection. Right? Got it? I also love doing dream work now. I'll have a cup of mugwort based herbal tea before bed, maybe while doing some divination, or writing in my book of shadows, or even taking a soak in the bathtub.

Then off to bed with all the richness of my dreams. One of my favorite practices is to invite an ancestor to visit my dreams. I write down a question to ask them, pull a tarot card to represent them, and sleep with it and the paper with my question under the pillow. While mugwort is often recognized for its soothing qualities, its most renowned attribute lies in its influence on dreams.

The Latin botanical name for mugwort is Artemisia, and it's derived from the Greek moon goddess Artemis, symbolizing its connection to the moon's guidance during the night. In folklore, mugwort often assists dreamers in recalling their dreams. It promotes heightened awareness within dreams, it can induce lucid dreaming, and it amplifies our psychic sensitivity.

You can consume it as tea, use it in tinctures, some people even smoke it, or just place it above the bed or beneath a pillow. Try it, but not if you're breastfeeding, and not if you're pregnant. Then, because it's the new year, I like to do some sort of transformation or renewal working. So I do a lot of reflection on the past year, planning for the year ahead, and then cleansing, grounding, and energizing myself for what's to come.

I also do some work to release and banish those things, or sometimes people, who are not serving my highest good, so that I can move forward free of that. What does that look like? Well, it might be a candle spell, where I invoke the support of my ancestors, seeking their wisdom, their guidance, and then writing down the things I wish to release and burning them.

And then maybe I would write down some resolutions to keep on my altar and revisit for a few weeks. Some of this work, for envisioning the year ahead, I allow to stretch from now until Yule season. And this gives me time to do a lot of solid reflection and get super clear, and then activate what I'm wanting to manifest at Yule when I'm 100 percent clear and crisp and really worked out the specifics.

If that seems like a long time, it is, but that's what works for me. And I always feel really confident about the direction I'm moving things this way. They've settled into me, and that makes the magic easier and more precise, I think. At Samhain, I love to dig out the family recipes and make some of our favorite meals, and meals we can remember sharing with departed loved ones.

So, the food right now is really individual and personal to our family. It ranges from traditional Hungarian fare to vegan foods. I even have a recipe called Lincoln and Lee pudding, which was handwritten by my great grandmother, and I like to make that. It's a, it's a very old fashioned seeming dessert.

This is the only time of the year we make these foods, and there's something so special about anticipating these same meals year after year. It's really special, and I hope it's building memories for my son. I know it is for me. We can't help but talk about the ancestors who enjoyed this food, sharing stories of our memories with them, pointing out their pictures, and wondering what it was like for them as kids growing up.

In addition to this cooking, I also always make traditional soul cakes to place on the ancestor altar, and to enjoy with breakfast along with my pumpkin spice flavored coffee. I know, such a cliche, but I love it. And on Halloween night, I usually make us a big pot of soup or stew, some black bread, and a pitcher of pomegranate sangria to enjoy outside during the trick or treating hours.

Some years we have friends over, some we don't. I think this year we will, just because I've been in a surprisingly social mood of late. In the garden, I try to get the final big cleanup completed and everything tucked in for the winter. We're in a Mediterranean desert climate, so a fair bit is still growing and producing, but things like the squash vines I grew on huge trellises need to be pulled down for the compost.

I cut back the raspberry canes, I prune the grapes, and I just generally try to tidy everything up and get anything that isn't thriving out of the space. Last year, I planted six fruit trees at this time, which was perfect. They seemed so well settled by the time spring rolled around and they leafed out.

I mostly grow perennials, so I'm really not planting a lot in the winter. Most of the herbs continue to produce to some degree. Weirdly, this is the season when I have to be the most consistent about mowing the clover lawn. With cooler weather, it just grows like crazy. And that's it. That's what Samhain looks like in my practice.

And if you're an Inner Circle member, I'd love to see what you're doing to honor the season. Please share photos and ideas in the Discord group. This month, in

addition to the monthly content drops for Inner Circle members, I'm sharing a Samhain themed three day experience, much like the Mabon one. It includes daily rituals, activities, recipes, and of course, divination work to really help you sink into the Sabbath and get the full flavor of Samhain. Again, that content is exclusive to Inner Circle members.

For about the cost of two cups of coffee a month, gain access to that and the entire Wind Moon Magic Archive of courses, workshops, and events, as well as monthly content drops. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss out on future episodes. And if you're enjoying the show, I would be incredibly grateful if you could take a moment to rate and review on your favorite podcast platform.

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As we bid farewell for now, I want to express my deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for joining me on this extraordinary adventure. Your support and presence mean the world to me.