Samhain: The Witch’s New Year [remastered]

Samhain (pronounced "sow-in") is a Celtic Pagan festival celebrating the end of the harvest and moving into the dark half of the year with Winter. Samhain is one of eight sacred days on the Pagan Wheel of the Year. All of these days hold spiritual significance with the seasons and the Sun. 

Samhain carries themes of: 

• honoring ancestors and the beloved dead
• celebrating the harvest
• understanding the cosmic death-cycles
• using community to forge connections and ensure survival through the harshest months
• merging between the spirit world and the world of the living

In this episode, I discuss the history of Samhain, give a deeper look into the themes, and discuss ways you can celebrate Samhain today. May your Samhain be safe and sacred. Blessed be.

Here is the list of my patrons, as I have gained a few since this podcast was recorded a year ago!

 | Danica Favorite
 | Kai
 | Shannon Konyndyk
 | charles ruggles
 | Colleen Toohey
 | Miranda J Snow
 | Chris
 | Kim Mackay Hartnett
 | Tracey  Lanham
 | Nicole Smith
 | Lisa Zimmerman
 | Bobbie McDiarmid
 | Deborah Guy

Links:
Samhain Blog Post
My Links
Samhain Traditions
Samhain Wikipedia
The Solitary Witch by Silver RavenWolf* (*correct name. I believe I said Raven Silverwolf in the episode)

Chapters

• 0:46 Why Repost: Grief And Growth
• 2:51 Silent Supper Plans And Change
• 4:03 Remembering Through Sound And Loss
• 5:27 Audio Note And New Year Intro
• 6:47 What Samhain Is And Isn’t
• 8:25 Fire Festivals And Seasonal Shifts
• 10:15 Origins And Christian Overlays
• 12:06 Harvest, Livestock, And Survival
• 14:00 Bonfires, Hearths, And Kinship
• 15:35 Ancestors, Altars, And Memory
• 17:25 The Veil, Divination, And Belief
• 19:25 Themes: Death Cycle And New Year
• 20:35 Halloween Roots From Samhain
• 21:47 Modern Ways To Celebrate
• 25:56 Closing Gratitude And Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the Wolf Child Magic Podcast. My name is Ashley, your tarot reader, Rocky Mountain Witch, and overall Wolf Child. And I thank you for being here with me today. In this episode, I am remastering and reposting an episode that I recorded last year, which was Sawin, the Witch's New Year, and How to Celebrate. One of my goals for 2026 is to make sure that I have a podcast episode and the accompanying blog post on how to celebrate each day of the pagan wheel of the year. I'm also working on creating like a tarot reading package where on the day of the Wheel of the Year or the day before, if you purchase this package, you will get a reading from the spreads I have written for this day on how to celebrate or what energies are coming through. So that is something that I'm going to be working on as well. If that is something that you would like to see, definitely let me know. I thought about remaking this entire episode, not just doing a kind of remastering, reposting of this. I thought I should just remake the episode from scratch. And I was listening to the one I made last year, and there were a few things that stuck out to me that I want to share with you. The first reason is that while I did take the first few minutes out of the episode that you will hear in just a few moments, I recognized that this was a way to honor not only my beloveds, my treasures, my kitties, but it's a way to honor the journey. And that is something that Sawin speaks actually so beautifully to. It's not just about our grief and our losses and our connection to our beloved departed. It is that, but it's more than that. It's also about recognizing the journey of life, the cycles of life, and the journey that you walk with your beloveds in physical matter, in spiritual form. And how do we honor that? How do we honor that transition? And I thought that this was a beautiful way to honor that transition. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I just got my splinter tattoo, and I lost him only nine days before I made that episode last year. So I thought that this was a really good way to honor the journey that I walked with him when he was in life, and the journey that I'm walking now that he is with me in spirit form. The second reason why I wanted to re-post that episode is because in that episode I mentioned doing a dumb supper, and last year I was all about I just want to do the Hobbit thing, and it's all about the merriment, and I'm actually getting ready to go and get my house ready because I am hosting a silent dumb supper tomorrow. It was just a reminder of how we change. We change. There's things that we say we would do, and then when the opportunity presents itself, we do something different. The dumb supper that I am doing with my wolf pack tomorrow. We're gonna do only 30 minutes in silence, but it's gonna be where we're eating, we're going to have the spirit chair. I'm I'm so looking forward to this day, and I'm hoping that I remember to do some recordings so that you can see a little bit from our dumb supper. The last reason why I wanted to do uh a repost and a remastering of that episode instead of just re-recording and making something brand new is because while I was listening, I heard my Katie MacGyver sneeze, and he's the one that we lost in February. Listening to him sneeze brought up two things for me. One, it it did bring up a level of sadness because one, it's a reminder that he's no longer here, but it also made me realize I'm starting to forget those little details that he used to always be around me when I was recording, and he would sneeze, and I would always try to like re-record and get the sneeze out of there, and that day I was like, I'm just not even gonna try. And I'm starting to forget little things like that, that he would always be around me while I was recording. He was always around me anyway. That was kind of the bond that we had. But it also filled me with a lot of love because I get to hear him doing something that he would always do, which was sneeze. And I think again, that's a great way to honor Sawen because it's a reminder of these physical fingerprints on our journey that we can go back and listen to of times when they were alive, even if it's something as stupid and silly as a sneeze. I think it's important. So those are the reasons why I wanted to repost this episode instead of remake it. I may remake it in 2026. We will see. I do also want to say that for some reason this audio has a echo to it, and I cannot fix it in my software. I've been trying to get this to sound right, and it just ends up sounding worse. So I'm just gonna leave this the way it is. I do apologize that it sounds like this. It was before I got my really nice, good podcasting microphone, and I think it just is gonna sound weird. So again, I apologize. But for now, I give you this episode on Sowen, the Witch's New Year, and how to celebrate. If you do like this episode, please consider leaving a rating on Spotify or iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast. Thank you so much. My name is Ashley, the creator and wolf child of this space. With tarot cards in my hands and a howl in my throat, I welcome you here. So this is gonna be an episode about Sawin, the history around Sawin. I will say more of kind of a general history. There are many different stories and tales and narratives and pieces of folklore that we could go into, and I hope to return to some of those at a later time. But one, I just don't have the energy to do again a very huge big uh podcast episode, and two, um, some of these stories I'm still learning about, so I want to make sure that I'm doing justice here on the podcast and how I talk about them. I'm also gonna talk about some ways to celebrate this day. Um, I expect that this outwin is going to be incredibly difficult for me, but I want to honor the energies around this day, and again, just working and kind of doing some of this stuff is is also helping me. It's part of the magic, I guess. I do also have a blog post that uh will of course be linked. I'm always now going to do a podcast with a blog post. One, it keeps me beholden to just writing my blogs, but two, I also find that the blog post becomes a little bit of the outline of my notes for what I want to talk about here on the podcast, and then I can get a little bit more conversational and a little bit more um freeform, which I always want with my podcast. So you can go and look in that uh as well. I also think that sometimes having both written and audio format is just a great way to not only learn the material but to come back to it as well. The first thing to note about Sawin is the name and how it looks versus how it is pronounced. It is a Gaelic word. The word looks like Sam Hain, but it is actually pronounced Sawin. Sawin is an ancient pagan celebration. It is an ancient pagan Celtic uh spiritual day. There was a lot of feasting around this day, and usually it was celebrated from October 31st to November 1st. I have also seen in there that the day could go into uh the second or the fourth, and that is depending upon the uh certain degree that the constellation Scorpio is in. Sawin is one of four fire or seasonal festivals on the pagan wheel of the year. So the four are Sawin, and this is the start of the witch's new year, and then we move to Imbulk, which is in between Yule and Ostara, which is the winter solstice and the spring equinox, Beltane in between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and then Lunasa in between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. I like to think of the four fire festivals or four seasonal festivals as just that it's a celebration of the seasonal shifts or the seasonal themes, whereas the solstices and the equinoxes are the solar events. So on those days we're paying reverence to if it's like the longest or the shortest day, or with the equinoxes, light and dark are equal. I like to look at it that the four fire days, the four fire festivals, are the celebrations in the turning of the wheel of the year, which is uh Earth, and therefore starting the seasonal shifts, and we start to feel those seasonal shifts. So with Sawin, we're feeling the effects of winter coming on if we live in a space where we feel winter, and if we live in the northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, it's kind of opposite, but like in my where I live in Colorado, we're already starting to feel the effects of winter coming. I've already had a light snowfall, and then Yule, which comes next in the Wheel of the Year, marks the official day of winter. So the seasonal days kind of mark the turning of and the change of the seasons, and then the four solar days mark the time that that season is kind of officially starting. So the origins of Sawin are that again it is an ancient, ancient day. Some of the references say that it is first referenced in the 9th century, and then this reference from history.com, those are linked, says in the article, as Christianity gained a foothold in pagan communities, church leaders attempted to reframe Sawin as a Christian celebration. The first attempt was by Pope Boniface. In the 5th century, he moved the celebration to May 13th and specified it as a day, he specified it as a day celebrating saints and martyrs. The fire festivals of October and November, however, did not end with this decree. In the 9th century, Pope Gregory moved the celebration back to the time of the fire festivals, but declared it All Saints Day on November 1st. All Souls Day would follow on November 2nd. So whether we are looking at this from beginning in the 9th century or the 5th century, uh this is just a very ancient and sacred pagan day, and it still is today. So on this day, the very last of the crops were harvested if there was anything left to harvest, and livestock were brought down from their pastures. Now, this is where we can see some interconnection between the other days in the Wheel of the Year. So if you look on my uh blog, or if you just Google Wheel of the Year and click images, you'll see a ton come up. But Salwin and Beltain are kind of opposite on the Wheel of the Year, and both livestock and fire played a significant role in the celebration of both days. So on Beltain, this was when the livestock was sent out to the pasture, and people would get two big bonfires and have their livestock cross between the bonfires, like the smoke and stuff, so that the cleansing and healing properties of the fire and of the smoke would burn away any impurities in the livestock and keep them healthy, and it was sent to provide blessings as they went out to the pastures. On Sawin, the livestock are brought in from the pastures, and then some would be offered as a sacrifice. Others, usually the weakest, would be killed to maintain the health and numbers of the livestock while also adding and providing to the food stores that needed to last through winter, and then the rest would be moved into the structures that they would live in until spring came. It is here that we see kind of the interconnection between the sacredness of the land and the need to survive off of the land. Um, I mean, we see that in every single day of the Wheel of the Year, but Salwin marking the beginning of winter or the feelings and stirrings of winter with the leaves falling and turning and the livestock being brought in and the cold nights coming on. There has to be enough, I should say, to feed the livestock as well. Everything has to survive through these harsh, rough times ahead. So Salin kind of marks this shift where we are celebrating and giving thanks for the bounties of our harvest, for both our grain and our livestock. We're offering sacrifices to the gods and the goddesses, but we're also moving into a time where our survival needs are at their highest and are going to be at their highest for a couple months. The fire is also, of course, incredibly symbolic and powerful for Sawin because it very literally symbolizes the ability to endure and survive at this time. The fire also represents the power of the sun, and that is something that we look to and we need to hold in our hearts, and these people needed to look to and hold in their hearts in order to go into the darkest half of the year and into the roughest and coldest months. The fire also was a symbol of the sacred and of the divine, so there would be prayer set over the fire. It spoke to, I should say, the continued life and health of again all people and all animals and the villages. So at this time and on this day, the individual hearths in people's homes would be uh left to burn out or would be put out, and then an ember or a coal from the communal bonfire would be taken back to the individual homes, and this was said to speak to and honor the kin the kinship of all those who were living, and then it was also used as a way to directly connect back to our ancestors. Connecting to ancestors and the beloved dead are such a core focus of this time. In fact, it's probably one of the most important focuses of Sawin because, like the changing of the seasons, where we move into a time of death, of darkness, and of coldness, they would use this as a time to make sense of the loss that they were experiencing in their own lives. They would call on their ancestors, they would invite them in to feel their energies again, to feel their spirit again, and they would use this as a time to understand that the cycles of life and death are inherent and universal. In later times of celebrating Sawin, and even today, photos, tokens, and memorabilia of ancestors and the beloved dead would be placed out on altars or in living spaces, such as in the communal living areas of the kitchen and the dining room. And this was a way to root the ancestor or those who had passed back into the home and back into the celebration and back into a time of connection. It was a way to connect and keep them alive in the hearts of the people who were still alive, and that was done by bringing them into the hearth of the home and into the space of community and kinship. And I think that is one of the things that I resonate so strongly with, especially right now in moving into Sawin, is how we connect to our beloved dead. So for me, that is of course my kitties, but we connect to our beloved dead and our ancestors by creating a space of being alive, by celebrating, by feasting, by being with the loved ones who are still here. That is how we heal and that is how we keep all of those who have passed on alive in our hearts, and we see this in other cultures and um in other spaces, like Diet de las Muertos, which is such a beautiful day. These times, these days, are reminders that uh we do our ancestors and our beloved dead well by continuing to live well, by celebrating, by finding our joy, and that's hard at times. I can say right now I have no desire really to be feasting and celebrating and being in my joy, but I know that that's um you you find it in some way and somehow, and that's how you move through this, and that's how you keep them alive in your hearts. One of the reasons that connecting to ancestors, beloved dead, and to spirits and the spiritual world was so important at this time, is because it is said that on the night of Sawin, the veil between the spirit world, the other world, and the world of the living is at its thinnest. I am personally of the mindset that it's always thin and we're just more maybe attuned or um tapped into it on this day because there's kind of a heightened energy with it being kind of a communal understanding that just might help us tap into it in our own perceived awareness. That's just my own personal belief. I'm not saying that if you believe it is truly at its thinness, that you are wrong. I just personally believe that we're kind of always um gossamer thin away from our spirits, and that just it's hard to tap into because it's not concrete, it's not solid, it's not proven, it's it's felt and it's palpable and it's energetic. So, again, that's just my own personal belief. I'm not saying you're wrong. Um, and whether the veil is truly thinnest at this time or it's just always thin, divinational use and divinational practices were also a mainstay on Sawin because of that belief that the veil was at its thinnest, and we'll talk about um working with that when we get into how to celebrate. I just want to read this excerpt from a book, from the book The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton, but I found this excerpt in the book The Solitary Witch by Raven Silverwolf, and it says Sawin was a time when the Celts acknowledged the beginning and the end of all things. As they looked to nature, they saw the falling of the leaves from the trees, the coming of winter and death. It was a time when they turned to their gods and goddesses, seeking to understand the turning cycles of life and death. Going on to say, for the Celts, Sawin was a time when the gates between this world and the next were open. It was a time of communion with the spirits of the dead, who, like the wild autumnal winds, were free to roam the earth. So those are kind of the main themes around Sawin, again, connecting to the cycles of life and death, of how we are moving into the dark half and the um death cycle of winter, but this is also the witch's new year, so there's kind of a new beginning along with that. Um, the harvest is done, and this is a time of feasting, of celebration, of connecting to our beloved dead, connecting to the spirit world, and seeking to understand these greater mysteries in life. Even today's Halloween celebrations can trace their roots back to uh Salwin. So the History.com article says trick-or-treating is said to have derived from ancient Irish and Scottish practices in the nights leading up to Sawin in Ireland. Mumming was the practice of putting on costumes, going door to door, and singing songs to the dead. Cakes were given as payment. Halloween pranks also have a tradition in Sawin, though in the ancient celebration, tricks were typically blamed on fairies. Jack o' lanterns also come from Sawin, although back then I believe the first um vegetable to be used was turnips. There is also a connection to the story of Stingy Jack, which you can find if you go to the blog. I have a link there that you can go read the story of Stingy Jack. Scarecrows too were a way to represent the spirits of the dead and also repel evil spirits, and jack-o'-lanterns were thought to do the same. Food, drink, and candles were also left out as offerings for spirits who were on their way to the other world and it would give them sustenance, bless you, and also a way for them to find their way. So that's a little bit of the history and the theme surrounding Sawin. So now, how can you celebrate Sawin today? This list is, of course, on the blog, but the first thing is to read descent or underworld stories like Persephone's Ananas or Hecate's because again, we are in a time of moving into the underworld, into the other world. Uh, Persephone is probably the most well-known, and that is why we move into fall and winter at this time with her story, is because she's now moving into the underworld with Hades. Uh, protection magic, this is what I'm going to be doing on Sawin, Protection Magic, because we're moving into a time where our physical survival is, you know, I mean, yes, we have today's creature comforts and technology and modernism, but to me, protection magic, I think, is still really important on Sowin because there's just an understanding that uh we're moving into a time of death cycles in the cosmic space, and also just with what I have been through, protection magic just feels very comfortable and right for me to do. Doing any sort of work with uh spirits, spirit guides, or even with the fee, you just will obviously want to be very careful and cautious when working with the fee. Um, host a dead or a dumb supper. I've seen a little bit of different um references kind of talk about this. Some say that a dumb supper is meant to be done in silence, and that's to kind of honor the loss of the ancestors and to maybe let their messages be heard more clearly. Um but you can always just host a supper and like I like I said, place their photos, their memorabilia there. I just kind of always tend to want to go the Hobbit way with things and just create a lot of merriment. So to me, a dumb supper is something that I would probably not do, um, but again, that is there to do if you wish. Uh, consider the power of the crone. Sawin is said to be the arrival of the Kalyak, who is my personal favorite crone uh deity to work with. So um just considering kind of the power of the crone at this time. Also utilizing any sort of divinational practice, I also think on this day, like we talked about before with Sawin and the thinning of the veil, or just being more tuned into it, I think this is also a time to really kind of maybe stretch yourself. Try some things that you haven't tried, lean in if it feels right. I would never advocate for doing something that doesn't feel right for you, but like maybe trying to um lean into some psychic readings, cold readings, um pendulums if you know you kind of want to answer some, get answers to some questions. I think this time is a great time to kind of move out of your comfort zone, I guess is what I should say. Um light candles and place in windows, like we talked about, working with the symbols of the raven or crow, pumpkins, owls, ghosts, bats, fire, and the color black. To me, a cord cutting ceremony um and any sort of candle magic, but a cord cutting is just a very beautiful and powerful representation of that release and that metaphorical death of something that you need to let go of. Visiting graveyards, ancestral sites, sacred burial places, or any place that connects you to the spirit world and leave offerings of food and honey. You just always want to make sure that the offerings that you leave are safe to be left and that it's not um littering. We are not here to litter on Mother Earth. Uh, decorating pumpkins, journaling and working through any loss, fears, or darkness. Of course, um, that's just so powerful. Um, celebrating where and how you can, just again, finding a sense of merriment, finding a sense of connection and understanding in whatever you're going through, and it doesn't have to be a lie. And then just again, honoring beloved dead, talking to them, telling them you love them, keeping them alive in your heart, which is gonna be what I'm really leaning into, but it I will be honest and say it's probably gonna be one of the hardest for me. Uh, so that is the ways that you can celebrate. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you all have a beautiful soin if you want to celebrate. Thank you all for listening. I really hope that this was a passable episode. I don't have like all the energy in me to like make this uh as perfect as I maybe normally would. Um, so I hope it's a passable episode. But thank you so much for being here with me. And I would like to thank my patrons, Deb Guy, Bobby McDermott, Lisa Zimmerman, Nicole Smith, Tracy Lanham, Kim Hartnett, Chris Ree, and Miranda Snow. Thank you all so much for your support in me and in Wolf Child Magic. It means the world, especially in a time where I'm really grieving. And of course, thank you to you, my dear listener. It is so um it's so it's so moving for me to be here and to still be kind of working and doing some of this amidst my own grief and sending this out with love to you. So thank you so very much, and until next time. Take care. Thank you for listening and for letting me into your day. If you liked this podcast and the content you heard here, please engage in the algorithm ritual by liking the show, rating it on Spotify or iTunes, sharing it on socials, or simply with someone you think would enjoy these fierce discussions. These are the best ways to show your support, and it is greatly appreciated. If you like the way I read the cards and want insight into your own situations, please click the link in the show notes to go to my online store. You can join the Wolfpack and be in deeper connection with me by pledging on Patreon. Finally, my deepest thanks and reverence for you being here. Keep howling, my wild one.