Happy Samhain - or Halloween

Let's think about what is in store for us!  Let's plan for 2026.

Transcript

00:00.52
Christina Scovel
Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Pinch of Honesty. For any of you out there who have been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that the changing of the seasons for me is one of those... It's a time during the year where I feel change in my bones.

00:24.34
Christina Scovel
And I've had this problem with setting New Year's resolutions, For years now, mostly because to me anyways, it's arbitrary, right? When it rolls from December into January, I don't actually feel anything in my bones, right? I feel things in my bones when the seasons are changing.

00:45.56
Christina Scovel
And because of that, I have really put thought and effort into focusing on the changing of the season, in particular from fall to winter.

00:58.35
Christina Scovel
That's the season that strikes me the most. And because of that, we're going to talk about Sahwin.

01:10.12
Christina Scovel
so Sahwin is is I currently have a cat who's all over me. um It's from 9th century. It's Gaelic.

01:22.93
Christina Scovel
And it is... a combination of a reverence for the dead and the end of the fall season. It's also the combination of wrapping up of, say for example, harvest, right?

01:38.88
Christina Scovel
And as I continue now to harvest stuff from the garden, the hard frosts are hitting, things are beginning to die off. I can feel, i can feel these seasons changing.

01:52.81
Christina Scovel
The other thing that's interesting about Sawin is that it is a time when portals between us and other worlds may be thinner. Now, whether you believe that or don't believe in other...

02:09.22
Christina Scovel
other worlds or dimensions, ghosts. um That is the belief. That's the belief from the Gaelic that it's when the veil between worlds becomes a bit thinner.

02:24.47
Christina Scovel
I took it upon myself then for this year to really think about...

02:32.68
Christina Scovel
2025 and recap 2025 now. I'm not recapping it at the physical end of the year. I'm recapping it today on Halloween.

02:45.53
Christina Scovel
I have spent time in the past going through and thinking about my spiritual life, my work life, my home life, and kind of good and bad things, things that stand out to me from a year in review.

03:03.17
Christina Scovel
What I'm doing now for Sawin is to let things flow out of me.

03:14.57
Christina Scovel
So instead of trying to sit and mark in a book, here's the 10 things that upset me at work this year, or here are the five things I wish I had done better with my spiritual health. Instead of any of that,

03:30.28
Christina Scovel
I set up a blank page and just let things flow out of me. Of course, the first things to come out are the things that are closest to the surface. They're things that have been on my mind a lot.

03:46.36
Christina Scovel
But as you continue this, just just letting basically your year vomit onto a page... I can see the ups and downs from the year.

03:57.42
Christina Scovel
i can see the struggles from the year. And I didn't have to stop to ask myself, was it a struggle or was it hard? um Because it just came out.

04:09.52
Christina Scovel
It just came out onto the page.

04:13.66
Christina Scovel
The next thing that i do is I put down um two sections, basically.

04:25.34
Christina Scovel
folding up this past year, allowing myself to draw a tarot card and think about what that means for this past year, and then drawing a card for the future. And for the future, it's not distant future. It's basically um starting November 1st until the following Halloween, right? What are some things that that I ought to focus on?

04:50.44
Christina Scovel
I then of course create kind of a ah ah list, again, at just a a page vomit of all of the things that maybe I would like to see or do in 2026.

05:04.97
Christina Scovel
And in particular, a couple of things that I'm trying to focus on are my senses as a whole, right? So in instead of putting down something like go on a grand adventure,

05:20.36
Christina Scovel
Or write a novel. Instead of those types of things. My list is filled with things like see something magnificent.

05:35.34
Christina Scovel
Taste something that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

05:43.58
Christina Scovel
Smell something that reminds me of my childhood. Right? They are...

05:51.53
Christina Scovel
sensory goals.

05:55.58
Christina Scovel
Part of the reason I think I was drawn to sensory goals for this year is really due to reading a book about ghosts recently and contemplating life after death quite a bit.

06:12.94
Christina Scovel
And it's one of the things that can't I want to say it sparked an interest. It didn't spark anything in me. It made me realize that on a day-to-day basis, when I smell that first cup of coffee, right, let's say there is an afterlife. Let's say there's a heaven or there's a purgatory or there's living as a ghost or there's nothingness or whatever it is.

06:44.79
Christina Scovel
That smell of a first cup of coffee in the morning would be something I wouldn't have, right? So I i wanted to pick things that really um pull out kind of the human condition around me in particular.

07:06.01
Christina Scovel
I'm not going to share my 2025 page vomit. um I will, however, share the two cards I pulled. um So for this past year, i pulled the Queen of Pentacles, which really is somebody who's nurturing and at home and um kind of a healthy balance of stability.

07:28.29
Christina Scovel
And I honestly believe that that is um what I had this past year, right? um I do think that I was the queen of pentacles, really.

07:39.63
Christina Scovel
um

07:44.28
Christina Scovel
I currently also have a cat who's trying to eat things. For the future, the future was Not necessarily a card that spoke to me right off the bat. And I think anybody, again, who listens, you know that in general, I pull pentacles, I pull wands.

08:06.23
Christina Scovel
um I don't normally pull cups. And for my future, for this next year, pulled the knight of cups, which really speaks to being romantic, in touch with your intuition or emotions.

08:21.00
Christina Scovel
um charming and and attracts others, really has some motivation to action. ah if you look at the card, it's somebody who's on a mission.

08:33.39
Christina Scovel
But really the guidance from this card is think about how you're making your decisions. Are you making your decisions based off of a feeling are you making them off of logic?

08:48.00
Christina Scovel
and to bring those things to the forefront for this next year. the fact that I decided to put kind of my goals for 2026 to be kind of these sensory goals and then to have something that questions, you know, am I making decisions off of feelings or am I making them off of intellect?

09:08.57
Christina Scovel
Made me feel like the Knight of Cups was probably the absolute correct card for me to pull. um so On this Halloween, if you're interested, open up a journal.

09:24.30
Christina Scovel
You can do it tomorrow. It doesn't have to be today. um Write down the year, write down 2025, and let everything from this past year pour out of you.

09:35.59
Christina Scovel
Let the good, the bad, the ugly, everything, just little anecdotal stories. Don't hold back. Don't hold back.

09:47.51
Christina Scovel
And then just pull two cards and think about this past year and how it's wrapped up and think about this next year. And, you know, if really your goal for this next year is to do a triathlon, then put that down, write it down.

10:04.90
Christina Scovel
There is something to be said for intention when it is written, right? Intention when you put it out into the universe, right? When you say it, There's something about that that I strongly believe can pull things into reality.

10:22.55
Christina Scovel
I do believe that this evening we are probably going to go to a cemetery and my daughter's kind of into ghost hunting currently, so we may go and see if we can have maybe a discussion or two with a ghost.

10:38.15
Christina Scovel
I will definitely keep you posted on how this goes. So with that, i will catch you on the flip side.