The Wheel of the Year · VII

Samhain

The thin veil

The most powerful night of the wheel. The veil is thin.

The veil thins; the ancestors draw near.

Samhain is the third and last harvest and the death of the old year. The boundary between the worlds is at its thinnest, and the beloved dead are remembered, fed, and spoken to. It is the most solemn and the most powerful night of the wheel.

Common practices

• Ancestor altars with photographs and keepsakes
• A dumb supper, with a place set for the dead
• Divination for the year ahead
• Carving lanterns to light the way home
• Speaking the names of those gone this year