Tag: Halloween

Samhain 2024: The Cailleach

My Regular Pagan Holiday post

She is a towering figure, casting mountains by flinging stones from her wicker basket. She is the crone goddess, ancient and wise, with flowing white hair and—some legends say—one eye in the center of her forehead. The Cailleach (pronounced kallyak), the Celtic goddess of winter, seizes control of the earth on November 1, at the pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in), and reigns until the thaw of spring. She governs the weather, especially storms, and with each step, she shapes the land.

The hag’s face is pale blue, cold like a corpse, her long white hair streaked with frost. Cloaked in a gray plaid, she appears worn by time, yet her power is immense. She is both creator and destroyer, molding the hills and valleys with her hammer, a deity tied to cycles of death and rebirth. Some say she has roots as ancient as the Indian goddess Kali.

As the harbinger of winter, the Cailleach has been feared and revered for centuries. On Imbolc, February 1, she is said to gather firewood for the remainder of winter. If the weather is clear and bright, it’s a sign she intends for the cold to stretch on, collecting plenty of wood to sustain her. But if the day is foul, people sigh in relief—the Cailleach sleeps, and winter’s end is near. Today, we mark this custom with Groundhog Day.

“Winter is coming”—a phrase popularized by Game of Thrones—is not just a warning of seasonal change, but a metaphor for scarcity, hardship, and the potential for conflict. The ominous truth is that winter is always coming, unless we are already in the thick of it. Perhaps, politically, we are.

The looming threat of a Trump presidency feels like the onset of a long, harsh winter. It keeps me awake at night. For decades, Republicons have skewed the game, and I’ve lived long enough to witness it firsthand. From voter suppression to outright vote theft, it’s been an ongoing battle. I was blown away by Greg Palast’s latest documentary, Vigilantes Inc.: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, produced by Martin Sheen, George DiCaprio, and Maria Florio (Oscar, Best Documentary). He exposes the political history of racist Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and his slave owning family. Stream it for free.

For those unfamiliar with Greg Palast, he’s a freelance journalist with a history of working for the BBC and The Guardian. His investigations predict that MAGA extremists may riot on December 11, the constitutional deadline for states to submit their final lists of electors. You can read more on his site: https://www.gregpalast.com/maga-militants-to-riot-on-december-11/

I’m sending this message before Samhain, hoping these warnings help to thwart the political winter ahead. We may already be in the storm’s grip, but awareness can help us weather it. 

For those of you in Sonoma County, I hope you’ll join me at a Democracy Fair, sponsored by the Deep Democracy group of the North Bay Organizing Project. Get voter information about local and state propositions and races. Plus games and prizes! It’s happening this Friday October 18 from 4 to 7pm at the SRJC student center. Registering ahead will help us plan.  Here’s the RSVP link: tinyurl.com/deepdemfair. (Apologies to those I’ve already sent this to.)

One more thing. I was saddened to learn of the death of my friend, the artist and writer Mary Wings in San Francisco. We were both born in 1949 (it was a very good year for Boomers) and shared a neighborhood in Bernal Heights. Mary was kind of famous; she rated an obit in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/arts/mary-wings-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SU4.GC0y.GZ_rimClOb6P&smid=url-share

She was always working on art projects and her friends were often the lucky recipients of her creations. One of her gifts to me was this painting of Bernal Hill viewed from Precita Park where she lived. I lived on the opposite side of the hill. The painting had originally been framed in something she’d found at Scrap, but it fell apart over time. Recently, I rediscovered it in the garage and had it reframed. Now it’s hanging on the kitchen wall, and it’s a beautiful way to remember both Mary and our beloved San Francisco neighborhood.

Sending Samhain greetings to all.

Love, Molly (and Holly)

The top photo is by David Mirlea on Unsplash (having trouble with captions)

Who Put the We in Halloween?

My Regular Pagan Holiday Greeting

Dear Friends,

Halloween might be the one pagan holiday that neither the Romans nor the catholic church could suppress or usurp, even after centuries of trying.

The Celt holiday of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) celebrated the end of summer and the start of winter. Celts believed that on the night of October 31 the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. People lit sacred bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. In some places, people doused their hearth fires on Samhain night; then each family solemnly re-lit its hearth from the communal bonfire, thus bonding the community together. 

The Celts lived 2000 years ago in what later became Ireland, the UK and northern France. The 400-year occupation by the Romans left some cultural traditions. At Feralia the Romans commemorated the passing of the dead. And the festival of Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees whose symbol is the apple, was held November 1. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality.

Then the christians invaded. Over the centuries, a couple of popes made the effort to subsume the pagan holiday under a new Christian one on November 2, All Souls Day. As with other pagan holidays, it is widely understood that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

But the old customs associated with Samhain never died out entirely. Instead, the first night of Samhain, October 31, became All Hallows Day Evening, the night before the saints were venerated. That name eventually morphed into Halloween. One of the rituals adopted from the Celts waspumpkin carving, which held religious significance. The jack-o-lantern custom consisted of placing fire—which imitates the good magic of the sun—inside a hollowed out vegetable (usually a turnip), representing the harvest. The hope was that the good magic would help to preserve the harvested food through the dark half of the year, until the next growing season could replenish the community’s food stocks.

The practice of trick-or-treating began as the Celtic custom of giving token bits of the harvest to spirits wandering outside of houses on the evening of Samhain to placate them and prevent them from doing destructive things to the harvest or to homes.

Centuries later, Halloween customs were brought to the U.S. by immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and other ancient homelands of the Celts. That’s when pumpkins took over from turnips to make jack-o-lanterns, a modern advancement.

Here in Santa Rosa, Holly and I have invented new rituals and customs for Samhain.

The blessing of the flip flops During the changing of the footwear we remove our flip flops and put them away for the winter after kissing them and telling them we appreciate their hard work of protecting our feet all summer. Then we don our winter slippers.

The beanie and toque resurrection We bring down the box of winter hats, scarves and gloves from the top shelf of the closet where they have patiently waited all summer. 

The moving of the deck furniture All summer the outdoor couch has sat in the shade where we could be comfortable even on hot days. At this time of year we move the couch to a sunny spot on the deck near the house. The ceremony consists of grabbing the couch, saying one two three up and carefully carrying it to its new place.

The building of the ofrenda Our little Dia de los Muertos altar sits on the fireplace mantle where we assemble pictures and clay figurines of friends and family who have died. We are reminded that many cultures remember their dead at this time of year.

The planting of the peas, the harvesting of persimmons and pomegranates October is the time to plant sugar snap peas so we can eat them right off the vine in Spring. We also plant cover crops and colorful flowers like violas and pansies to keep us smiling through the winter. My favorite fall salad is made with persimmons, pomegranates, pecans and pears with a citrus dressing (I call it the P salad).

Wishing you, your pods and families a happy Halloween.