Samhain Secrets

Why we made witches ugly, how to recover the true spookiness of Hallowe'en, and why scaring the wits out of yourself will make you whole.

Legend says Samhain (sa-wen) is a time when the veils are thin. We can see more easily through to the Otherworld… the land of spirits… and perhaps, the land of Spirit.

Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays. Those pre-teen years of trick-or-treating with friends offered my first glimpse of staying out after dark and I felt like I had my run of the world.

In my 20s, I struggled to recapture that youthful freedom, but the raucous parties I attended always seemed to dim the glow of the night. Those wild years still live in infamy among my friends, but they sometimes haunt me—whispered stories told as cautionary tales round a cackling campfire.

As I grew older, fewer party invitations arrived. There was little reason to dress up… and some years it felt contrived to celebrate at all. I found myself opening the door on Halloween night to an onslaughts of children begging for candy. Most of them didn’t even offer me the option of “tricking” them (I probably wouldn’t have taken it, but I prefer to be asked), but instead stared at me blankly.

I must admit, I took some joy in staring smugly back at them—large bowl of candy in hand—waiting for them to make the first move and thinking, You want free candy? You’ve gotta say the line. It was painfully awkward, but it got me through a few bleak years.

Had the ghosts of Halloween past, present, and future shown up at that time, I would have broken down immediately, but I wonder if I would have seen the error of my ways.

The true spirit of All Hallow’s Eve was all but lost to me.

Rekindling a flame that has all but guttered out requires patience and attention. It does not come all at once. You must forage the deep forests to find the right tinder and twigs to bring it back to life. You must nurture each tiny spark, offering breath and fuel to encourage the glow to grow. You must build a hearth in which to house the flame once it is hale and healthy. And you must, above all, be ready to tell the story when others come to share in the warmth of your flame.

This is how Samhain came back to me—one tiny act of sacrifice¹ at a time.

First (and you will tell me this is cheating) I had a child. While the joys of childhood do, in some ways, return with parenthood (and little Isabelle offered a lovely excuse for me to approach the estranged holiday), it was the ways in which Motherhood thinned my own veils which made that first Hallowe’en feel different.

Something deeper than spooky costumes and bowls of candy found me that night. I experienced afresh the strangeness of the holiday I had sensed in childhood. Carrying my baby through the streets on Samhain felt wild and dangerous.

Perhaps it was simply that we had left the city. We were now on a quiet country lane with long stretches between each house. Trick-or-treating took on a new, eerie vibrancy, surrounded by the creaking branches of barren trees. The porch lights of houses glimmered through darkness that swept all around us, threatening to swallow us whole.

I could hear the Old Ones whisper, The veil is thin this night.

The next year, I knew I had to somehow pry to door wider to allow that Otherworld to seep through. I found an old tradition of gathering gifts of Nature with which to craft the Queen of Winter. The first to receive offerings at the feast of Samhain, throughout the dark nights of winter, the Queen of Winter guards the hearthfires… until at last she herself is burned in celebration at Beltaine.

My very first Queen of Winter doll.

This tradition is demanding—it forces me outside among the trees, the fallen leaves, the brisk air, the changing season. It asks me to spend an afternoon and sometimes more, speaking with the brush and bracken, asking who would like to become part of this year’s Queen of Winter. It requires me to give up my writerly perfection and turn myself to a craft at which I have no skill. It urges me to connect with forces beyond myself at every turn.

As I walk through the forests, searching for tiny treasures, I slowly become wilder… more myself. The costumes fall away and I am face to face with the spirit of Samhain. Spookier than any haunted mansion, it is raw and revealing.

When the spirits walk among us, what do they see?

Are they fooled by your costume?

By the fake smile you wear every day?

They must notice that you don’t see them…
But it doesn’t stop them from seeing you.

That mask will not protect you.

Are you scared yet?

There’s no movie gimmick or horror story as terrifying as being human on Planet Earth. It’s raw. Gory. The stuff of nightmares. And we do everything in our power to avoid that reality every day.

But what if… for this one day a year, we didn’t?

What if we allowed ourselves to feel the truly frightening origins of Hallowe’en?

This year, I’ve decided to dress as a witch. A real witch. The kind that was probably burned at the stake for being awesome AF. I spent days running all over town looking for a classically conical hat to help center and channel my power. I gathered and dried herbs from my garden, wildcrafting mugwort and all-heal, carefully trimming lavender and echinacea. I cleared the crystals in my staff with sage and blessed my necklace with earth, sea, and sky.

And then I went to a party.

Me, disguised as a party-goer, with Mark and Isabelle.

While I was explaining to a friend that I was <ahem> a real witch², and not some cartoony nonsense, my daughter tripped the sensor on a hag-looking Halloween decoration. An ugly green woman in a pointy hat looked at me and cackled. I stared back at her, my energy focused by my own matching pointy hat. I was ready to spar… primed to be offended at the terrible portrayal of witches through the ages. Instead, something inside me naturally recoiled.

The mechanical witch was too ugly, too fearful. Isabelle spent a long time watching her, struggling with the deep spookiness of the archetypal image.

At the same time, I could feel the power of Nature coursing through my bones. The herb-sac hung heavy on my belt. My hand gripped tight round a thrice-blessed staff. I was bedecked with ancient symbols connecting us all in the great Pattern.

Suddenly, I understood why they turned us into hags. This hideous woman with green skin and a wart on her nose was the exterior representation of how witches made people feel.

Out of control.

Punched in the gut.

Forced to face their own fears.

Shocked into reality.

Scared out of their wits.

Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash

That night, I blessed as many as asked for it (and many asked in the silence). I gave them the choice to make offerings. I invited them into the old ways. Even those I never thought might be interested were grateful.

Openly and honestly, I talked about our collective fears and the deep urge to push away what frightens us.

So here is my invitation to you, dear heretic—

It’s Hallowe’en… Samhain… The night when the veils are thinnest.

Tonight—for this one time at least—let us allow our fears to finally reach us. Let us befriend them. Though they may ravish us in the night, it’s a risk worth taking. For we may yet find that the old witch was never ugly, and all those terrifying things which keep us running through our lives were only trying to bless us after all.

Happy All Hallows Eve.
Blessèd Samhain.

And don’t forget my friends—

They can’t burn us anymore.

1. Etymologically "a making sacred," from sacra "sacred rites" (properly neuter plural of sacer "sacred" + combining form of facere "to make, to do") — etymonline.com

2. Since I’m a history geek, it’s worth noting that black dye was traditionally very expensive and would not have been a typical color for witches. I’ve chosen it here for purposes of recognizability, because I hate it when people can’t tell what I am for Halloween.