30/10/2025
So many of our modern day festivals have become so far removed from the original essence and the roots of what the festival was about.
These points in the calendar, these moments of celebration, were always about connection to our soul, honouring the land and our journey upon it.
And yet, as I look on the modern consumerist versions, it seems to be the opposite.
Buying into practises and things that damage the earth and our bodies.
Increasing disconnection rather than connection.
So if on this beautiful day and night of death and rebirth, new beginnings and letting go.
This festival of honouring our deaths and the path of our ancestors, this festival of fire; you find yourself eating piles of deadening sugar, surrounded by plastic wrapped junk, with no thought of connection to life, to heart to soul.
I invite you to carve out just 20 minutes of your time, to either light a candle, walk in the woods or make a mandala or a shrine under a tree; made from leaves, nut casings, lichen, feathers; whatever feels right to you, that represents all you have been through and all that you are growing towards.
Or make time to sit in candlelight, firelight or moonlight and just listen and feel into what has been and what you wish to move towards.
Honour in some way your life and the life of those who came before you, especially the ones who touched your heart with love and grief and carved a space in your bones for life to fill you with it’s beauty.
On this day especially, honour the wise ones; the witches whose knowledge of plants, nature, birth, death, seasons and beauty have brought so much to this earth.
It is those ancestors who brought forth much wisdom, and yet we still degrade their memory and celebrate the terrible killings of our wise ones through mockery and hate.
Let the young girls and boys know, that a strong wise woman, ‘a witch’ is a wonderful being indeed.
Break down the distorted misunderstandings and break free of celebrating a hideous belief, that witches were devil worshipping baby eaters, but were instead, our earth based wisdom our strong women.
Just take a moment if you can to connect to something more beautiful, more real.
Reclaim your knowing and understanding.
Your heart and soul will thank you for it.
~ Brigit Anna McNeill
Art by Tijana Lukovic, “Samhain”
