How I came to lead ceremonies and celebrations of the Celtic Wheel of Year...
I remember the first time I felt the urge to celebrate one of the Celtic Wheel of the Year’s eight sabbaths. I was then a volunteer at the Schumacher College in lovely Devon back in 2019. Autumn was drawing in, with cold winds, early nights and big woollen jumpers. I had never paid attention to these sabbaths consciously, nor did I know much about them then. I had heard of solstices and equinoxes but considered them as solar rather than human-centred events. As for the other four lunar ones, namely Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain, I had for sure never heard of them. Yet, I had celebrated Halloween - which coincides with Samhain - in the past and, for some reason that goes beyond my understanding, that year felt like the time to celebrate that date again.
I didn’t feel like celebrating it in the “traditional” way of trick or treating nor dressing up with random costumes (though I now find those traditions quite fun!). I had just recently gone through some immense breakthroughs in my way of seeing the world and opened myself to spirituality after years of obstinate atheism. Things around me felt sacred and enchanted once more, and I wanted to treat that date with as much reverence as I felt for the world.
And so I did some research on Halloween. I found out about its modern traditions particularly developed by the keen American party spirit, and its origins in folk traditions of the United Kingdom and Ireland. I read some of the stories: Jack O’ Lantern and his turnip which in time became a pumpkin, the White Lady and the creepy stories kids amuse themselves with late in the night, the Night of Spirits and why people dress up in scary ways to frighten the most unwanted evil spirits… I then looked into the Christian origins of All Saints’ Day. And the Mexican’s Day of the Dead celebrations. I looked at Wiccan and other pagan traditions too. All seemed to agree on one main thing: Halloween (or Samhain as I now call it) is the time of the year when the veil between the Seen and the Unseen, or the Visible and the Invisible, is at its thinnest and therefore is at the best time of the year to commune with spirits.
Admittedly, being a newbie in spirituality, this gave me the chills. Perhaps one of the reasons I had chosen to remain for so long on the atheistic side was because deep inside, I felt scared of the so-called Invisible world. I wanted it to be illogical so I could dismiss it; but when life started serving me a bunch of illogical yet very-real life lessons, I had no choice but to accept paradox as a new truth to my reality. This meant that the Invisible might be real after all.
It was fascinating to go back to the origins of that date. I felt a deep sense of connection with our elders through this research, and wondered if perhaps I felt the call because of my grandad’s relatively recent passing. This felt like a lovely (albeit nostalgic) way of honouring those I love that have moved on, and thank my ancestors for all that I am today. A part of me remains to this day sceptical about it all (an unfortunate leftover of my cultural upbringing); but I managed to convince that part that either way, whether my grandad could really hear me or not, it was a loving way of reflecting on it all and of finding gratitude for my heritage. Somehow, it felt important.
And so, it became time for action. How would I do it? I had never organised such an event before. Would people even be keen for it? I knew some Brazilian students had honoured their Dead last year at the College, but I wasn’t Brazilian and I was keen to create a space where all traditions could be honoured so that everyone could feel involved. I myself hadn’t really picked a tradition yet. It would be years before I would settle on Celtic and druidic mysticism. I needed this celebration to be dogma-free so we could all go wild with our imaginations.
First important factor: the ceremony had to be set outside in Nature, around a fire in the woods.
Second: there would need to be pumpkins.
Third: everyone should be able to propose something. Old and new traditions welcome.
Fourth: there would be an altar dedicated to our loved ones that have moved on.
Fifth: I would need help.
Another volunteer at the College offered to help. She was keen on leading a grieving ceremony. At the time, this didn’t speak much to me, but I knew she had her ghosts and agreed to co-create this event with her. Unfortunately, she bailed on me at the very last minute on the day when I most needed help; I was quite crushed, dealing with all the stress of the event’s organisation, whilst frustratingly understanding that she had a lot do deal with emotionally on that date (fair enough! this date can stir up some pretty strong emotions…).
The rains had been heavy the past few weeks, so heavy that they formed a stream in the forest where the celebrations were to be held. The stream was too large to walk across, so I had to build an improvised bridge. As I laid down a wooden plank feeling angry and frustrated about the situation and the lack of help, I had one of those light-bulb moments: the bridge I was building to get to the ceremony setting was like the bridge I wanted to help people cross that night between the Worlds. Nature offered me effortlessly the perfect metaphor I needed to help people understand the meaning of this sacred date. I was being helped, just not by the Visible world. I remembered why, or rather for whom I was hosting this ceremony: it was for my grandad, my ancestors, and all those in the Invisible that were not honoured nor appreciated enough and deserved love even when their physicality had ceased to exist. My heart opened all at once, and eagerly I returned to the rest of the preparations.
I went to the kitchens and ordered with Julia the chef a bunch of carving pumpkins, to add a touch of modernity and American tradition to the celebration. And because carving pumpkins is fun… and we adults tend to only engage in this when we have the good excuse of having children around, but in truth, we all love a bit of pumpkin carving. We all do. We also agreed to use the rest of the pumpkins to make a lovely community dinner in the theme of Autumn.
I ordered some face painting to go with some Day of the Dead typical skull & flowers drawings, which I find brings both sadness and joy to this gloomy topic still very much taboo in most of the Western world. I bought tons of candles for the altar for each person to dedicate one to their loved ones. I spread the word to all the students that a pumpkin was waiting for them to be carved on their lunch break. I found a poem about Life and Death in a book from the library which I would read at supper to set the tone. Satish Kumar, the inspiring figure behind the Schumacher College, was to visit and give a fireside chat about Love that evening: perfect! That would leave me enough time to set up the space between dinner and the start of the ceremony. One of the students agreed to lead a meditation around the fire in the woods. Another promised he’d help make the fire. Another to do the facepainting. Help from the Visible was coming, at last!
The rest of the day unfolded as I had hoped, with lots of enjoyment from adults carving pumpkins (some of whom had never done it before!), painting their faces and having a wonderful autumnal dinner. I was surprised at how calm and relaxed I felt about speaking in public. This had never particularly been my forte; I was good at it, but always very nervous before, during and after. This time, it is as if I knew – or felt – that something was supporting me, from beyond the Visible realm. I wasn’t doing it for myself (well, not entirely), I was doing it for Them, and They were protecting me. I felt aligned, in my place and happy to hold this role.
As the dinner was getting packed up and the community went to listen to Satish’s wise words, I set out for the woods with the carved pumpkins and candles to lit the way to the place of ceremony. The rains hadn’t finished saying what they meant to say, and lashed out just as I came out. “Oh, great” I ironically thought. “No one will want to come to the woods now”. The winds had something to say too! Thankfully the trees protected us a bit, but I knew I’d have to make a fire with wet wood under a wet sky, barely protected by a shabby wooden roof. I went out in the darkness, and I must admit, I felt scared. Alone, in the dark woods, with mad rain, violent winds, possibly some spirits flying about and no moon. Not the most reassuring setup.
I was struggling to get the fire going, when at last the friend who had promised to help with the fire came. His presence reassured me: at least, we’ll be two from the Visible world. We managed to get the fire going, and slowly, one by one, people starting joining in. There was a beautiful altar where people could put pictures or objects associated with their loved ones. I had a wonderful meditative moment watching my grandad’s smile, praying for him and lighting a candle for him, wishing him well on his journey. Others did the same. Accompanied by a shamanic drum, another friend led a wonderfully touching improvised meditation. An old man who was here on a short course, whom no one saw before nor after the ceremony (maybe an angel?) sung us a song, a sea shanty which I still sing around fires today:
Earth and Ocean
Sand and rolling seas
Wind in motion
Fire be lit in me
Sail away, hey hey,
Gently touch down to
Earth and Ocean…
Touching stories of our loved ones were told. Tears were shed in loving memory and in the sharing of hearts. Laughter echoed in the forest at the remembrance of some of their wickedness. Myths and legends were drawing images before our eyes, feeling palpable in the air so thick with the numinous. The rains stopped, leaving only the fire cracklings to delight our wide-opened ears. Any fears had left to make space for the abundant love we all felt for this moment and the Invisible watching over us…
This was the first sacred sabbath I celebrated and orchestrated. The next one would come a couple of years later, after the pandemic’s most aggressive phase, this time on Genevan soil. Two years on, we celebrate each of the eight sabbaths of the year, always around a fire and in the same spirit of honouring the date, the egregor it brings with it of all the times this sabbath has ever been celebrated, what it represented for our ancestors and what it represents to us today with our modern view, welcoming all forms of spirituality and belief systems, in community. We do it for us, we do it for the symbolic. We do it because we are humans, and after all, humans love a good excuse to sit around a fire and let magic happen.
My eternal gratitude to the Schumacher College and its fantastic lecturers and community for opening my head, heart and hands to the numinous and helping me believe that all is possible. A huge thank you to all those from the Visible and Invisible alike who partake in these celebrations by my side and inspired me to build a website around it! I am eternally grateful for the wonders that we as a community are capable of manifesting.
With much love,
Sarah from The Avalonia Project
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