by Tiffany Steele

Created on: May 09, 2008

Every religion honors special days of the year set aside for
celebrations of various events that are important to the specific
religion's theology, and Wicca is certainly no exception. The Wiccans
annually celebrate eight special holidays, or Sabbats, derived from the
French word meaning "to frolic and revel." Most of these Sabbats will be
familiar to the non-Wiccan, as the Christians have adapted most Pagan

celebrations into its own holidays, making a few cosmetic changes in the
process. All of these holidays encompass the Wheel of the Year (sometimes called
the "Wheel of Life" for obvious reasons), a circular symbol used to illustrate the
holidays and their effect on the Wiccan consciousness throughout the year.
Each of the Sabbats taken together is symbolic of human existence, as well as
every living thing in nature, utilizing the Goddess and God to personify
the travel from birth to death to eventual rebirth in an unending,
oscillating cycle.

SAMHAIN - Ovtober 31

Other Names: All Hallow's Eve, Ancestor Night, Feast of the Dead,
Halloween

Christian Equivalent: All Saint's Day (Halloween itself is celebrated
commercially, but is not considered a holy day by Christianity), and All
Soul's Day

Purpose: Samhain (which is supposed to be pronounced sow-en, though some
modern Pagans pronounce it as spelled) is the most important holy night
of the year. In fact, it is considered the Celtic New Year. It is
believed to be the evening in which the veil between the realm of the
living and the dead is thinnest, allowing members of the spirit realm to
walk the earth in great numbers. It is thereby considered the evening
where our loved ones who have gone over to the other side of the veil
are honored with a special feast. This is most likely the reason All
Saint's Day was created by the Roman Catholic Church to celebrate
honored individuals who have passed on, as well as the similar All Souls
Day, which honors the memories of our individual loved one's who have
passed on.

The association with spirits of the dead walking the earth,
as well as faeries and other etheric beings roaming the material plane
in large numbers that evening, is probably the basis for the modern
Halloween's emphasis on ghosts and goblins, and the popular
stereotypical image of the witch as a swarthy old crone with green skin
was derived from negative images of real witches as being corrupt
harbingers of evil or mischief.

The God symbolically dies of old age at this point, though the Mother
Goddess is now pregnant with the reborn Sun God

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