Samhain

October 31, 2006

!(inset)http://static.flickr.com/118/277701226_8eb55a7005_m.jpg! Today — or tomorrow, depending on how you choose to count — is Samhain, one of the more important holidays for a variety of pagans. We are not doing anything particularly interesting to mark the event this year. We have a new bed, but that’s more a trick of timing than anything else.

So happy Samhain in addition to a happy Halloween.

Pagans tend to get a little defensive around Samhain; as the holiday has become more popular for adults, conservative Christians have become increasingly shrill about the Satanic overtones of the holiday. Much of their so-called history on the subject is unsourced and “frankly ludicrous”:http://world-o-crap.com/blog/?p=232. Here are some sites that offer more informative views:

* Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance: “Samhain”:http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_sa.htm
* Mara Freeman of CelticSpirit.org on “Samhain”:http://www.celticspirit.org/samhain.htm.
* Selena Fox’s “The Spiritual New Year”:http://www.beliefnet.com/story/116/story_11615_1.html at BeliefNet.

??Photo: Minipixel’s “Ballyloughlin standing stone”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/minipixel/277701226/??

Posted in Religion