Memoirs of a Goddess

Say “Samhain” to most people and you get one of two reactions: a blank look, or “oh, like the demon guy from that one movie.” Neither one is REALity. There is no demon named Samhain. There never was. What actually happened on this night, and to this night, over the last twenty-five hundred years is a better story than the horror-movie version — and it’s the one this blog already promised to tell straight. What it actually was Samhain (pronounced roughly SAH-win) is Old Irish

Eight festivals, one circle, and the honest story of how they got on the same calendar. Every witchy calendar shows the same picture: a circle, eight spokes, eight festivals, usually captioned “ancient Celtic wisdom.” Here’s the honest version. Nearly every festival on the wheel is old. The wheel itself, the eightfold circle that ties them together, is about seventy years old. That’s not a scandal. That’s REALity, and it’s more interesting than the myth. The honest history Me