Now, from the perspective of someone in the Neopagan community, Samhain is indeed one of the eight major holidays of the Wheel of the Year (a calendar of holidays that merges primarily holy days from the Celts and the Norse pagan religions). It’s seen as a time to honor our ancestors (not dissimilar to the Hispanic Day of the Dead type celebrations), and a time when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is thinnest. Spiritually, just as the weather gets colder and activities overall take a more inward focus, it’s a beginning of the half of the year when we look more inward, introspective focus.
Yes, Montalban, I know that the seasons are reversed for you. The Wheel of the Year celebrations came out of Northern Europeans traditions and, as made sense, corresponded to the seasonal rhythm there. Some Neopagans in the Southern hemisphere do what seems reasonable to me and switch them around to make sense of their actual environment (here in the Southern US, we do some of that as well, as the underlying reason or meaning for the holidays is different because the timing of our growing season, etc is different than Northern Europe). Some probably simply stick to the form they read about in the books or choose to try to follow the order because of wanting a feeling of conection to the roots of way the holidays were celebrated originally. Much like Christmas celebrations—I understand a lot of folks take to the beach, while some pull out the fake snow, etc?
A lot of the folks I know who follow various Neopagan religions, including Wicca, make a point of separating the Samhain activities from the Halloween activities. Trick or treating is not a religious activity. We aren’t Wiccan, but find the timing of the holidays useful for helping keep us aware of the rhythm of the year. Personally, we had a lot of fun taking our daughter out trick or treating last night, going to Halloween parties with friends over the weekend, carving pumpkins, watching silly monster movies, etc, but it had nothing to do with religion. We don’t do slasher-type or very sexualized costumes, watch those kinds of movies or visit haunted houses/etc with those themes because I consider them inappropriate.
Our religious celebration consists of visiting the graves of my ancestors (because they are local, my husband’s are not) as a remembrance, talking to our daughter about those who came before, and noting the changes in the season. Some groups I have visited have indeed included divination, or something like a New Year celebration of burning slips of paper that represent negative attitudes that you would like to leave behind with the old year—fear of something, procrastination, a negative attitude about or anger with someone, etc.
Similarly, we celebrate Winter Solstice as a separate holiday from the American secular traditions of Christmas and Spring Equinox as something separate from the American secular traditions that have grown up around Easter (we pretty obviously don’t celebrate these as Christian religious holidays since we aren’t Christian). Easter is much easier as it is usually more widely separated from the date of our religious holiday. We usually participate in meals or visiting on Christmas and Easter with family for whom it is a religious holiday because we are invited, but we don’t celebrate them religiously as they aren’t part of our religion.
I am sure there are a lot of folks in the overall Neopagan community who blend the two holidays more than we do. We began doing it to make the distinction clearer for our young child and we like the practice because it is less likely that the religious meanings of the holidays will get subsumed in the commercial secular activities.
then any efforts of my mum would be totally fruitless.
That sounds very practical - forgetting of course the seasonal differences regarding lighting I mentioned, as well.