How to Celebrate Samhain

Samhain, October 31st, is a festival on the Wheel of the Year marking the end of the harvest season. Often called the Celtic New Year, it is a time when the veil between the living and the spirit worlds grows thin, inviting reflection, remembrance, and transformation. Rooted in ancient traditions, it offers a unique opportunity to honor your beloved dead, connect with nature's cycles, and embrace the mysteries of death and rebirth.

Whether you're beginning to explore this fire festival or already love it, there are many meaningful ways to celebrate Samhain.

Samhain celebrations blend solemnity with joy, offering space for both introspection and community. Whether you prefer solitary rituals or sharing the experience with loved ones, these ideas can help you craft a celebration that resonates with your personal path and the timeless rhythms of the Wheel of the Year.

Let's get started!

Do a Samhain Ritual

Performing a Samhain ritual is a meaningful way to mark the turning of the year and the thinning veil between the worlds.

To begin, cleanse your area with smoke from herbs like sage and setting up seasonal symbols—such as pumpkins, pine cones, autumn leaves, and crystals like obsidian or smoky quartz. Use candles to represent the returning light and invite ancestral presence, grounding yourself with deep breaths or meditation.

The ritual can include offerings to ancestors and spirits, such as food, drink, or written prayers, creating a bridge between the living and the dead. This time is ideal for shadow work, releasing what no longer serves you, and setting intentions for personal transformation and new life.

Incorporate divination tools like tarot cards, runes, or pendulums to seek guidance and insight, taking advantage of Samhain's heightened spiritual energy.

You might also engage in storytelling, poetry, or chanting to invoke the transformative power of Cerridwen or other deities associated with the season. Conclude with gratitude and grounding—thank the spirits and ancestors, extinguish the flames mindfully, and journal your experiences.

Create a Samhain Altar for the Season

A Samhain altar often features symbols of the harvest, such as pumpkins, gourds, apples, and autumn leaves, alongside candles that represent the thinning veil between worlds. Include any deities, such as the horned god or Cerridwen, that you work with. Including seasonal herbs like sage, rosemary, or mugwort can invite protection and spiritual clarity in the dark half of the year. Crystals like obsidian or smoky quartz can enhance grounding and psychic insight. Even a small altar becomes a focal point for meditation, offerings, or divination.

Ancestor altars hold a special place within Samhain celebrations, serving as a dedicated space to remember deceased loved ones. These often include photographs, personal mementos, favorite foods or drinks of the departed, and written messages or prayers. Lighting candles or incense invites their presence and acknowledges the ongoing relationship between the living and the dead. Many people also include symbols of protection and guidance, such as feathers, crystals, or spiritual tools, to support safe communication.

Honor the Dead

Honoring family and others who have passed away is a sacred practice during Samhain, a time when the veil between the living and the spirit world is at its thinnest.

Many traditions include a “dumb supper,” a candlelit meal eaten in silence to invite the presence of ancestors and loved ones who have passed. A special place is often set at the dinner table with a plate, cup, or personal memento for those who have crossed over, symbolizing their continued presence and inviting their blessings. This establishes a space for reflection, gratitude, and connection, allowing participants to remember the lives and legacies of those who came before.

Visiting cemeteries or ancestral burial grounds is another meaningful way to keep the dead in mind during Samhain. This act of remembrance might involve cleaning and decorating graves with flowers or seasonal offerings such as apples and herbs. The visit serves as both a physical and spiritual journey, bridging past and present while deepening the sense of lineage and continuity. Walking among the resting places of ancestors, one can meditate on mortality, legacy, and the cycles of life and death that Samhain so powerfully embodies.

Finally, inviting friends and family together to tell stories, flip through old photos and other mementos, and remember your deceased loved ones is a wonderful way to come together in their memory.

Together, these practices help to cultivate reverence, healing, and a connection to the unseen world during this liminal season.

Practice Divination

Practicing divination during Samhain is powerful because the veil between the physical world and the spirit realm is thinnest. Tools like tarot cards, runes, pendulums, or scrying mirrors become conduits for deeper insight.

Many practitioners use this time to seek guidance for the coming months, explore personal growth, or connect with the mysteries that Samhain invites us to embrace. The quiet, reflective energy of the season supports a meditative state that enhances intuition and the clarity of the divinatory experience.

Preparing a sacred space for divination often involves burning candles or herbs like mugwort or sage, and setting intentions for a protective, receptive environment. Because Samhain is a liminal time, divination practiced now can also serve as a celebration of transition—helping you release what no longer serves and invite new energies into your life.

Carve a Pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern

Carving pumpkins during Samhain is a beloved tradition. And it's a great way to celebrate Halloween, the modern version of Samhain! Originally rooted in the Celtic custom of carving turnips or gourds to create lanterns, these glowing vessels were believed to ward off malevolent spirits and guide benevolent ancestors safely home. Today, the jack-o'-lantern becomes a beacon in the gathering dusk, embodying the themes of transformation, protection, and light in darkness that are central to Halloween's magic.

Cherish Nature and the Earth

Celebrating the harvest during Samhain is a way of honoring the earth's final gifts before winter sets in. Prepare and share meals made from seasonal produce such as squash, root vegetables, apples, and grains—foods that reflect the hard work and abundance of the growing season.

Setting aside a portion of your meal as an offering to the land or your ancestors deepens the sacredness of the moment. You might also preserve some of the harvest through canning, drying herbs, or making herbal infusions, acknowledging that the cycle of life continues even as the earth grows quiet.

Spending time in nature is another meaningful way to celebrate Samhain. Take a mindful nature walk through the woods or your local park to observe the changing colors, fallen leaves, and cooling air. Collect natural items like acorns, pinecones, or colorful oak leaves to use in seasonal crafts. Forest bathing or sitting in silence under a tree can help you attune to the deep stillness that characterizes this time of year. As the natural world retreats into rest, we're reminded to slow down, listen inwardly, and recognize that even in decay, there is beauty and purpose.

Do Some Magic

Samhain is an ideal time for divination—for most pagans, tarot, scrying, runes, or pendulum work can yield deeper insights than usual, especially when asking about the new season and year ahead or seeking messages from spirit guides or ancestors.

It's also a powerful time for shadow work: exploring hidden fears, unresolved emotions, or parts of the self that are ready to be integrated. Lighting candles, setting new intentions, and working with symbols of transformation—like cauldrons, skulls, or seasonal herbs—can help guide personal evolution.

Samhain invites quiet reflection and connection with ancestral wisdom. Creating an ancestor altar, meditating on lineage, or performing rituals of remembrance can help you build a deeper connection with those who came before you. It's also a good time for cleansing—burning herbs like sage or mugwort to clear away old energy, and setting intentions for the inward journey of winter.

Wear a Costume

Another charming Halloween tradition, wearing costumes is rooted in ancient practices of disguise and spiritual protection. As the veil between worlds thins, it was once believed that spirits and otherworldly beings roamed freely on the earth. People wore masks or costumes to confuse or ward off any wandering souls with mischievous or malevolent intent.

Today, dressing up for Halloween remains a symbolic act. Whether embodying a spirit, archetype, or inner shadow, costumes allow us to explore hidden aspects of ourselves in a playful way. This becomes a form of theater combining identity, mystery, and transformation.

Have a Feast

A Samhain feast is a meaningful way to celebrate the final harvest. Include seasonal foods like root vegetables, apples, dark breads, stews, mulled wine, and hearty grains—nourishing dishes that reflect the earth's last offerings before winter.

Candlelight and silence may be observed at the start of the feast, followed by storytelling, music, or quiet reflection. Sharing a meal with friends and family, living or remembered, creates a sense of continuity and connection that embodies the spirit of Samhain.

How to Prepare for Samhain

Preparing for Samhain involves practical and spiritual steps to align with the season's introspective and transformative energy going into the new cycle of the year.

Begin by creating space in your home and heart for quiet reflection—decluttering physical spaces, setting out candles, and decorating with seasonal symbols like pumpkins, dried herbs, and autumn leaves.

Spiritually, preparation for Samhain means turning inward and honoring the natural cycles of death and renewal. Journaling, meditation, or dreamwork can help you explore what you're ready to release before winter begins. Consider what aspects of your life from the old year need to die away in order for new growth to take root in the coming year.

More on Samhain

Now that you know how to celebrate Samhain, here's more about this ancient Celtic festival.

About Samhain: An introduction to the Wheel of the Year holiday

About Samhain: Samhain holds a pivotal place on the Wheel of the Year, marking summer's end and the end of the harvest cycle that began at Lammas and continued through the autumn equinox. Celebrated on October 31st in the northern hemisphere, it sits opposite the fire festival Beltane, forming a gateway between the seen and unseen.

As the boundary between worlds thins, the witches' new year invites deep ideas, ancestral connection, and spiritual renewal. It is both a time of honoring the past year and preparing for the quiet gestation of the winter solstice.

Samhain Associations

Samhain associations: Samhain associations reflect its themes of transition, mystery, and spiritual depth.

Cerridwen

Cerridwen and Samhain: Cerridwen is connected to Samhain through her associations with transformation, wisdom, and the mysteries of life, death, and rebirth. She embodies the spiritual work of shedding of the old to make way for new ideas.

Samhain Journal Prompts

Samhain journal prompts: Prompts for the season.

Samhain Meditation

Samhain mediation: A guided meditation for the new year at Samhain.

The Samhain Companion

Get your copy of our new book, a guide to Samhain celebration!

Happy Samhain!