Samhain poetry and traditions

Samhain greetings from the Pagan blogosphere!

The San Francisco Chronicle has a Pagan-friendly article about the Reclaiming celebrations of Samhain, where people are reviving old traditions like the Dumb Supper.

Sorita d'Este is feeling the Hallowe'en Love with some traditional spells:

When the word Halloween is spoken “love” is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind! It is usually pumpkins, candy, ghosts, monsters and witches, fairies and other otherworldly creatures! And truly these creatures all have their place in the myths, legends and magick of Halloween, or “All Hallow’s Eve” but so does love!

Several charms for predicting love, divining for future lovers, finding out if love is “true” and variations on this theme have been recorded as being ideal for performing on this night.

She also explores the Welsh festival of Nos Calan Gaeaf (the Welsh equivalent of Hallowe'en):

In Tenby (Pembrokeshire, Wales) hempseed would often be sowed at crossroads and women would perform a rite to do this at midnight first digging a small patch of ground. Then they would chant asking for a vision of their true love to appear to them and to rake the hemp seed up.

Anne Johnson at The Gods are Bored waxes lyrical about Samhain:

The air is crisp, the veil is thin, the year has ended, the crops are in.

Is there any more sane time of year to consider the 365-day cycle complete? When the last frosted pumpkin has been hauled from the field, when the apples have all been collected, when even the grass shrinks back in the cold, a circuit has come to an end.

I posted a Samhain song on my poetry blog which I wrote back in 1995:

The tide's on the ebb and the darkness grows
The wheel of the year turns into the night
Light me a candle to mirror the stars
For the darkness gives birth to the light.

Staghuntress at The Hunt has also posted a poem for Samhain:

Land of the ancestors,
place of primordial chaos.
There will I journey,
stripped of self
to walk in Death
and be remade.

A blessed Samhain to all our readers!