The Full Moon of October this year coincides with the Celtic feast of Samhain (Sow-in), also known as Halloween. On that day, October 31st, the Eve of All Saints Day, the living celebrate the cycle of life and the end of Summer. It is a celebration that essentially marks the end of the harvest and the descent of the Sun, as we slowly move to the darkest part of the Solar Year in the Northern Hemisphere (in the South the holiday is celebrated on 1st May ). The Samhain is the celebration in honour of the Dead, the respect for the cycle of life and the rhythm of the World, where the fallow is necessary for Spring to come and the Worn-out is honoured because it carries the Wisdom of Time.
On Halloween night, the veil between the world of the Living and the Dead becomes thinner and according to Celtic tradition, necromancers and witches could easily communicate with the Other Side and try to convey messages but also to appease the Forces. of Darkness. Traditionally, it is also considered the Witches' New Year's Eve and the witches had many rituals for this day, which were later adopted by Wicca and are celebrated even nowadays.
It is no coincidence that this holiday is celebrated in the month where the Sun is in the sign of Scorpio. A sign that symbolically translates as the sign of Death and Renaissance. The sign is ruled by Pluto and traditionally by Mars, planets associated with warriors but also those who are capable of killing and being killed, those who easily could become Eagles or Snakes. It is important to mention that in astromythological wisdom, we see Mars also rule the sign of Aries, a sign that marks Spring and the time of sowing. In other words, Mars has two faces, the driving force, and the destructive force. Also, Scorpio is a sign of initiation and during the initiation, the Warrior-Student must go down to the Underworld, confront the Darkness of Himself, converse with his old Self and the Demons and then transform himself into a fearless warrior.
In Alice Bailey's theosophical work: "The Labours of Hercules", in the sign of Scorpio, Hercules has to face Lernaean Hydra, the monster with the nine heads that spit fire. The heads of Hydra correspond to the nine monsters we need to tame: Sex, money, comfort, hatred, fear, separation, desire for power, arrogance and cruelty. Hercules remembers the words of his Master who told him that we rise only when we kneel and so he did. He put the club aside, knelt in the mud and defeated Hydra with his hands, as he raised it in the air and in the Light and weakened it. The legend ends with Hercules cutting off the head that made her immortal and burying it in the ground, where her screams can still be heard. We are called to do the same labour on the Full Moon of October 31st. A Full Moon that takes place on the Taurus-Scorpio axis with the participation of the planet Uranus and urges us to re-evaluate our security, to break bonds and to be transformed or to transform what ultimately does not work. With respect to the Life Cycle to leave or reveal what is worn out. In other words, let my leaves fall even though I look dead, but prepare myself internally for the New Circle. This Full Moon also makes positive aspects with the planetary body Vesta in the sign of Virgo which is associated with harmony, home peace and in this case, the cleansing (Virgo) of the House from negative energy. And because in this life what happens above happens below, one of the Goddesses that Witches honour nowadays on Sahmain Night is Hekate. The witch Goddess of the Underworld according to the ancient Greek tradition was the protector of the House, Goddess of the Dead but also of Home Harmony. Furthermore, based on the Hellenistic tradition, people had been honouring the popularly invited Goddess every month, especially in the Dark Moons, by cleansing the House from miasmas (negative energy) and by making food offerings in her honour, also known as the Hecate's Deipnon (Supper). Hecate was rising from Hell with her Hounds to collect the Souls of the recently deceased and people left candles and beautiful dinners outside their houses or on a crossroad to treat her. If the Goddess was satisfied, she would help the Soul with the transition but would also protect the house by bringing harmony and luck. So the Supper that usually had sweets, fruits such as pomegranate, nuts, onions, garlic and more, was something similar to the Kolyva that we do today in Orthodox religion on Psychosavato (Sabbath of Souls). According to many researchers, the Supper should not have been consumed by the Living, but by Aristophanes, we have an indication that the Supper was often eaten by beggars or poor families. A great coincidence is the exact time of this Full Moon (GMT) the rising sign is Pisces, a sign associated with the mysterious but also the universal love and charity. So this year, a year when many Souls left our plane, let us celebrate this holiday with our friends, doing a little charity, cleansing our house from all the negative energy of the Year, let us make cakes, let us light candles, let us burn bay leaves and rosemary to exorcise the miasma, let us pray for the Souls who left unjustly but also the Souls who were killed in wars, Souls who failed to incarnate, Souls who had no one to cry for them, Souls of our ancestors as without them we would not be here and all together let us celebrate Life and its strange Wisdom.
Anastasia Diakidi
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