When do you think the "veil is thinnest" and most magical?

Do you follow the date since it could be argued that with all the thought and intent that is centred around around this particular date gives it much more of a focus than at any other particular time of the year?

Or do you wait for the full moon, which may well be historically more accurate from the days calenders? Are the lunar attributes more powerful to you?

I would be interested in reading your thoughts.

MD

If i have counted correctly the full moon will be on 13th Nov.
please tell me if i am wrong!

personally i will go with the calender date as i have only just started to work with the moon. but will be doing something on the full moon anyway so it will be a double celebration for me.

"Sahmain" is the Irish for "November", in the same way as "Bealtaine" is the Irish for "May". The traditional way of counting the day is from sunset to sunset, so the first of November starts at sunset on October 31st. Hence we have fireworks on October 31st, for Samhain. In the same way, Mayday celebrations start at sunset on April 30th, but with a different kind of fireworks.

We're celebrating on 31st. I'm really chuffed as the same friends I celebrated Beltane with are having a bash and have invited us again. Although I enjoy our family festivals I do love to go to a party occasionally They have a fire pit in their garden and get everyone involved in the ritual so it's very family oriented. I can't wait

When one celebrates may be determined by whether or not you have a UKP blog. For us, it seems, 31 October falls on a Saturday this year. For everyone else it falls on a Friday.

Bloggers - check out the October calendar on your site!

How odd... we seem to have two 26th's!

Oh and I'll be celebrating on the 31st.

31st for me, haul out the log burner in the back garden and do some witchery at the same time

The 31st...however for me, Halloween is my favourite secular festival

Secular? Isn't that a bit provocative, in these parts?

Question, do you decorate you homes for the festivities.?
there is so much for Halloween in the shops or is all too commercialized?

i will be working but there will be a jack o lantern in my front window and a dish of goodies for those who come calling.

perhaps. However I consider Samhain to refer to the Pagan bit and Halloween to refer to the secular.

Now if I was a good little Asatruar, I wouldn't be celebrating Samhain at all because the Germanic folks didn't do it. However I'm always game for a good party and UPG makes this time of year special to me.

Snap.

The 31st, absolutely. I have to say this is the first time I've ever heard of the full moon having anything to do with Hallowe'en. Have you any more info on that?

Could it not be a confusion between the Julian calendar 31st of October being the equivalent of approx the 15th of November?

Oh dear, we aren't going to have to produce that certificate again are we?

I think it should be published for all to see...
BM
xx

Certificate??? Me no undertand!!!

Is this going to be like that time when that big German woman at the town court demanded a certificate that proved lack of domicile in the UK?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the 31st for me, I've always just seen the calendar dates as a way of shaping the year. They may or may not be 'accurate' but they are convenient, especially when you work and celebrate with others, allows plenty of time for pencilling in your diary.

Q

I'm miffed, all our decorations are in the loft and I can't get into the loft cause I can't do ladders, and hubby is on crutches so he can't either He better be off them by start of December cause I'll be really pissed off if the lights can't get put on the roof or I can't get my tree and lights for the living room.

I think you'll find the date of the November full moon varies each year.

We have written evidence that MH is not a good little heathen, that.. on occasion she has been known to cheat with... wait for it... the Wiccan gods!!!

Yes thank you for the reminder of the obvious.

However, I know of no occult tradition that celebrates Samhain or Halloween on the full moon in Novemeber and so I was wondering if it was a corruption or confusion of the Julian Calendar idea which does celebrate technically in November but instead of the Julian calendar date, adding the moon for that extra mystical feel.

well thanks for trying to answer it anyway, I guess we'll have to wait for Mousedemon to return to be sure.

could it be odd if i said that i like both the 31 october and the 1 of november . its a great festive

The only path I know that celebrates Samhain in November is Trad craft (various), who celebrate it on the 12th, due to the change in calendar. They sometimes celebrate it on the closest full moon, if the full moon lies around the 10th to the 14th, but apart from that they stick to 2 weeks after the 31st. No doubt there are religions that wait for the full moon (I think Diwali starts then) but not pagan ones. Always happy to be enlightened though.

This year I will be 'celebrating' on the 25th, due to being invited to a party (I don't want to go, but the daughter is making me). 31st will be spent driving to Oxford.

Apparently it's all about the calender dates, and that we have only been using this particular form of dating for the past 500 years or so. Therefore the 31st is a fairly modern invention. Some people (and I have only come across a few) say that it probably would have been the moon phases that were followed, rather than a prescribed date.

I don't know. I can see their point, since actual dates wouldn't really have been used. However, the argument could go that all the "energies" (for want of a better expression) that people inbue the 31st Oct make it the more meaningful time.

A similar thing could be said about Beltane, is the April 30th/May 1st, or is it when the Hawthorn blooms, or would it make sense to celebrate it on the full moon then?

I don't know what I think really. I can see both points.

Well now you have cleared that up!

As far as I know, Samhain was celebrated when the meat harvest was brought in, ie the animals that had been roaming the hills all summer were brought back down and any old, lame or otherwise useless ones were slaughtered for their meat to feed the household over the winter. The festival therefore got the connotations of respecting the dead. I don't think it ever had anything more to do with the moon apart from the fact that the moon is a handy measuring device.

I think the moon thing is a modern invention. There seems to have been a move to tie all the festivals to the full moon to make them more "authentic".

To be honest, the Germanic folks feasted at the start of winter around about the 15th of October...well obviously it depended where you are geographically because winter would come sooner in Iceland than further south.

This festival marked the end of the slaughtering and preservation period (October was known as 'blood moon' for a reason ) and was the last feast before the start of the long dangerous winter. Sort of a last time to sit down and feast with family before the hard times because not everyone could guarantee making it through.

Now this has obvious links with death however surprisingly, in Germanic tradition, it's Yule that is more about the dead (hence the emphasis on staying indoors with family and nice safe fires burning as opposed to going outside where the wild hunt could get you).

I may be wrong, but hasn't it been around about 4 billion years?

So Samhain was literally a moveable feast! This ties into Mousedemons comment about Beltane too - should it be celebrated 31st April no matter what, or should it be celebrated when the Hawthorne flowers? I would go for the latter, but sticking to calender dates can be useful for those with more urban surroundings.

Gawain, you said a mouthful.

Anyone here ever tried to reconcile a lunar calendar with a solar one? Do you know what an Epact is? Or a Golden Number? Ever heard of a Metonic Calendar?
The Catholic Church has the best Website on Metonic Calendars - as they should: they've been keeping track of them for more than a thousand years.

The Calendar is one of the great ignored inventions. It's not just for sticking on the wall and arranging the next knees up. Imagine a world where you'll be in serious trouble if you don't appear at the church on Sunday. Every Sunday. The priest will tell you when Lent is (if it wasn't obvious). If you're a farmer, you'll be keeping an eye on the weather, but if you've got a nice dry warm spell in February, you don't go sowing your seed if it's meant to be sown in March. Your life could depend on it.
Yes, it's great if the May is out on Mayday - but if the hens weren't laying by Easter you might have already starved to death.

When I celebrate the Wheel of the Year, I'm not just celebrating the changing seasons, I'm celebrating our ability to keep track of them, properly, mathematically, astronomically. I'm celebrating the Calendar. Here's to it! Cheers!

There is a difference between a moveable feast, like Passover and Easter, and a practical one like the start of winter. Even in the UK there's a big difference in the seasons from John O'Groats to Land's End. In the Folk Songs you can hear it, for instance, whereas the Southern English songs tend to go "As I was a-walking one morning in May..." while the Scottish ones are more likely to be "As I was a-walking one morning in June..."

If your weather is too harsh for you to celebrate Samhain on Samhain, then you'll celebrate it earlier. That's a practical consideration, not a moveable feast.

Celebrate it when you like. But I'll celebrate with the calendar.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make though (also, what on earth does hens laying eggs have to do with the calender? You would starve whether or not you had something telling you the date).

The point I was trying to make was that these festivals, which have been appropriated by neo-pagans and given Celitic names, were originally moveable feasts that depended on the results of the various harvests, or in the case of Beltane, a festival to send the livestock off to graze in the further meadows. The fact that they are now given specific dates, regardless of whether the act they were celebrating has actually happened, is what interests me here.

I understand your reference to the sowing of the crops, and it is not in doubt that farmers could and would use a handy reference hanging in the sky to measure the days, but what use is a calender when the crops failed? I love calenders and am fascinated by time and our measurement of it, but it I recognise that the Wheel of the Year was not always fixed like it is now, for good reason.

Where's this come from? I never mentioned calendars, I commented on the trend to focus on the full moon as the decider for major festivals. Calendars are a great invention but they're no substitute for being able to recognise the changes in the seasons and the land.

These two statements are contradictory though. You are saying that people would celebrate the festival when it is appropriate for them, but then go on to state that your preference is to stick to set dates. We weren't saying that was incorrect or wrong, we were just noodling about why there could be a difference between certain dates and customs.

I agree with gawain: where did this come from?

Gawain, love your pic, how do I change mine to Jenny?

MM08

Go to My Controls and the Edit Avatar Settings on the left. If the picture's on your computer use the upload thing or if it it's on t'net use the url one.

I'm a moon sort of person and mostly do any celebrating on the nearest moon or sun event. When i llived in the city i used dates for the festivals as you rarely got to see the moon anyway and dates are what everyone uses so i suppose it's convenient. But I never seem to know what date it is and quite often what month either so i missed quite a few festivals. Now i live in the country and see the moon from rise to set i use that which cuts out the hassle with the dates. So when i see we're coming up to a full moon and it's around a festival i plan a celebration.
I personally can't see dates having much influence except in relatively modern times but that's just me. Farmers here sow on moons, harvest on moons, give the chickens extra rations on moons, cut the trees, kill the rabbits etc. All on moons. Most non hi-tech farmers i have met seem to do the same, moon or natural moments (sounds like a chocolate ad!) like the arrival of the first robin or the first cough of a cow after the midwinter solstice and usually have a relevant rhyme as a memory aid. Everything else mundane is done with dates; pay taxes, go to supermarket etc. So i tend to follow the moon or the sun regardless of tradition and use the dates as next best option like if it's raining on the moon.

Quibbling about the term "Moveable feast".

Picky picky!

I understand that the reason why the feasts were moveable - because practical consideration made them so. No point in having Lammas when the wheat was still in the fields!

If you're going to shift the date of Hallowe'en, you need to shift May day too. They have to be 6 months apart. I can't explain why, but for me they just do.

sorry, also I'm not clear why anyone would automatically go for the full moon either. Why not mark a time when the year is betwixt and between summer and winter when there's a half moon?

As the early pagans were into agriculture, following of course the even earlier ones who weren't, the moon, full and new have a strength of influence that generallly speaking the half moons do not and i'm sure yon old pagans were aware of this. But the full moon is personal i think, well it is to me anyway. A calendar date means little to me personally. I like to be out doors and it's also a matter of convenenience to have a full moon to light your rites whether you believe in any power or not.
If you live outdoors for any length of time the full/dark moons become terribly important to you.

So, guessing then?

I don't follow. guessing what??

Now, hang on there! Just because I helped out a bunch of Wiccans and assorted other pagans last Beltane because their drum banger was sound asleep (no names, no pack drill, Tas... ) that is no grounds for accusing me of cheating with their gods.

Well, OK, so my principal patron spreads himself around a bit...

i go with the 31st but this year i am working a 12 hour shift until 10 pm so im not sure what im going to do,i will be falling asleep by 10.30pm