Pagan New Year: A Solo Ritual for Samhain

Samhain, also known as the Celtic New Year, is the most profound, important, and best known of all pagan sabbats. Samhain is perhaps the favorite Celtic high holiday of all. After all, it is the witches’ New Year celebration and the time to honor and commune with your elders and family members who have passed on to the other side, as well as the time to celebrate the passing year and set intentions for new blessings in the new year to come. 

Supplies:

• Altar space
• 8 candles
• Powdered incense
• Bread
• Salt
• Wine

1. Prepare for this most holy night and rite by setting up an altar. Place three candles on a stone altar to represent the Triple Goddess and five to represent the points of the pentagram. The star of the pentagram should be drawn with powdered incense of the self-lighting variety to be lit later. Gather together bread, salt, and wine for the sacrament.
   
   
2. After you have made your preparations for the altar, ready yourself by bathing and meditating. Anoint your body before dressing in a robe or gown befitting this night when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. As you ready your body, mind, and spirit, consider what has taken place in the preceding year. Cleanse your mind and heart of old sorrows and most especially of angers and petty resentments. Bring only your best into this night. After all, this is New Year’s Eve for witches, and you want to truly connect with those who have gone on to the other side.
   
   
3. Walk alone to the place of the ceremony and kneel before the altar. Before lighting the candles on the altar, say aloud:
   
   This candle I light for the Maiden’s brightest glory.
   
   Light the candle and bow to the Maiden.
   
   This candle I light for the power and passion of the Lady, the Queen.
   
   Light the candle and bow to the Queen.
   
   This candle I light for the unsurpassable wisdom of the Crone.
   
   Light the candle and bow to the Crone.
   
   
4. Light the incense, and then gazing at the candles on the altar, say:
   
   These do I light in honor of the Triple Goddess
   on this sacred night of Samhain.
   I create this holy temple
   in honor of the Goddess and the God
   and all the ancient ones.
   From time before time,
   I pay my tribute and my devotion
   In love and greeting to those beyond the veil.
   
   
5. Now light the candles that represent the power of the five-pointed pentagram. Rap three times on the altar with your hands or with your wand. Then say:
   
   This is a time outside of time
   in a place outside of any place
   on a day that is not a day
   between the worlds and afar.
   
   
6. Pause and listen to your heart for thirteen beats, then hold your hands in benediction over the bread, salt, and wine. Now say:
   
   For this bread, salt, and wine,
   I do ask the blessings
   of our Maiden, our Queen, and our Crone
   and of the God who guards the Gates of the World.
   
   
7. Take the bread and sprinkle a bit of salt over it, saying:
   
   I ask that I and all whom I love
   have health and abundance and blessings.
   
   Eat the bread, and hold up the goblet of wine, saying:
   
   To a spirit that remains strong and true!
   
   Drink the wine and declare:
   
   By the Triple Goddess and her godly consort, so mote it be!
   
   
8. At this point, a danse macabre to any dark folk or Gothic music of your choosing can end the ritual—I suggest any music by the band Dead Can Dance. You should also spend time meditating or allowing yourself to ease into a trance state to communicate with your beloved dead. Hear the messages they have for you and let them know you.
   
   
9. When you feel the ritual has ended, quench the candles, and then say:
   
   Though these flames
   of the material world
   be darkened,
   they shall ever burn
   in the world beyond.
   This rite is ended.