
Samhain Ritual
What you will need:
Your tools
A black candle
A mask (any type)
Patchouli incense
Setup:
Set up your altar as usual, place the mask and candle
anywhere on your altar.
Perform a meditation to center yourself.
Cast your circle. Light the black candle while saying:
"THE NIGHT OF THE DEAD HAS COME, BRING ME
PEACE."
Take the Athame,
point it at the black candle and say:
"OPEN THE GATES TO THE
EARTH, LET THE DEAD PLAY."
"BRING PEACE AND HAPPINESS TO THEM, OPEN THE
WAY."
Take a sip from the chalice. Place the mask on your head and
dance around your altar chanting:
"THE NIGHT HAS COME, THEY OPENED THE WAY."
Light the incense. Walk your incense around the altar while
saying:
"BRING PEACE TO ME AND THE
DEAD, MAY WE BOTH FIND
HAPPINESS." "SO MOTE IT BE."
Close the circle. Now go outside and look to the skies and
say to yourself:
"BLESSED BE THIS GREAT
NIGHT."
Apple Tree Ritual
This is the time of the apple harvest:
wines, greenings, Macintosh, red and yellow delicious, and the antique varieties
of sops of wine, sheep nose and smokehouse. Apples have always
been magically important. The Celts "wassailed" their
apple tress to insure a bountiful harvest in the coming year.
Traditionally wassail was made of hard cider that was heated
with spices and had apples floating on top. These apples would
burst their skins, and the white flesh would form a froth on top
of the wassail. There is much reason to believe that wassailing
was performed at Samhain or Halloween as it was at Yule.
Halloween is the time of the apple harvest, and there are many
Halloween traditions in which apples are very important.
Apples also have a history of being used for healing
("An apple a day keeps the doctor away"), especially
for curing warts. The most typical method is to slice an apple
in half and rub both halves over the wart or affliction to be
cured. Then put the two halves of the apple back together and
bury them in the Earth while reciting an enchantment to the
effect that as the apple wastes away, so will the wart or other
affliction.
When an apple is sliced in half horizontally it reveals
hidden within its core a five-pointed star! When an apple is
being cute in half for magical purposes it should be cut this
way in order to take full advantage of the secret magical sign.
And of course it should be cut with the magically charged
white-handled knife. The apple harvest can be celebrated on the
day that it is completed with a meal that features apples, apple
fritters, apple pie, or applesauce. Select one tree to represent
all of the apple trees in the orchard, whether it is the oldest,
tallest, or most productive. Draw and consecrate a Circle around
the tree and stand within it facing the tree. Holding a cup of
spiced cider or apple wine, anoint the tree by drawing a
pentacle with a finger dipped in the cup of liquid. Draw the
pentacle at eye level on the tree trunk or just below where all
the branches begin. Recite something such as:
Here's to thee Apple tree Flowers at Beltane Fruit at Samhain
Apple tree, Blessed Be!
Then drink a toast to the tree and pour a libation at its
roots, and eat the food of the feast within the Circle.