The Gift of Samhain

November 6, 2025

In the Celtic tradition, the last day of October ushers in the season of Samhain which simply means November but holds a great deal of mystery. During the period of October 31 through November 24, the Celts believed the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest, allowing spirits (their ancestors) to commune with them. Many historians believe that Samhain and All Saints’/All Souls’ celebrations influenced each other with the arrival of Christian missionaries in Ireland and that Halloween originated from Samhain.

This thinning of the veil, more commonly known as a “thin place,” offered the Celts a time to honor the passing year as the days moved toward the winter solstice and to consider the future that awaited them. Samhain also invited the Celts to take a conscious journey into the dark places, the suffering places, of their lives, which was a path to enlightenment. It encompassed both death and the unknown, inviting them to release whatever no longer served them and lay it to rest in order to reach out to the world that was yet to come.

Samhain offers the very same to us.

Wisdom teachers abound during this season. They may show up in the voices of our ancestors, trees, birds, darkness, stars, moon, the Living Spirit, the Breath of God, to offer their guidance through the darkness and help us learn from our own suffering.

During this season of Samhain, I find myself in a thin space on a mountaintop in southern Tennessee, USA. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Cumberland Plateau, I watch the wind and listen for the voices of messengers, the voice of the Divine flowing through the crack in the Universe.

Thin Place

On the mountaintop, the wind whispers
your name and yours
all my beloveds
known and unknown
as it ruffles my hair.
The trees surround me—
silent, steady angels,
their limbs directing me
everywhere and
nowhere
while green lichen inches its steady way
over mottled limestone boulders
silent and rooted for millennium.
I wait. I listen
for Ancient Wisdom
for what I must release
for the path that beckons me
to cross the liminal threshold
to whatever will be.
Like the steadfast boulder, I sit
silent-rooted
while the sun warms my skin and
the white throated sparrow
with aged wisdom sings.

(c) Rosemary McMahan

Photo credit: Rosemary McMahan