The Turning of the Wheel: Samhain and the Celtic Calendar
Guest blog from artist, musician, teacher and healing facilitator Sharon Ní Chuilibín, exploring the Celtic calendar and the wisdom of Samhain as we enter the darker half of the year. You can learn more about Sharon's work at https://soulcompass.ie/
You can also join Sharon and TreeSisters on 20 October for an interactive workshop exploring the history and folklore of Samhain and the Celtic seasonal wheel. The session will be infused with live music and poetry, offering space to connect more deeply with this turning point of the year. Register here.
There is a vast wisdom available to us in nature. From the movements of the tides to the changing of the seasons, our ancestors lived in close awareness; their lives depended on it. Separated and detached from the natural world, in today’s world, we may have lost touch with this infinite creative and nourishing intelligence.
In alliance with nature we find a spacious connection with our true selves - there is nothing to buy and nothing to sell. Here, we can restore a perception of abundance and generosity in a natural creative cycle, a dance of dark and light, fertile and fallow.
I live in west coast Ireland surrounded by a vast landscape where weather casts an ever shifting play of light upon mountains, valleys, lakes and streams. Here a rich biodiversity is supported by a multitude of wild-growing plants and trees, their flowers and fruits offer a vivid palette as changing colours of the year.
Now the autumn colours are rushing in the orange, and yellow leaves, black elderberries, red haws and rosehips. Harvest offers an abundance and a completion. From root, to seed to fruit, we receive the full story of one year’s growth: and then the year is done as winter beckons us on.
Among western cultures darkness has often evoked fear, associated with the unknown, the occult, with nefarious or evil deeds. That which is in the darkness is also of the unconscious, the unseen roots of our waking experience both individually and collectively.
Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
The quiver-touch of the sun
And showed sureness of the moon.
That we may awaken,
To live to the full
The dream of the earth
Who chose us to emerge
And incarnate its hidden night
In mind, spirit and light.
In Praise of Earth. From “The Four Elements”, John ‘O Donogue 1995
Within the understanding of the Celtic Calendar, informed by both ancestors and the wisdom of early Christianity, the darkness is known as fertility, it is depth and vastness. It is that which serves as a foil to amplify the goodness and the light.
Turned away from the sun, we are faced with the vast cosmos. The black night sky reveals thousands of points of light, each connected, glistening and reflecting in a shimmering tapestry of the unknown.
Through the four gateways in the turning of the year at Samhain, Imbolg, Bealtaine and Lughnasa, we can orient to core values shared in fourfold unity.
We are now entering this dark or Giamos portion of the year, a time of diminishing sunlight and deepening darkness. Until the winter solstice, days grow shorter, nights grow longer.
Like a cloak that is drawn around us, the night draws us closer to ourselves and causes us to anchor into that which is our truth.
Storms often come to shake and test the roots of trees. Likewise, deep in the earth, there is a sweetness of life force stored in the roots, as leaves and fruits retreat. We are invited to recognise what our own rootedness, our values, what is important to us, what is true and enduring, what are our foundations.
It is known that the people known as the Celts began their year at Samhain. In a similar vein, each day began the night before, in the darkness.
Our ancestors knew a culture where there is deep understanding of the meaning of night and the winter, just as the roots and seeds anchor into the velvety darkness of the earth. A path to balance retains both polarities in equal importance.
Just as babies we once grew in the darkness of the womb, all creative endeavours must first been nurtured in the unseen realm. The more complete our vision, as imagination allied to our creative impulse, a full gestation allows for a powerful birth. This is the realm of working with the wisdom of nature and her cycles.
The threshold of this time is hugely significant. The associations with death as the veils grow thin are also an invitation to transformation: a confrontation with the potential for new birth.
The chilling ghost stories of modern “Halloween” which grew out of the festival of Samhain, offer us a confrontation with mortality served to steel nerves and consolidate community spirit against an unavoidable onslaught of winter.
Thousands of years later, as it was for our ancestors, winter remains a time when many souls cross over. It is a time that calls for deep resources within us, for tender care and vigilance.
In past times, Samhain also heralded a time when food would be rationed - the harvest has been celebrated and taken in. Now comes the time of tending the flames, a time of gratitude, of minding what has been gathered. The foundations for the future year are to be built on the gifts of this autumn’s harvest. There is a fullness that gives way to an emptiness required to birth into a new year.
An alliance with nature, as we move through time, allows little room for ego, arrogance and bravado. There is a grounded humility in recognising that “this too will pass”, our mortal days are numbered yet our infinite soul is not so constrained by time.
Such a reality check can summon our best work, our most brilliant selves, no longer distracted in fantasy. No longer tamed by fear.
The trials of the season can certainly test us. Yet this also can transform us. Here we can cultivate a grit and tenacity, determination and faith that once again, come what may, the sun will return to shine and rise again.
UPCOMING EVENT
The Turning of the Wheel: Samhain and the Celtic Calendar
Date & Time Oct 20, 2026, 1PM BST
Description: As we move into the darker half of the year, join artist, musician, teacher and healing facilitator, Sharon Ní Chuilibín to learn more about Samhain and the Celtic seasonal calendar.
Together, we’ll explore the history, traditions and folklore of Samhain and the seasonal wheel, and how the perennial wisdom of this ancient threshold can help us to reconnect with our true Nature in a modern world. Rooted in the land and traditions of Ireland, Sharon offers intentional space to heal ancestral connection, our relationship with Nature and Soul.
Infused with live music and poetry, this session will invite us to connect to this turning point in the year, reflect on the season that has passed and consider how we move with grace and purpose into the season ahead.
