We have entered the season of the Witch!

Even here in southern California where for months we’ve been wilting under incessant crazy making heat morn noon and night, we are finally experiencing cooling evenings with overcast chilly morns. Autumn Equinox marked the day when the sun crossed the celestial equator and plummeted us into the darkening time of the year. Plants are dying. Autumn colors reddening. Trees stand barren with their dresses blanketing the earth.

Stores are filled with Halloween decorations with kids passing by excitedly chattering about the haunted houses they are going to build and bags of candy they are going to hoard!

There is a quickening in the adults I know as well. Many have already determined what they are going to dress up as this Halloween. It is the time of year they give themselves permission to shed their everyday personas and donn the mask of their imagination. For some, it’s the only time they do.

Other cultural traditions for this time of year are growing in popularity, such as Dia de los Muertos, on November 1st and 2nd.

I LOVE Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead!  It’s flourishing in my city of the Angels!

Every year my dear friend, Addy Gonzalez, takes me down to the Mexican market where we buy pan de muertos, Bread of the Dead, loaves sculpted as bones made for the feast with the Ancestors.  And sugar skulls to represent one’s Ancestors for the extravagant altars created at the cemeteries.  The market BUSTLES with the life of the people, their ethnic artifacts and wild exotic Mexican foods!

Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of Death!. Very different than how western cultures memorialize their dead.  Families paint festive skeleton faces. Women dress as Lady Catrina, Lady of Death. And everyone goes out and parties!  At the cemeteries!  And celebrate the lives of their Ancestors.

And… then there is Samhain!  The celebration of the ancient Celts, Neo-Pagans and modern day Witches, Wiccans, and others who do not formally belong to a group, yet belong to a movement.  It is being claimed by more and more as a sacred holiday.  By me!! and my family.  We too honor the Dead and the sacred ways of Nature.

With rituals to our Ancestors… and to that which needs to die within ourselves: old habit patterns, relationships that no longer serve, addictions… so that we can emerge on the other side of this season with space to grow ourselves anew!  Nature is our mirror.

Samhain culminates on October 31st and continues in some traditions through to November 11th.

This time is about attuning ourselves to the thinning of the veils between seasons, between worlds, the living and the dead, the conscious and the unconscious.  It is a powerful time for transformation.

I invite you to join me in a celebration of this season of Samahin beginning on Monday, October 15th, 2012, the New Moon in Libra and what was considered by the Ancients as the Lunar Samhain.

Over this month I will be celebrating this season with participatory rituals and lore of Olde!  How to build Altars to honor your Ancestors and release all that no longer serves you.

And… I will be hosting  a series of blogs written by the Wise Women of OUR time, who represent the lost wisdom of the ages.

This series is about women I have met in the business courses and forums I attend who are unleashing the force of enlightenment, the Wise Ways once held by the Ancients, the Pagans, the Druids, the Healers, the Shamans and the the Wise Women referred to as Witches.

This series is about giving YOU back the wisdom that was lost… that was stolen from us. Giving YOU the wisdom and skills to directly access your Sacred Powers, the nucleus of Self… becoming the Shamana, the Witch, the Oracle, the Guide of yourself. And doing this in community… women and men midwifing each other into being our fully embodied wise selves.

The series will end in a culminating Webinar led by the women in this series. We will enter into an evening of story and ritual, movement and creation with the Spirits of Nature and our Ancestors to open to the Sacred Powers that are ours to realize.

It begins on October 15th, 2012.  Watch for the next in the series arriving on that day!

If you haven’t done so already, sign up in the subscription box above to receive the full series!

And… in the comments below… let me know what your traditions are for this time of year!