Happy Samhain!  As the darkness falls this Samhain night, our trillions of Ancestors visit us.  Who are they?  What can they offer you for your struggles today?  They can help you anytime during the year – not just now – if you ask.

Our Wheel of the Year gives us not just 8 Sabbats, but these Sabbats are in connected pairs, linked opposites.  Samhain and Beltane are a linked pair of opposites – Life and Death – both in meaning and in the fact that each is celebrated along with the other, on opposite sides of our Earth.

For me, in the past few years, there have been many deaths both of those close to me and those who influenced my life.  For most of us, Ozzy and Jane Goodall were significant in our lives, among the many others who died this year (see picture above – I apologize for all the people I’ve forgotten or wasn’t able to include).

As we celebrate another sacred Samhain we have many opportunities for online Samhain celebrations and rituals, many of them today.  The links were given in this post, along with the many ways some of us are celebrating.  Also, here is another reflection on Samhain, by a Native American author.  Happy Samhain everyone!!

The Author: Jon Cleland Host

Starstuff, Contemplating: We are assemblages of ancient atoms forged in stars – atoms organized by history to the point of consciousness, now able to contemplate this sacred Universe of which we are a tiny, but wondrous, part.

Dr. Jon Cleland Host is a scientist who earned his PhD in materials science at Northwestern University & has conducted research at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997.  He holds eight patents and has authored over three dozen internal scientific papers and eleven papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journal Nature.  He has taught classes on biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University.  Jon grew up near Pontiac, and has been building a reality-based spirituality for over 30 years, first as a Catholic and now as a Unitarian Universalist, including collaborating with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow to spread the awe and wonder of the Great Story of our Universe (see www.thegreatstory.org, and the blog at evolutionarytimes.org).  Jon and his wife have four sons, whom they embrace within a Universe-centered, Pagan, family spirituality.  He currently moderates the yahoo group Naturalistic Paganism.

See Starstuff, Contemplating posts.

See all of Dr. Jon Cleland Host’s posts.