Happy Halloween!
Halloween, or Samhain, marks the transition from Autumn to Winter, and from Water to Earth on the Medicine Wheel. It’s a time of moving from persevering and reflecting to ending.
HALLOWEEN’S QUALITIES:
DIRECTION: from West to North
SEASON: from Autumn to Winter
TIME OF DAY: from afternoon (9pm) to night
TIMELINE: from being in the past to timeless
CHAKRAS: from sacral chakra to base chakra
PLANT CYCLE: from fruits to seeds, bulbs and roots
ANIMALS: from water animals to herbivores
SENSES: from taste to smell
STAGES OF LIFE: from adulthood to eldership
HUMAN: from emotions to body
CHALLENGING EMOTIONS: from resentments/regrets to fear
ACTION: from perseverance & reflection to completion
LEARNING CYCLES: from reflection to conclusion
THE LAST HARVEST
Samhain is the last of the three harvests. For hunter-gatherers, especially in the colder north, this was the last important gathering: every last thing that would get them through the winter. Berries mixed with fat and pressed into cakes.
Plants draw inwards and start to slumber, putting their energy into seeds, bulbs and roots. Even the senses follow. We move from taste to smell, two senses that are hard to stay conscious in for long, because we’re moving into a more unconscious phase. Things are going to sleep, and into the dark.
WHERE DO WE GET STUCK?
Water can get stuck in being unable to finish and let go. It goes on and on, and turns toxic: wallowing, festering. Its difficult emotions are resentments, regrets and guilt.
Earth’s is fear. At bottom, we need to feel safe here, physically and psychologically. Earth can get stuck too, and never move on to new ideas.
So Water can get stuck in a fear of letting go, and Earth in a fear of change.
What heals Water is empathy and compassion, including self-compassion. What heals Earth is grounding: putting your roots down, becoming embodied, and learning that it’s safe to be here.
And what we resist persists. What we stuff down into the unconscious doesn’t go. It festers and gets stronger. If we don’t address it consciously at this time of year, the psyche starts throwing it up for us.
THE POWER OF LETTING GO
If, during the Autumn Equinox, we focused on water’s quality of reflection and persistence, we now shift our attention to another facet of water: the art of letting go and bringing things to completion. We are moving towards simply “being” rather than constantly “doing”.
Samhain encourages us to reflect on our goals for the year:
- What has proven effective, and what hasn’t?
- What can we harvest from our efforts, and what should we release?
- Acknowledging that some endeavours no longer serve us, what should we let go of?
OUR PROBLEM WITH ENDINGS
Dealing with resolving unresolved issues and letting go of things brings up issues around grief and endings. We live in a culture where most people have problems with endings.
Some common patterns:
• Hanging on (not ending!).
• Pretending that it isn’t really an ending.
• Creating a drama or crisis, they can leave saying: I never liked those people in any case sort of thing
• Pushing the other person away (so they reject you).
• Focusing on the future and the new beginning.
• Avoiding/ignoring/desensitising/detaching.
• Disappearing.
• Not allowing the full range of feelings because of introjects about what one ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ feel. Not actually accepting the feelings that really are there.
• Not really having committed in the first place. To avoid making any attachments in the first place.
Good endings are:
• Not rushed or avoided.
• An actual ending! Fully resolved and disentangled from. No hanging on.
• Done with honest appraisal and assessment (including self-assessment) and by facing the truth of things as they really were and are.
• Fully felt and processed. All feelings are allowed, acknowledged and appropriately expressed.
• Done outside of the victim-rescuer-persecutor (drama) triangle. Completed by taking back what is yours and helpful and leaving what is not yours and not helpful. You can’t control; you can’t make other people ending on your terms as well.
• Done with kindness, compassion, and gratitude. This includes self-compassion, kindness, and gratitude towards oneself too.
• Reflected on any useful lessons learnt and taken on board.
• A letting go and surrendering to transformation.
Without death, there can be no healthy new life.
THE LEAF AND THE ANCESTORS
Watch what a deciduous tree does at this time of year. If a leaf is healthy, the tree draws back into itself everything it can from it, and then lets it go. If the leaf is diseased, the tree simply seals it off.
Our middle-world life is like that leaf. If you live a good life, then at your death that part of you becomes part of the human Oversoul. That’s what hunter-gatherers meant by the Ancestors. They had no interest in working with Grandpa Joe or Auntie Edna.
Indigenous people also asked how a decision would affect the seven generations after them. They understood that how we live affects all the generations to come, and that we’re affected by all the generations before us. How you live your life isn’t just yours.
So the Samhain question isn’t only what to let go of. It’s also what you want to contribute: to the human Oversoul, to the Tree of Life.
It’s also what our Healing the Past course is about: becoming the link-breaker, so that what you heal stops with you instead of passing to the seven generations ahead.
HONOURING HALLOWEEN
CONNECTING TO THE TIME OF YEAR
As the season approaches Samhain, Nature tells a compelling story of winter’s approach.
- Deciduous trees cast off their leaves in a grand finale of colour.
- Birds, like swallows and geese, embark on long, determined migrations to milder climes.
- Bears, hedgehogs, and bats settle in for winter slumber, conserving precious energy.
- Squirrels and chipmunks dash to and fro, diligently gathering and stashing nuts for the lean months ahead.
- Insects, amphibians, and reptiles, too, retreat into a dormant state.
- The fallen leaves blanket the ground, promising nourishment for future growth.
- Chilled winds announce frosty mornings and prompt a shift in animal behaviour as they adapt to the changing environment.
There’s still plenty of opportunity to enjoy outdoor activities. Whether it’s a walk among the colourful autumn leaves, mushroom or chestnut foraging, preparing the garden for winter, or stargazing in the autumn’s crisp air, there are plenty of ways to acknowledge autumn’s gifts. From it, we can draw strength and inspiration, much like a river carving its path through the earth, prompting us to question what we need to shed and release in our life journey.
SHAMANIC JOURNEYING
At Samhain, you can benefit by doing these journeys:
- Letting Go: This can involve journeying to ask for healing to release specific burdens or just immersing yourself in the overarching theme of letting go that characterises this time of year.
- Ancestral Healing: If you are familiar with ancestral healing practices, Samhain is a good time to work with that energy. Delving into your ancestral roots and addressing any unresolved issues can be especially meaningful. You can learn how on our Healing the Past course.
- Connecting with Healthy Ancestors: While healing our ancestral roots can result in profound well-being, an even more potent form of healing emerges when we connect with our Ancestors – healthy, wise and compassionate Ancestors of the Lower-World, rather than our individual ancestors. This connection allows us to connect to the healthy template of what it means to be Human at its core and learn to live in the right relationship from the source. You find Ancestors in the Lower-World by meeting your Tribe and working with Elders, Adults and Children.
- Dissolvings. Although Halloween marks a transition to Winter, we are not there yet! Autumn is connected to the Water element, so you can still significantly benefit from dissolvings.
- Also, journey and be Autumn – be Plants and trees shedding their leaves, be Swallow or Goose preparing to travel to warmer regions for the winter, be Squirrel collecting and storing nuts for the coming winter. Remember, from an animist perspective, Nature is our greatest teacher and healer. Do all you can shamanically to immerse yourself in it. The first time I became a deciduous tree in autumn, what struck me was the sheer willingness to let go. No regrets, no holding on, no sadness. Just: this is what’s next. I’ve never looked at trees in autumn the same way since.
Learn how to do a shamanic journey through our online training course here.
Upcoming courses:
TIME TRAVEL: HEALING THE PAST COURSE – November 2026
Dates: November 15th to December 20th, 2026
Learn:
- What an ancestral burden actually is. Yours and ancestral. Yours and bigger than you.
- How to map your family before you journey: the roles, the repetitions, the silences, and the dead.
- How to name your family’s spells: what was said about you, and by whom.
- How to journey down an ancestral line, safely and ethically, always with permission.
- What to do when you meet the unquiet dead.
- How to grieve what was never grieved, and how to put a burden down.
- How to meet your healthy Ancestors, and what kind of an ancestor you want to be.
- … and much, much more besides!
For students who have completed our First-Steps course and booked on at least one Next-Steps course.
THE FIRST-STEPS INTRODUCTORY COURSE – November 2026
Dates: November 14th to December 19th, 2026
Learn:
- The history of shamanism and animism, and how this indigenous knowledge was central to how all our ancestors once lived. How, in turning away from this, and disconnecting from the natural world, we lost our way (the “Great Forgetting”). Discover how we can bring this ancient wisdom back (the “Great Remembering”).
- How to do a shamanic journey (a practical, safe and step-by-step method).
- How to do a Power Animal retrieval journey and find your Power Animal.
- Other practices to powerfully connect back to nature.
- Therapeutic Shamanism – the differences and similarities between ancient shamanism and modern psychotherapy, and what they might learn from each other.
- How to practice shamanism in an ethical way, and based on healthy power dynamics.
- The basics of how to do simple shamanic healing for other people (including not just humans, but pets and other animals too).
- How to use this knowledge and these practices to continue what can be a life-long journey of growth, healing, wonder and discovery.
- … and much, much more besides!
Now with 2 bonus videos:
- What (possibly) happens when we die
- Why we get ill – power loss and soul loss
