The Witch's New Year:
Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The old year has
passed, the harvest has been gathered, cattle and sheep have been brought in
from the fields, and the leaves have fallen from the trees. The earth slowly
begins to die around us.
This is a good time for us to look at wrapping up the old and preparing for the
new in our lives. Think about the things you did in the last twelve months.
Have you left anything unresolved? If so, now is the time to wrap things up.
Once you’ve gotten all that unfinished stuff cleared away, and out of your
life, then you can begin looking towards the next year.
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/samhainoctober31/p/Samhain_History.htm
Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the "lighter half" of the
year and beginning of the "darker half". It was traditionally celebrated over
the course of several days. Many scholars believe that it was the beginning of
the Celtic year.[3][4][5] It has some elements of a festival of the dead. The
Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became
thin on Samhain; because some animals and plants were dying, it thus allowed
the dead to reach back through the veil that separated them from the living.
Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock
would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of
slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.[6]
The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks, was an attempt to copy the
spirits or placate them. In Scotland the dead were impersonated by young men
with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.[7][8]Samhnag —
turnips which were hollowed-out and carved with faces to make lanterns — were
also used to ward off harmful spirits.[8]
The Gaelic festival became associated with the Christian All Saints' Day and
All Souls' Day, and has hugely influenced the secular customs now connected
with Halloween, a name first attested in the 16th century as a Scottish
shortening of the fuller All-Hallows-Even.[9] Samhain continues to be
celebrated as a religious festival by some Neopagans.[4][10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain
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