Jack-O'-Lanterns As part of the Samhain celebration, Celts would bring home an ember from the communal bonfire at the end of the night. They carried these embers in hollowed-out turnips, creating a lantern resembling the modern day jack-o'-lantern.   But the direct predecessor of jack-o'-lanterns dates from 18th century Ireland, where ancient Celtic traditions remained a significant part of the national culture. A very popular character in Irish folk tales was Stingy Jack, a disreputable miser who, on several occasions, avoided damnation by tricking the devil (often on All Hallows' Eve). In one story, he convinced Satan to climb up a tree for some apples, and then cut crosses all around the trunk so the devil couldn't climb down. The devil promised to leave Jack alone forever, if he would only let him out of the tree. When Jack eventually died, he was turned away from Heaven, due to his life of sin. But, in keeping with their agreement, the Devil wouldn't take Jack either. He was cursed to travel forever as a spirit in limbo. As Jack left the gates of Hell, the Devil threw him a hot ember to light the way in the dark. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed-out turnip, and wandered off into the world. According to the Irish legend, you might see Jack's spirit on All Hallows' Eve, still carrying his turnip lantern through the darkness. Traditional jack-o'-lanterns, hollowed-out turnips with embers or candles inside, became a very popular Halloween decoration in Ireland and Scotland a few hundred years ago. Folk tradition held that they would ward off Stingy Jack and other spirits on Halloween, and they also served as representations of the souls of the dead. Irish families who emigrated to America brought the tradition with them, but they replaced the turnips with the more plentiful pumpkins. As it turns out, pumpkins were easier to carve than turnips. People began to cut frightening faces and other elaborate designs into their jack-o'-lanterns. Pumpkins, which are actually fruits, not vegetables, range considerably in size. Some varieties weigh less than a pound, while giant pumpkins can grow to more than 1,000 pounds! Pumpkins are members of the gourd family, which also includes watermelons and zucchini. They are 90-percent water and also contain high concentrations of potassium and vitamin A. Pumpkins, which grow from vines, originated in Central America and were a popular crop among Native Americans. Some tribes used the seeds for food and medicine and made sleeping mats out of dried pumpkin strips. American colonists invented the pumpkin pie, but their original version used the pumpkin as the crust, not the main ingredient. They cut off pumpkin tops to make handy edible bowls, which they filled with milk, honey and spices and then cooked over a fire or hot ashes.

"Samhain Perspectives: Avalonian, Celtic, and Neo-Pagan" The Celtic Holy Day, Samhain, is known to many as Halloween. The origins of this holiday are steeped in the mysticism of ancient religions. Many sources agree that modern Halloween traditions harken back to Pagan customs. As such, many Pagan traditions consider Halloween or Samhain to be the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. The Dark Half of the year is the end of the harvest, the death of the sun. From an Avalonian perspective, “Samhain, the Station of Descent, is the time of ridding ourselves of that which we no longer need, that which is outdated and is a hindrance to our progress” (Novice Quest Packet, page 5).  Though the Avalonian perspective is similar to other Pagan perspectives of Samhain, this is theology is slightly different from other paths such as Wicca. The Wiccan perspective of Samhain is that it is a time when the “veil between the worlds are thinnest.” Many neo-Pagans believe that Samhain is a time when it is possible for the living to connect with the dead and to divine the future. Though ignored and discounted as appealing to the masses, neo-Pagan, Silver Ravenwolf rather accurately muses on the Celtic perspective of All Hallows Eve, in her book Halloween, “Legends indicate that on Samhain, all the hearth fires in Ireland were doused and then lit again from a central fire maintained by the Druids at Tlachtga, twelve miles from the royal hill of Tara. A central fire of this nature is called a need-fire. The Celts believed Samhain and Beltainne represented mystical fissures in time that allowed the living access to the land of the dead, called Tir no n’Og. To the Celtic peoples, there was death in life, and life in death-a concept no religion has shaken in the past 3,000 years. We must remember that the ancient view of time was cyclical, not linear, and in this framework New Year’s Eve as Samhain represents a point outside of time, when the natural order of the universe dissolves back into primordial chaos, preparatory to reestablishing itself in a new order. Thus, Samhain is a night that exists outside of time, and hence it may be used to view any other point in time” (pages 6-7). Again, the perspective of the significance of Samhain to the Celts takes a slightly different view. Alexei Kondratiev writes about the significance of Samhain to the ancient Celts in the book, The Apple Branch, “…it marks the beginning of an entire new cycle. With the return of Darkness the Year itself returns to the Otherworld womb from which it will grow to blossom again. All true growth takes place in darkness; the source of vitality is in the unconscious, before consciousness discovers the limiting forms of rationality. Seeds sprout underground, away from the Sun. A child takes shape secretly in the lightless world of the womb, and is fully formed when born” (p. 112). The work of the Avalonian Station of Descent mirrors Celtic Samhain traditions because we must begin a new cycle by going into the depths of our unconscious and root out  the causes of stagnation. I believe that Samhain was significant to the Celts because it is a time that does, indeed, mark the end of the light and the coming of the Dark nights. It is a natural time to turn inward…both physically and emotionally/mentally. We must delve into the nadir of our souls to find what is holding us back from reaching our true potential concerning a given issue. Two of my favorite, albeit modern, Samhain traditions are carving pumpkins, and bobbing for apples. Clearly, both activities have roots in early Pagan traditions. Our Pagan ancestors treasured the ember from the Samhain fires and carried one home in hollowed out gourds or turnips. This is the basis for the tradition of carving out Jack-o-Lanterns. Another custom, bobbing for apples, mirrors the work of the station of Descent because, according the Kondratiev’s The Apple Branch, “like the cennad y meirw custom, events in our world mirror events in the other, taking advantage of the momentary removal of the barrier between the two. The apples in the bucket are, to the inner eye, the apples of Afallon. Perhaps the game was thought to help the dead arrive at the end of their Otherworld journey; perhaps it called a blessing of the dead upon the living. Some Scottish versions of the custom certainly suggest an Otherworldly ordeal by Fire and Water (the two operative elements in Celtic tradition) patterned after beliefs about the soul’s journey” (p. 119).           I am fascinated by the Station of Descent. I feel that Samhain is the perfect time for this Avalonian Station and marvel at the power that is at once available to us all. I am grateful for all that I have learned about this ancient Celtic Holy Day and am happy to take part in the festivities with a new awareness of their significance.