31/10/2025
It is another festival this weekend - one which has a considerable importance for the LGBTQIA communities, who have adopted it as their own. Hallowe'en, or All Hallows Eve, has its roots in ancient Irish and Celtic religions, and has been incorporated into Catholicism as well. For many LGBTQIA+ pagans, it is a point in the year where the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and is a time for honouring ancestors with respect and care. This observance has also been incorporated in to the Mexican calendar, where a fusion between Catholicism and ancient religions has produced the Day of the Dead celebrations on 2nd November. The pagan bookstore in Glastonbury, Goddess and the Green Man, puts it like this "Samhain is one of the major festivals of the Wheel of the Year, for many Pagans the most important festival of all. It is the third and final harvest festival of nuts and berries and a fire festival. All the harvest is in, all is complete, it is the end of the cycle of birth and growth, it is the point of death. The seeds of the harvest have fallen deep into the dark earth... It is a truly magical time. Death is always followed by rebirth and while this is the end of the old year, it is the beginning of the new year. For the Celts the day did not begin at dawn, it began at sunset, it began with darkness. Light is always born out of darkness, they are inseparable, interdependent, and necessary. Darkness is fertile with 'all potential'. With the beginning of this dark phase comes the opportunity to rest and reflect on the past and to dream of new beginnings." LGBTQIA people will be marking the season with parties, dressing up spookily or as cultural figures, and raising a glass for departed ones. This is a time for magic, however you mark it. And so we wish you a Happy Hallowe'en and hope that your wishes for the New Celtic Year yield fruit in the spring to come. Take care if clubbing or drinking and look after each other after the gay bars close this weekend.
