Hello! As you all know halloween is coming up very shortly. I am new to the wiccan culture but from what i know, Halloween is about remembering the dead. So that brings us to the question; are there any rituals, spells and/or traditions you like to do on halloween or near it? I would love to hear them if its not to personal and I am also curious. Thank you
Wiccans don't celebrate Halloween as part of our religion. Halloween is a secular holiday, but not a religious one for us. It's a night to go trick or treating or have a party. It just doesn't have anything to do with our religion.
But we do celebrate the festival of Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) which falls on the same day as Halloween. Samhain is the last of the harvest festivals and marks the last day of the year in the Celtic Calendar. It is a time when the veil between the worlds is thin and so we hold rituals to honor our blessed dead and our ancestors. There's an excellent article about Samhain at http://www.witchessabbats.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18&Itemid=29
I'm on my phone so forgive me if I don't include links. As its been said, we call it Samhain [pronounced Sow-win] it's new year when the veil between the spirit realm and ours is at its thinnest, and it has been believed in many cultures to be the day the dead wander this plane for whatever reason. Some believe to visit loved ones, others feel it's to kidnap the living. [I think the Celts were the first to dress in costume as a way to trick these spirits, but don't quote me.] It was the Christians who branched off Samhain to create All Hallows Eve [later called Halloween] as the day before All Saints Day.
Samhain is a time for communicating with the dead, the last harvest, and being new years, many do divinations to see into the following year. Love is a common one, but there are divinations for many things. There was an Irish divination about throwing your shoes over the roof of your house [why I cannot recall] Another fun tradition was baking bread and placing objects inside [like a coin, a ring and so on] everyone would take a piece and depending on the item it would fortell if the comming year would bring wealth, sickness, marriage, children, or death.
You can still do the Halloween thing if you wish [if I had kids I would let them get free candy] but you might consider learning about the Wiccan holiday, and make your own tradition.