Countdown to Samhain

Over the next month I'm going to try to post a few different things that we do during our Samhain celebration. Our Samhain is Halloween in the secular world. Samhain, pronounced sow-in or sow-en, means "end of summer"and is Irish-Gaelic for the month of November. November was the official start of the winter season according to the old Celtic calendar. It is the time when the veils between the worlds are thin. It is a time of retrospection before entering the "dark" of the year. In pre-Christian cultures it was considered "New Year's Eve". The crops were all gathered in and whatever food you had was going to have to last until the next harvest. It was also a time to honor and remember ancestors and to thank them for their contributions to your life. New Year's Day was the Winter Solstice, when the days start getting longer again and we finally have hope of Spring. But the time is between is the dark time. The days are getting shorter and shorter. People didn't venture out as much and there were plenty of preparations to be made before the weather turned cold.
Samhain is a time of heightened magic abilities and opportunities for introspection. This is also the time when we look at our lives and decide what things need to change in order to have a productive and happy new year.
During this time of year Hubby and I do a few different things that help us prepare for the winter and that time when we're stuck in the house. We're both outdoors/nature people so it is really important to us that we make our home as comfortable as possible to get us through the winter.
The very first thing we do, and tomorrow in fact, is to clean out the craft room and turn it into a greenhouse. All of our temperature sensitive plants need to come in this weekend. I've lost count of how many thee are but the craft room is out of service now until Spring! Before we even start bringing the plants in they have to be checked for bugs and bug nests, especially with the stink bug problem we're having this year... then of course there are the usual spiders and box elder bugs! Some of the plants have to come into the store, there a few that prefer the light in the store to the light in the house.
I've already started decorating with fall leaves, pumpkins, gourds and my collection of witches, scarecrows and crows. We've scrubbed the house and cleaned off the altars and redone them. We shined up the picture frames of loved ones who have passed over, checking for structural damage to the frames. We want everything to be in order prior to the House Blessing we'll be doing on Samhain. We have a broom with a black pointy witch hat and a scarf that sits beside the door during the season to keep unwanted visitors out. We have a scarecrow who guards the Meditation Garden and one to guard the vegetable gardens. We also have a mini scarecrow hung on the door to encourage prosperity. We'll decorate the balcony on the front of the house this weekend as well. I still need to get mums, indian corn, corn stocks, hay bales and such to finish decorating the porch and yard. Guess I need to get back to it! So much to do!!