As a descendant of the Tuatha De Danaan, many customs come to us from our ancestral lineage. However, I don’t follow by man’s customs alone but rather what heaven has shown me. It seems that a lot of the customs that are created by man come from the gods. However, because of migration and people taking charge over a lot of things, true customs that were originally a part of this world from the original creators and first families have been greatly distorted. Therefore, I have always tried to go by only what heaven has shown me and that which I have seen on my own throughout the world turning in the ages. I was really glad that I have some spare time to focus on this because of my surgery. Otherwise, I probably would’ve been busy using all of my healing energy, I’m doing more work in this article would not have been possible. I thought it would be pretty interesting to tell you all some history for our Oktoberfest or better yet called Grianstad. 
If you’re new to the site and just coming upon this article due to a web search, I first welcome you. Secondly, please click this link to learn more about what holiday I am referring to. If you are already familiar, I thought it would be perfect to go with our “Did You Know” activity for the celebrations which is on the calendar for yesterday. So let’s get right to it.
Did you know that Halloween actually descending down from the Celtic tribes? It wasn’t just about people celebrating the harvest either. There were two ceremonies that were initiated for mating and marriage. And one for sexuality and overindulgence alone.
Our correspondence with Halloween goes into the second of annual ceremonies involving love and mating rituals came sometime during and after the harvest. The harvest time was an important time to all people, even people today. Agriculture is what keeps us fed and for many stores, it keeps the consumer… well a consumer. back then there were merchants and markets, but for those that live freely amongst their people, they grew food themselves. The entire community worked together except those that were dubbed as the rulers. Many times during the harvest all of the best first pickings of each and every family were given to the rulers as a holiday gift. To the king and queen, each family would provide produce and even some select meats from their first hunt of the season. The King and queen themselves represented the God and Goddess.
Many people would take great joy in storing up jams, sauces, wines, wheat and flour, and so much more! They used to dig very deep in the earth to store their food during that month so that it would stay fresh. After collection of the foods from the farming and even from the forest itself, everybody would have a huge celebration. It was like a huge community potluck! Every family would then bring not only one dish to share during the festivities, but they would bring one for each night. Celebrations themselves went on from the time of the equinox and three days after. Then all of the food that was left over from the festivities were donated to the druids. Now the thing of it is, is that time was not calculated by the Celtics as it is today. In fact, I think every kingdom or land had its own way of telling time until organized religion came and people started to evolve as a community into more civilized traditions. therefore the equinox wasn’t always held on September 21. And Halloween wasn’t actually on 31 October.
Halloween was known as samhain back then to the original people who celebrated it. But not everybody in the world did. Of course the Greeks had their very own harvest season but their festivities were more like a carnival following the time of the year. And the Greeks knew how to party! They too, had a whole other celebration for the solstice.
Still, Samhain consisted of beautiful homemade masks made from things in nature, and the celebration of many of the nature spirits including the deceased. They believed their ancestors to become a part of nature even taking a role as a spirit looking after some place in it depending upon their deeds in life. Ancestors who were known to have been wicked and troublesome were deemed as sneaky trickster spirits.  ancestors who had done only good deeds, were considered to be more of the benevolent kind. In each duality the nature spirits included fairies, gnomes, banshees, trolls, Brownies, etc. 
The ritual consisted of not only reverence of these long gone spirits what are the spirits that were born to nature originally. That means they had never been human. So both former humans and non-humans alike, the spirits were given great tidings and gifts. Both ancestor spirits and original need your spirits of benevolent personality, we’re giving great blessings to say thank you for the protection and to ask for more for the upcoming new year months ahead. The tricksters were given gifts as well, because the Celtic’s believed that they would interfere throughout the year behind the scenes causing bad luck and misfortune. Additionally, all couples who had been married for many years and those who were newly wed at the beginning of that year itself,  all got together also wearing masks like the spring celebration. However, instead of marriages, all couples wearing their masks, drank merrily as well as gave into lust. All could bed whomever they laid down with for that night, for that one night only.
The druids and the priestesses were the ones responsible for crafting the masks for that particular celebration. They had their very own sacred ceremony in which they crafted the masks and had them dedicated to the gods for a blessing to adorn each person wearing one.  The only thing was how much should a woman had conceived a child on that night out of wedlock, the child was to be given to the druids. But only if the conception could approximately be calculated to fall within that timeframe. 
For them, it was an excellent time of year in which lovers got together and no one felt jealousy as they had the right to exchange affections with any one that they pleased for that night, While also celebrating the harvest time in the end of the year. It was a great time to show gratitude to all things in nature and as a result, to see who was blessed more so by the spirits in the upcoming year according to how well they did in the area of expertise they held. It was thought that anyone who had more plenty than others, that they must have been looked fondly upon by the spirits the previous year before. Furthermore is that they believed that the veil or a curtain between spirit world and human world, was at its finest during that time of year as well. They held one feast out of the several celebrations taking place under samhain, to be dedicated to the spirits of the deceased that may be there with them because of the communication barrier being lifted a little bit. Even though they may not have been able to see them, they still set aside a plate just for the sake that their loved one may have returned just for that night only. It was actually a pretty awesome time of year. It falls into the timeframe of the angelic end of the year celebrations which is like a combination of the several fall Holidays that consist of the equinox, Mabon, Samhain, mm me and All Saints Day. Even Thanksgiving is incorporated in a sense but much earlier on with one feast in the one month period of festivities, being dedicated to the heavens as an appreciation ceremony. During that one month one candle was lit each night for prayer but it was also lit to ward off trickster spirits as well as having the flames which also represented the soul of the family’s ancestral guardian spirit.
There’s lots more all for now. Enjoy your year and blessed be!
Church of I.M 
Reblogged this on Superlative Deviation.
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