No Costume Required: How a Witch Spends Samhain

Confession: I love a costume. (Who doesn't love an excuse to wear fangs to the grocery store?) Dressing up is a gorgeous way to celebrate the mystical and the maudlin, and there's no harm in it at all. But every October I come back to the same quiet truth... as witches, we don't need one. We aren't dressing up as anything tonight. We just are.

So while the rest of the world hunts for a pointy hat, here's how I actually spend Samhain.

Tiny altars for the actual dead

I place candles and build tiny altars around the house, small offerings of respect for the people (and creatures) who have crossed over. Not drugstore skeletons, but the real dead. A photo, a sprig of rosemary, a cup of something they loved. It doesn't need to be grand. A windowsill works. So does the corner of a bookshelf.

Protection for the home

All kinds of spirits wander on Samhain, and not all of them have manners. I do protection spells that encourage anything malevolent to pass my home peacefully. Less battle, more polite "keep walking, friend." Salt at the threshold, a candle in the window, a few words spoken with intention at the door.

Feeding the crows and ravens

Crows and ravens are guardians of the liminal space and messengers between worlds (and honestly the best neighbors a witch could ask for). I leave them a Samhain offering and thank them for carrying messages where I can't. Unsalted peanuts in the shell are a favorite of both; skip the bread.

Cord cutting and severing

This is the season of endings, which makes it the perfect time for cord cutting and severing spells. As always, the intent is peace, not harm. You aren't cursing anyone. You're releasing what no longer feeds you so you can walk into the dark half of the year lighter.

And yes, a little eyeliner

I won't pretend I don't love a deeper eyeliner tonight. Some years I add cat ears, fangs, or elf ears just for fun. But the more interesting celebrations, for me, happen at the altar rather than the mirror.

Samhain is a harvest festival, too

We talk so much about the dead on Samhain that we forget what else it marks: the final harvest. It is, after all, the night the last of the crops came in and we took stock before winter. Not just a day of the dead.

Which brings me to pumpkins! Carving a jack o'lantern is a beautiful way to honor that harvesting spirit, especially if you save the seeds. A few food safety notes so your harvest stays a blessing:

• Scoop and save the seeds the moment you carve, not after the pumpkin has been sitting out on the porch.

• Rinse them well and pull off the stringy pulp.

• For munching: toss with a little oil and salt and roast at 325°F for about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring halfway, until golden and crisp.

• For planting: skip the oven. Dry them fully on a paper towel for a week or so, then keep them in a paper envelope somewhere cool and dark until spring. (Fair warning: seeds from a grocery store pumpkin might grow into a surprise. That's half the fun.)

• Once your carved pumpkin has sat out for a few days, it's decoration, not dinner. Let it go back to the earth in the compost.

Pumpkin seeds and the luteal phase

Pumpkin seeds are little powerhouses of magnesium and zinc, minerals many menstruating people lean on during the luteal phase, the stretch between ovulation and your bleed when PMS likes to visit. Fittingly, the luteal phase is the inner autumn of the cycle, when reflection and rest become the most natural thing in the world. Samhain and the luteal phase ask the same thing of us... slow down, look inward, gather what you need.

Autumn spices and the last of the herbs

The harvest keeps going in the kitchen. Cooking with autumn spices like cinnamon and anise is a lovely way to call in prosperity and good health for the season ahead (cinnamon for abundance, anise for protection and wellbeing). Simmer them into a cider, bake them into something sweet, or tuck a cinnamon stick and a star anise pod onto your altar. They bring fresh life and the most wonderful scent to an altar that might otherwise be all candles and bones.

And if the first frost hasn't arrived where you are yet, now is the moment to gather the last of your herbs. Snip bundles of the useful ones (rosemary, sage, thyme, mugwort, whatever your garden or your neighbor's generosity offers), tie them with twine, and hang them upside down somewhere dry and out of direct sun. In a few weeks you'll have a winter's worth of herbs for cooking and spell work, and a ceiling that smells like a witch's cottage. (Which it is.)

And if your autumn spices come in a paper cup this year? No shame at all. The pumpkin spice latte is a modern tradition, and sipping something warm and spiced with a little intention is enough of a ritual in its own right.

Two Tarot spreads for Samhain

The No Mask Spread (5 cards)

For the witch who doesn't need a costume: a look at what lives beneath everything you show the world.

1. The mask I wear for others

2. Who I am beneath it

3. What I'm ready to stop performing

4. What my ancestors see in me

5. How to walk into the dark half of the year as myself

The Final Harvest Spread (5 cards)

For taking stock, cutting cords, and saving the right seeds.

1. What I harvested this year

2. What I'm leaving in the field

3. The cord that's ready to be cut (with love)

4. The seed I'm saving for spring

5. A message from the crows and ravens

If you're pulling cards tonight, Dark Days Tarot was made for exactly this kind of work: born from the dark moon, for looking into your shadows for answers that feed your deeper needs. (And it's 20% off through tomorrow, Day of the Dead.)

Whether you spend tonight in full costume or your softest sweater by the altar, I hope your Samhain is deep and lovely. You don't have to become anything tonight. You already are.

xx, Wren