While the shops are full of pumpkins (real and plastic) and other Halloween-related paraphernalia, tomorrow night neo-pagans will be marking the festival of Samhain (pronounced sow [as in lady pig] - in, I believe). My understanding of paganism isn't what it ought to be but I think it may be one of the four Celtic festivals in the pagan calendar. Maybe Owly could put me straight and tell us more.
Samhain blessings to you friend Shaker (apologies for lateness of these wishes due to a sojourn in Hillingdon Hospital!
Samhain, as with the names of some of the other quarter and cross-quarter days, is pronounced differently depending upon the geographical location of the speaker - don't ask me about the myriad ways that American Pagans have found to pronounce/mispronounce it!
Personally I use the pronounciation Sah- (as 'Sir' is pronounced by negro servants in films such as Gone with the Wind) -wain.
The date is marked as the Celtic New Year by some, the end of the year when Nature sleeps until spring by others - let's face it, whatever it used to be celebrated as was destroyed by the arrival of a religion that could not accept any refusal of its claim to be the only true faith and set out to destroy anything and anyone who disagreed, a task some are still trying to complete.
