Crystals and herbs are a great way to add magic to your Samhain celebration. Whether you’re looking to enhance your Samhain rituals or just want to enjoy a little more magick around your home, these resources will help. In this guide, we’ll take you through the basics of crystals and herbs for Samhain, from what they are to some ideas on how to use them in your practice. Whether you’re looking for help preparing for Samhain or just want some useful information on crystals and herbs, read on! What is Samhain. Samhain, also known as the Witches’ New Year, is a pagan sabbat and festival that takes place in October. It celebrates the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It is believed that during this time the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead is thinnest allowing the spirits to cross over to our plane. Samhain is celebrated with traditional ceremonies and symbols, including burning candles at night, walking in nature, dancing, feasting, and honoring our ancestors through altars and rituals. Crystals and Herbs Associated with Samhain. Some common crystals associated with Samhain include: amethyst, citrine, spirit quartz, onyx, bloodstone, lapis lazuli, moonstone, and carnelian. Herbs & foods associated with Samhain include: mugwort, wormwood, cinnamon, rosemary, roses, bay leaf, sage leaves, thyme leaves, pumpkin seeds, mushrooms, lavender, allspice, pine needles and calendula. How to Use Crystals and Herbs for Samhain. 1. Make a Samhain Garland for your Altar. Crystals and herbs can be used to make your own Samhain Garland. Start by choosing one or more symbols that represent your intention for the day whether that is to communicate with lost love ones, contact your spirit guide, or to celebrate the end of the harvest season. Gather crystals and/or herbs that represent that represent your intention for the day. For instance, if your intention is to reach out to a loved one who passed this year you might hang photos of your love one on your garland surrounded by carnelian and amethyst stone and sachets of mugwort, tobacco and rose petals. Cut a length of twine or string the length you will need to hang your garland. Use clothes pins to attach your symbols, herbs and stones along the length of the garland. Leave plenty of room at either end for hanging. TIP: it can be difficult to tie crystals and herbs to garland. Use small pieces of fabric tied with ribbon or a rubber band to make sachets and attach them with clothes pins. 2. Use Crystals and Herbs to Aid in Divination. Samhain is the perfect time for divination. Whether you prefer to scry, tarot, runes or another divination method, the veil is thinnest during this time making it easier to contact our ancestors and spirit guides for answers. Burn bay leaves to enhance your psychic abilities before starting divinatory work. Crystals such as amethyst to boost psychic powers and intuition, spirit quartz to help connect to your ancestors or guides, and lapis lazuli as it helps with inner vision and to protect against psychic attacks. 3. Cooking with Magical Herbs & Foods Add magical herbs to your Samhain feast dishes. Add Rosemary to your meat or vegetables for remembrance, cinnamon to your sweet potatoes for connection to your ancestors, roast fresh pumpkin seeds for prosperity and protection through the winter, and apple cider (and an apple buried for the dead) for wisdom. Document your Rituals. We suggest documenting your Samhain rituals - including what herbs and crystals were used and why. Write down what you used, what you did, the feelings you have about it now, etc. Then go back a week or a month from now and reflect. What worked? What didn’t? What would you do again next year and what would you leave behind? Samhain is a special time of year, full of traditions and meaning. By using crystals and herbs for Samhain celebrations, you can add extra richness and depth to your Samhain celebration. Take what you learn about these crystals and herbs and put them to use in your Samhain celebrations and in your magic throughout the year as well. As always, take what resonates with you and leave what doesn't. Use your intuition to choose they crystals and herbs you use for your Samhain rituals and celebrations. Check out our Samhain goodies here .

I just wanted to give everyone a peek at my Lughnasadh altar setup and talk a little about a few of the items on it (including some new items that will be listed in the shop soon). It was important to me to choose flowers and bread intentionally based on what can be harvested in my area during this time of year. If you are looking for more info about Lughnasadh check out this blog post . I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't really use altar cloths much. We live in a house that is over 100 years old and it just gets dusty to quick for me. I prefer to be able to wipe down my altar when it gets dusty instead of having to wash a cloth. I tend to opt for a small altar board under my cauldron to protect the surface of my shelf. This altar board I specifically designed for the harvest festivals and features hand drawn sheafs of wheat and small pentacles with chippy orange paint. While I'm sure wheat is grown semi-locally it isn't easy to just go grab and have on my altar. I ended up picking up a small bundle at Micheal's to add to my sunflower arrangement. Sunflowers are blooming all around town and that's why I choose to add them to my altar. I'm using faux flowers just to keep the pollen out of my bedroom, but will get some fresh sunflowers the day of Lughnasadh to display in our dining area. By the way, that GORGEOUS pitcher I'm using as a vase came from Ikea and I adore it and the pop of green it adds to the space. I feel like the green balances the summer with the traditionally more fall colors associated with the harvest. The beeswax spell candles on the altar were hand dipped and rolled in herbs for an abundance spell I will be doing on Lughnasadh. The herbs I chose were red clover, chamomile, and oatmeal because let's be real this is an abundance spell aimed at my wallet haha. I'm still working on perfecting the spell candles and am hoping to have them ready to list in the shop in the next couple of months. They are SO much fun to make and a really stunning addition to my altar space. I just made these stacking altar shelves and the labels for some of my herb bottles and I am super excited with how they turned out. My altar isn't very deep, or really very big in general and I needed a way to keep some herbs out without taking up a ton of surface space so I devised this stacking shelf system. Each of the herb jars has the name of the herb and a few of the magical properties of each. Fingers crossed these will be up in the store before Yule. On the shelves I have one of my many tarot decks, a few crystals that I felt drawn to add, my handmade corn dolly (tutorial here ), jar of charcoal discs, and my handy dandy match jar. I made a pretty tasty loaf of savory zucchini bread (recipe here ) and added some fresh blueberries as offerings to the local land spirits. We'll put a small amount of each outside but we will include the bread and blueberries in our dinner. I hope these pics inspire you to create your own beautiful Lughnasadh altar that works for you and your practice. Blessed be the Witches.

One of the things I am doing with the kids for Lughnasadh this year is making some corn dollies that we can use to decorate the house. Traditionally these dollies were made from grain such as straw or wheat sheafs but they can also be made from corn husks. Corn husks are by far the easiest thing to get a hold of where I live so that’s what I’ll be using today. Corn dollies are a pre-Christian tradition and have been found all over the world from Europe to Egypt and beyond. These dollies can be simple or quite intricate and don’t often look like dolls at all. Tying of the grains into delicate and beautiful patterns is an art form within itself. Today I’m making mine a little more simply and less traditionally. These corn dollies will be little harvest goddesses that we’ll hold on to throughout the 3 harvest festivals. Supplies: Corn husks (if yours are very dry and fragile soak them in water for a few minutes and pat dry with paper towels before starting) Jute Twine Scissors Hot Glue (optional but makes it a little easier and more sturdy) I encourage you to experiment with the corn husks. Twist them, pinch them, cut them…give your dolly some style all your own.