Samhain, the beginning of the Celtic New Year, is a ritual celebrated on the night between October 31 and November 1. The rising of the Pleiades, the winter stars, indicates the arrival of long winter days in which the hours of darkness exceed the hours of light. There is not much work to be done in the fields, the leaves have fallen from the trees, and nature had gone dormant as the seeds recoil below the ground waiting for their awakening in spring. Days get increasingly shorter: it is the dea...