removes the shroud of
misconception that often
surrounds non-traditional
believers
By Sara Jarrett
Oregon Daily Emerald
Around this time every year, they
creep out of their little hovels with a
black cat in tow, leaving their cauldron
to boil in anticipation of young,
scrumptious trick-or-treaters. Their
scraggly gray hair flows beneath a per
fectly pointed black hat, framing the
huge wart that protrudes from the tip of
their crooked nose.
This image of witches couldn’t be
farther from the truth, said Teri Ciacchi
and Becca Perry, who both call them
selves witches and are organizers for
Cauldron of Changes, a local non-profit
group dedicated to creating public
events for area Pagans, Wiccans and
Earth Worshippers.
They don’t have green warts and
they don’t just come out just for Hal
loween. With some minor Internet
searching, one can find out that Wic
cans are not the evil characters Holly
wood portrays them as. Bits and pieces
of the ancient beliefs and practices of
the Celts are being pieced together by
modem Dmids.
Modem day followers still celebrate
a series of fire-festivals on the first of
November, February, May, and August
as well as Full Moon Rituals every
month. The holiday that corresponds
with Halloween is called Samhian.
This is literally the end of the warm
season, and falls on Nov. 1. It is said
that this fire festival was adopted by
the Christians as All Soul’s Eve, and
later became the secular holiday Hal
loween.
The occasion is a combined Feast of
the Dead and New Year’s Day for the
Celtic calendar, marking “a time when
the veil between our reality and that of
the Otherworld is most easily penetrat
ed,” according to a web page. The Oth
erworld is the place where life contin
ues after death. To the ancient Dmids,
after a person dies in the Otherworld,
their soul lives again in another human
body.
Ciacchi explained the holiday on
Nov. 1 as celebrating a journey inward
toward self-knowing, which centers on
the complex relationship between ec
stasy and sacrifice. The fifth annual
Witches’ Ball sponsored by the Caul
dron of Changes, to be held at the
WOW Hall on Oct. 30, commemorates
this journey.
The event will include a faux ritual
that has no real precedence, Ciacchi
said, though it will explore three as
pects of the Greek deities Hecate and
Dionysus. The myth surrounding these
Gods includes ecstasy, jealousy and re
venge.
The myth teaches that “the need for
ecstasy and divine contacts overrides
our rational selves,” Ciacchi said. “If
Turn to Wicca, Page 6B
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Deadline Wednesday, October 27
Published Friday, October 29
Emerald