For most Angelenos, Halloween is a time to wear costumes, watch spooky moves, and eat too much candy.
But for local witch and artist Amanda Yates Garcia, it’s also a time to commune with the spirits of the dead. That’s because she observes Samhain, the ancient Pagan festival often referred to as the “witch’s version of Halloween.”
“[Samhain is] a time to honor the old ones, the ancestors. It's a time of endings, the end of summer. It marks the transition from the light half of the year to the dark, when flowers wither and trees shed their leaves,” she says.
Originating in the ancient Celtic spiritual tradition, Samhain inspired many of the practices we now associate with Halloween in America, including trick-or-treating and wearing costumes.
And for modern-day witches like Yates Garcia, who goes by the moniker “The Oracle of Los Angeles,” it remains an important time for rituals and reflection.
“It's often said to be a time of the thinning of the veil, as we shift from the physical side of life into the spiritual,” she says.
Amanda Yates Garcia created this altar. Photo courtesy of Amanda Yates Garcia.
Yates Garcia identifies as a “community witch,” and for her, witchcraft is in part a social practice. She sees communing with ancestors as a way to help people understand the problems that “haunt” their ancestral lineages, and to reconnect with the world around them.
“Our rituals to honor the dead quite literally connect us to our roots, they connect us to our ancestors, those we love, where we come from,” she says. “It connects us with the Earth, and with all living beings going back to the beginning of life on Earth. Our ancestors become part of the land, and then they quite literally nourish us and feed us and support us.”
As part of her own Samhain celebrations, Yates Garcia hosts moon rituals to invoke the spirits. She also creates an altar with photos of lost loved ones, which includes tokens like antlers and bones, as well as offerings like cakes, pomegranates, and water.
In the center sits a candle, which will remain lit from October 30 until November 1. The goal, she says, is to both soothe and be soothed by the spirits of ancestors long gone.
“We're calling in ancestors that have already been healed — that have gone through their processes after they've departed from the living world — to ask for their wisdom and guidance, and also to help soothe their unquiet spirits.”