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Roots and Remembrance: Walking the Autumn Path to Samhain


  • East & West of the River Wellness, LLC 147 Windy Hill Rd Hampton, CT, 06247 United States (map)
The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—It’s that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves, and to each other.
— Joanna Macy

In a world that often moves too fast, autumn invites us to slow down, listen deeply, and remember who we are. Roots and Remembrance: Walking the Autumn Path to Samhain offers a space to reconnect with the rhythms of the Earth, honor our ancestors, and live more consciously as part of the great web of life. Through seasonal mindfulness, animist practices, and respectful lineage work, we’ll explore how to create meaningful, land-based rituals that are rooted in our own heritage and grounded in reverence for place.

Overview

This four-week online series invites you to deepen into the wisdom of autumn—slowing down, honoring your ancestors, and reconnecting with the living Earth. Guided by the teachings of Asia Suler, Tara Brading, Daniel Foor, Joanna Macy, and other wisdom keepers, we’ll move gently through the turning of the year, tending to both the seen and unseen.

You’ll receive clear guidance on how to create your own Samhain (or Samhain-like) ritual at home, rooted in your own heritage and mindful of cultural boundaries, and you’ll be supported in honoring the Indigenous roots of the lands you inhabit. Together, we’ll cultivate the inner and outer resources to live, as Robin Wall Kimmerer invites us, to “learn to live as if Earth was your Mother”.

Who It’s For

  • Those seeking a deeper connection to the turning seasons

  • New or experienced meditators drawn to Earth-based spiritual practice

  • People longing to reconnect with their ancestors in safe, ethical ways

  • Changemakers and caregivers seeking grounded inner resources

  • Anyone wishing to create meaningful seasonal rituals rooted in their own heritage

  • Those ready to live more fully as good future ancestors

Format

  • Weekly live 75-minute Zoom sessions (recorded for replay), followed by an optional informal 45-minute group share check-in

  • Seasonal mindfulness and animist practices each week

  • Samhain (or Samhain-like) Ceremony Toolkit to guide your own at-home ritual

  • Guidance for researching and honoring the Indigenous peoples of your region

Week-by-Week Focus

Week 1: Root in the Season – Listening to Autumn’s Call
Theme: Attuning to autumn’s rhythms, practicing presence with the living Earth, and grounding in the season’s descent.

Week 2: Ancestral Threads – Honoring Our Lineage
Theme: Meeting well ancestors, tending blessings and burdens, and exploring lineage repair with reverence and discernment.

Week 3: Animist Reconnection – Weaving Belonging
Theme: Animism as a path of sacred reciprocity; reweaving relationship with land, spirit, and community.

Week 4: Crossing the Samhain Threshold – Ritual & Reflection
Theme: Creating your own authentic Samhain (or Samhain-like) ritual at home; honoring ancestors and the Indigenous roots of your land; sharing reflections in community. For those with Celtic or Gaelic heritage, this may take the form of a Samhain ceremony. For others, it may be a seasonal ancestor-honoring practice from your own lineage, marking the turning of the year, the descent into winter, and the thinning of the veil between worlds.

In the Indigenous way of knowing, we say that a thing cannot be understood until it is known by all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit. The work of a human is to learn to live as if the Earth were your mother.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
Earlier Event: September 13
Autumn Sanctuary Retreat