| 11 AM: | Open for Arrivals |
| 11 AM - 8 PM: | Circle Resource Shop open |
| Noon - 12:30 PM: | Welcome to Circle: Meet and greet festival staff & festival participants. Learn about Circle's facilities & land. Introduction to the festival. |
| 12:30 PM - 2 PM: | Nature Walk with Naturalist Reed: Walk the Land and learn about some of its plant life & ecosystems. Learn to identify plants in their late Fall and Winter forms. |
| 2:30 - 3:30 PM | Yearly Rite of Writing Your Own Obituary with Hospice Chaplain & Pagan Priestess Nora Cedarwind Bring your journal or notepad and an pen and be ready to reflect on your life, how you wish to be remembered and also review if you have achieved goals or dreams you have held in your life's desired embrace. Nora guides this experience as well as talks about her work with the Circle of Stellamaris which does this practice every Samhain to reflect on who and how we are and where we are in our lives. We also have the opportunity to make adjustments in this document such as partnerships, birth and death, relocation, goals achieved, it's amazing what a difference a year can make in our lives, and when we write it down, it's easy to see! Your obituary also creates a welcome gift when you cross over for those left behind, with information complete, it's one less document for our loved ones to have to prepare. |
| 4 - 5 PM: | Opening Ritual with Pathwalker and others: This ritual includes a blessing of the festival, and an honoring of Community. It also features opportunities for personal release & purification work with a sacred Samhain Fire. This year's ritual also includes the dedication of the refurbished "Mother Drum." Members of Madison's GROOVE Troup and Selena Fox will assist in this rite. |
| 5:30 - 7 PM: | Dinner |
| 8 PM - Midnight: | Witches' Ball with music by Stone Ring: An evening of fun, music, dancing, costumes, & merry-making. Stone Ring will be playing Celtic traditional tunes & other music. Merry-making includes the selection of the Lord or Lady of Misrule. Costumes welcome but not required. |
| 8 - 9:30 AM: | Continental Breakfast in the Summer Kitchen |
| 9:30 - 10 AM: | Drumming Circle in the newly-renovated Temple Room: Bring a drum, rattle, or other rhythm instrument to play if you have one. |
| 10 - 11:30 AM: | Community Visioning Circle & Annual Meeting: Join in our annual Community meditation & meeting. Learn about accomplishments of the past year and help plan for the future. |
| 10 - 11:30 AM: | Childrens' Activity: Pumpkin Carving & Decorating |
| 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM | Potluck Feast & Samhain Altar set-up: During lunch, bring your photos and mementos of deceased loved ones and votive candles in holders to the Temple Room and help create the Community Samhain Altar to honor the Beloved Dead. |
| 1:30 - 3 PM: | Planning for Life's End with Nora Cedarwind: Learn about options in planning for end of life for yourself and for loved ones. Learn how to set these wishes down and create an Advance Directive. Nora also will share some of the findings from the Pagan End-of-Life Preference research that she conducted earlier this year with the help of Dr. Marilyn Stoner and Selena Fox. Several thousand Pagans shared their viewpoints in an on-line survey. This study has shown that although having personal wishes honored at death were extremely important, most have not set down preferences in writing. Nora will guide participants in exploring options and writing preferences down so that they will be honored. |
| 3:30 - 4:30 PM: | Honoring Deceased Pagan Veterans with Roberta Stewart and Selena Fox: Roberta & Selena report on their work to have the Wiccan Pentacle added to the US Department of Veterans Affairs list of emblems of belief that can be included on VA-issued grave markers for deceased veterans. They talk about the importance of obtaining equal rights for Pagan Veterans and their families and the impact this has on the larger realm of Pagan civil rights and American freedom. Their presentation will include the showing of some of the television news reports that have aired nationally & regionally. Their presentation ends with a spiritual working for success in this Quest. |
| 5 - 5:30 PM: | Silent Auction Results & Raffle Drawing |
| 5:30 - 7 PM: | Dinner |
| 8 - 9:30 PM: | Samhain Ritual with Aspen, UrsaLuna & Selena: Attuning to the power of Samhain, honoring & communing with the Dead, and looking into the year to come. Ritual will be held indoors in the Temple Room and will conclude with a Samhain Fire outdoors. |
| 8 - 9:30 PM: | Youth Activities: Children will celebrate Samhain while the adults are in their ritual in a variety of ways, including watching magical movies. |
| 10 - 11 PM: | Waxen Divination in the Spiral Labyrinth with Joey: Journey outdoors along a path of torchlight to the Spiral Labyrinth. Walk the Labyrinth with the intention of receiving guidance and insight regarding a personally selected issue. Work with molten Wax and sacred Fire in divining guidance. |
| 11:30 PM - 2 AM: | Samhain Fire Scrying Meditation in Shamanic Fire Circle: To quiet shamanic drum rhythms, meditatively move or stand, as you choose, and spend some time scrying into the sacred fire on this Samhain night for insight and transformation for the spiritual new year. Rather than being an ecstatic dance & drum group ritual, the focus this night will be spending time in this sacred space for personal transformative meditation through the Element of Fire. This space will be available during this time frame for festival participants to visit and meditate as long as each wishes (few minutes to a couple of hours). Because of the meditative focus, those who visit are requested to do so silently. |
| 8 - 9:30 AM: | Continental Breakfast in the Summer Kitchen |
| 10 - 11:30 AM: | Green Cemeteries with Selena Fox: Selena describes the movement for having Conservation Cemeteries as an option for the placement of cremains and body burials. She will give an update on Circle Sanctuary's own Green Cemetery project. Weather permitting, the presentation will conclude with a visit to Circle Cemetery and a Samhain blessing of it. |
| Noon - 1 PM: | Lunch |
| 1 - 2 PM: | Community Sharing and Farewell Ritual: Reflecting on Festival experiences and giving thanks to the sacred forces worked with during the weekend. |
| 2 - 3 PM: | Departures & Clean-up |