Samhain is in 25 days, and I've found myself thinking about Sabbat celebrations rather more than usual.

I'm not oblivious to the fact that this is essentially me looking at the Wheel of the Year and going “can I please have one fucking Sabbat where I'm not recovering from something, celebrating a completely unrelated family holiday, or in hospital?” I know how that sounds. I'm still allowed to be a bit miserable about it.

I spent Beltane recovering. I spent Litha celebrating Father's Day, which, fair enough. I'm not going to complain about spending time with my dad because the Summer Solstice happened to fall around the same time. Then Mabon came around while I was in hospital, and that one hurt. I couldn't really mark it at all, and nobody even noticed.

I don't mean that as a criticism of anyone around me. Most of the people in my life aren't Pagan. Why would they know that Mabon was happening, let alone know that I'd normally want to do something for it? I don't expect my family and friends to suddenly acquire a Pagan calendar and start checking whether I'm available for the equinox. But when you're already feeling incredibly lonely celebrating your religion by yourself, having one of the Sabbats pass while you're stuck in hospital and having absolutely nobody notice is a particularly shit feeling.

So yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm also self-aware enough to know that I'm feeling sorry for myself. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

I don't need validation. I want company.

I'm not looking for a crowd of people to tell me that my religion is legitimate. I don't need a festival to prove that my gods exist, and I'm not particularly interested in finding some perfectly homogeneous Pagan community where everyone believes exactly what I believe. Paganism is far too diverse for that to be realistic anyway.

I'm Hellenic-Celtic in my own practice. Selene is important to me. I have my own relationship with the seasonal cycle, with the symbols I wear, with the traditions I've adopted and the mythology that has stuck with me. None of that becomes more legitimate because somebody else agrees with me.

But that doesn't mean I don't want other people around. There's a difference between needing somebody to validate your faith and simply wanting somebody to share it with. I want someone else to know what Beltane, Litha, Mabon or Samhain actually means without me having to explain the entire concept first. I want to be able to say “Happy Mabon” to someone and have them understand why I'm saying it. I want to share food, ritual, music, stories and whatever other nonsense happens when you put a bunch of Pagans in the same place.

I'd love to sit around a fire with people whose practices are completely different from mine and still have that shared understanding of why we're there. I want the ritual, the food, the music, the conversations that somehow continue until two in the morning, the inevitable person who has brought far too much camping equipment, and the general chaos that comes from putting a bunch of Pagans in a field together for a weekend. I want to actually experience Paganism as a community rather than primarily as something I do by myself.

That's probably why Samhain is getting to me

Samhain being 25 days away makes all of this rather more noticeable. I'm going to celebrate it somehow. Of course I am. I don't need a festival ticket and a hundred other people to celebrate Samhain, and I'll figure out something that works for me.

But I really, really want the other version.

I want to be somewhere outside after dark, surrounded by people, with a fire burning and the year properly turning towards winter. I want to take part in a ritual rather than read about one. I want to talk to people who don't need the entire concept of a Sabbat explained to them. I want to eat something ridiculous at an unreasonable hour and end up talking about mythology with somebody I've known for half a day.

I'd probably be awkward as fuck when I arrived. That's basically guaranteed. I'd spend at least some of the first few hours wondering whether I'm somehow doing everything wrong while everyone else appears to have magically received the social rulebook. But I'd still rather have that than another Sabbat where I do my little solitary ritual, pack everything away and go back to normal life without having spoken to another Pagan.

And honestly, maybe there doesn't need to be some deeper point to this. I'm lonely. I want to go to a Pagan festival. I've spent Beltane recovering, Litha celebrating Father's Day, and Mabon in hospital, and now Samhain is coming up. After the year I've had, I think I'm allowed to feel a little sorry for myself about that.

I just want to celebrate something with other people.