Samhain Ritual Incense Recipe

Handmade Samhain incense enriches any autumn ritual with the magic of your personal energy.

Blend classic fall ingredients like warm cinnamon, dried rosemary and apple, and spicy essential oils.

Then, toss them on the bonfire, burn them in your cauldron or include them in a handmade ritual candle.

Meaning of the Ingredients

Each of the ingredients in this recipe represents a special significance for the holiday of Samhain.

Rosemary

Rosemary is a classic protection herb.  During the season of Samhain, as the Veil Between Worlds thins, incorporating protection herbs into your rituals becomes especially important.

During this time, spirit communications with ancestors becomes easier and more accessible.   But so too does it become easier for negative or malevoyant spirits to cross over.

Use rosemary to guard the gateway between worlds.

Apples

No single ingredient symbolizes the season of Mabon and Samhain more iconically than the apple.

If you cut an apple in half horizontally, a 5-pointed star resembling the pentacle appears.

This magical fruit falls from an equally magical tree from which wands and other ritual tools can be made.

Include dried apples as an ode to the autumn season and the joy of the late harvest.

Cinnamon Sticks & Allspice

Both cinnamon and allspice are considered death herbs.

Samhain honors the dead and the spirit of our ancestors.  The smoke of cinnamon & allspice acts as an offering to those who came before us.

Dried Orange Peel

The withered appearance of dried orange peel (a sun symbol) represents the rapidly waning light of autumn.

Include it in this incense to honor the disappearing solar energy and a renewed focus on the shadow self.

Ingredients

*6 parts dried rosemary

*1 part dried apples (available in the dried fruit section of the grocery store)

*2 parts crushed cinnamon sticks

*1 part dried allspice berries

*2 parts dried orange peel

*15 drops (affiliate link —->)  orange essential oil

*10 drops (affiliate link —–>) ginger essential oil

*8 drops (affiliate link ——->) cinnamon essential oil

Directions

Blend all the dry ingredients together in a clean glass jar.  Add essential oils a drop at a time, adjusting the ratios to your preference.

Store in a dry, dark place for 12-18 months.

Ways to Use Your Incense

Okay, you made your Samhain incense!  Now what?  Consider any of the following ideas.

Scatter it on a gravesite to honor a deceased loved one.  Samhain is a nice time to visit and attend to the graves of deceased loved ones.  Scatter some of this incense on the grave of a loved on to honor their light that lives on in you.

Roll a ritual candle.  Take any pillar or stick candle.  Melt a little hot wax over the stove.  Carefully roll the candle in the melted wax, then roll it in the loose incense to coat it.  Burn it during your Samhain ritual.

Burn it.  Toss this blend directly in a bonfire or wood-burning fireplace.   Or, if you use a cauldron, place it on a charcoal disk (like the ones used to burn shisha or hookah) inside your cauldron and burn it.

Bury it.  Trying to break a bad habit?  Samhain is the witch’s new year.  Write down a bad habit you wish to break during the coming year on a piece of paper.  Go for a walk in the woods.  Find a quiet spot, then bury the paper with a pinch of your Samhain incense.  Walk away and don’t look back.

Boil it.   Bring a large pot of water to a low simmer on your stove and toss your incense in it to fill your home with the magic of autumn and turn the Wheel of the Year.  This is an especially nice thing to do if you consider yourself a cottage witch!