Today is the Celtic festival of Samhain, the first of All Hallows, or Halloween. Tomorrow is the Mexican Day of the Dead, and the following is All Souls’ Day. Throughout All Hallows many consider the veils between the material and the ethereal, or spirit world to be its thinnest.
In those traditions, today is an opportunity for you to think about life through that window of time when both the known and unknown, the real and imaginary, the literal and conceptual, are pairing not as opposites but as two sides of the same reality.
A key theme at this time of year is remembering, honouring, our ancestors who have gone before us. Tomorrow, across Mexico, people will take picnics to cemeteries, bringing food, plates and cutlery to serve their family members who reside there. Ghosts have always been a central figure at Halloween.
We have those who are ours through birth, our true ancestors. I am proposing that we may also call to mind ancestors of choice.
I have lived in Scotland for nearly 33/60 years, and I have a ‘Scotland family’ too. My ‘adopted’ in-laws, my daughters’ ‘grandparents’ (my GBF’s parents), who were our neighbours and whom we visited every Christmas, have died in recent years. Three other members of my Scottish family have died in the last 16 years; much too young.
If, for the purpose of honouring our ancestors, we can include our family of choice it leaves me wondering if we need to limit our constellation of ancestors to those who are no longer here? If we can expand the definition of ancestors to mean those to whom I belong, and who belong to me…do they have to be dead? I have those people in the world with me too.
When I imagine myself in my constellation of ancestors, I see people beloved to me who are both living and dead. People from my life in the US, and people from my life in Scotland. I see me in the centre of a beautiful imaginary pastel drawing of me and my kin. My people, from both sides of the veil, all the colour of love.
Thinking about this leads me consider myself as an ancestor. How others might recall me, what they will recognise as the essence of me.
I know some of those for whom I will be an ancestor, but other humans will know me as an ancestor whom I will never meet. I can think of a couple children of a dear friend who are family, and I suspect I will be an ‘ancestor’ to them too.
There is a quote attributed both to the ancient Egyptians and to Judaism that says, People die twice, your physical death and then again, the last time someone speaks your name.
To whom do you belong, and who belongs to you?
How do you hope to be thought of; remembered?
Why would you want people to say your name?
What is the essence of you?
How are your ancestors who are on the other side of the veil coming to mind for you this weekend?
This is the final week of the harvest season. Our ancestors 200 years ago would know these were the very final days of gathering what can be stored to ensure survival through the winter season when the earth is resting.
The crops have been cut down, their remains tilled into the soil or set alight, offering nourishment to the soil in its season of rest, ahead of the next spring planting season.
Like ghosts, the early harvesting tool known as a scythe or sickle has also become a familiar symbol of this time of year.
When you think about the ancestor you aspire to be, the essence of you, does anything come to mind that your imaginary scythe could cut back or remove?
Doing so will free up the energy it demands so that it can be repurposed for things more aligned with the essence of you.
This is also a natural time of year to remember what you have let go in this passing year. People, activities, jobs, places. Inevitably, not always by choice; though some will have been your choosing. You knew you were ready to move forward and even when it was hard, you did it. Remember those times, those people and things that will not be crossing the boundary of the year with you, and the journey that letting go required.
May this be a blessed Samhain, and may your essence be strengthened throughout the coming year.
