Burning

Wicker Man 2013
Photo by Nels

Samhain on the River is an event hosted by my friends Nels and Judy for many years.  This year was the last and I made a point to attend.  The high point of the weekend is the burning of an effigy “corn man” or a “wicker man” in ritual.  Nels did a piece several years ago about his experiences hosting fire rituals.

The ritual itself is powerful, dramatic and lovely.  Sitting with a group of friends drumming and dancing around a HUGE bonfire is a great time.  Taking time out to acknowledge and honor the ancestors is especially nice in a year when we’ve had a recent death in the family.  However, dramatic and awesome though it may be, the burning isn’t the heart of the weekend for me.

The ritual starts with a casting of the circle, calling in the four directions as guardians and protectors.  The ancestors are welcomed and so is the Divine, in many forms.  Then there is the feasting.  This is a huge pot-luck extravaganza.  The ovens are going for two days.  There are half a dozen crock pots.  The desert table has two levels and probably could use a third.  Given all the dietary issues in the group everything is supposed to be marked and labeled – does it have meat?  Nuts? Is it gluten-free? Vegan?

We each placed a pumpkin around the man and named our ancestors for remembrance

When I attend I complicate things.  It’s that darned allergy to cinnamon.  Most people don’t think it’s a real allergy, or they just don’t hear it, or they haven’t a clue how to read a label down to those tiny ingredients.  (Except in red hots, cinnamon is rarely one of the first ingredients listed.)  It gets even trickier when all the label says is “natural flavorings and spices.”  Most of the time that actually means cinnamon.  Who knew?  – Well, I do.

There are a few people in this crowd who have watched me react to cinnamon.  Who know that my children wash their hands and brush their teeth before they come home if they have a cinnamon roll elsewhere.  People who have been to restaurants with me and been asked “Please don’t order the waffles, the cinnamon roll, the warm apple pie.”  If the ventilation is good I might manage the room (if they’re not baking right then) but not at the table.

some of the drummers got a little warm

Because of all the trouble, the feast isn’t really the heart of the event for me either.  It’s the people.  It’s being able to spend time just talking and catching up with folks I only see once or twice a year.  It’s the late night conversations about being a leader in the spiritual community and the lessons that come with the job.  It’s the laughter when someone pours a glass of wine and makes a joke.

These people remind me that not all our ancestors are ancestors of blood.  Many of them are simply ancestors of the heart.  I remember this year, my aunt who just passed, but also the friends who I have lost over the years.  I miss them all the time and think of them often.  But so many of them would have loved sitting in a circle full of drummers and dancers around a really HUGE bonfire.

Orion couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it.

Welcome ancestors.

I have mentioned this event in an earlier post.  See Ancestors and Descendants

Reaching out to the ancestors through the fire

Loss

The willow weeps

I’m very fortunate in that most of my experiences with death have come with enough time to at least attempt to resolve tensions in the relationship.  When my Grandfather was dying I was a sophomore in college.   I was still young enough that my family tried to protect me from the inevitable.  The hospice my Grandfather was in was fortunately walking distance from campus.  I’d sneak in while the crew on “vigil” was off on a coffee break.  We got to talk about how angry I was that he was going away when I was finally old enough to get to know him as a person.  We got to talk about how he felt about dying and leaving his family behind.

I had a high school friend who committed suicide the same month my Grandfather passed.  We also had long telephone conversations about his depression.  I told him that I felt like suicide wasn’t helpful because I believed in reincarnation.  If he had those issues to work out, and didn’t, they’d still be with him next time around.  He felt that suicide was an opportunity to “reboot”.  It was too painful to stay and he needed a way out.  He planned carefully, researched insurance policies and their suicide clauses, said his goodbye’s in his own way.  He even knew who he wanted to find him and when.   It’s hard to lose a peer, especially so young.  But I never doubted the clarity of his choice.

My best friend died of HIV Kaposi Sarcoma.  That’s what killed Tom Hank’s character in Philadelphia.  We had lots of opportunities for conversations about love and family.  We talked about what he thought was ahead for him and what he was sad to miss.  I knew how important it was to him that his sister be able to have the baby she’d always wanted.  I knew that he felt his mother had made a “deal with God” to take her, with her recurrence of breast cancer, so that her son could have a few extra years.  (He was right, I had the chance to talk with her before she passed as well.)  We got to tell each other how much we loved each other and appreciated the opportunity to share part of this life.  I made him read the eulogy I wrote for him before he passed.

I had another very good friend who passed suddenly.  He had severe asthma.  We’d been talking for a week before he went, trying to find a time to connect.  He’d say, “I really need to see you.”  I’d say, “I really need to see you.” but the stars and schedules never aligned.  It felt like he knew it was coming and he wanted one last chance to say goodbye. I wished I’d been able to give that to him, but I knew and so did he, there wasn’t anything either of us could have changed.  Just knowing that he’d tried was enough.

There is nothing more devastating than losing a child.  I have a cousin who recently lost one to suicide.  I have another cousin whose son was killed in a car accident his senior year of high school.  My sister has lost two babies.  The grief the parents feel is untouchable.  For the rest of us, the grief is as much or more for the parents as it is for the child.  Unless you’re an everyday part of a child’s life it’s hard to say you knew them.  But the parents, they hurt and you hurt for them and there is nothing that will make it better, ever.

tricky relationships

Unresolved issues are similar that way.  I’ve been very close to people who’ve suffered losses before relationships could be healed.  My Grandmother told my mother, “If you’re not going to come home and take care of me I might as well die.” and she did.  It took my mother a long time. 40 years later I think she still feels some guilt.  My niece and nephew lost their father in a freak logging accident.  My sister had just ended their 18 year marriage.  She wasn’t willing to live with his 20-year-old girlfriend.  They were still sorting through custody and visitation and financial issues and he’d announced his engagement to the younger woman.  We all grieved, but his family shut us all out from the funeral process.  Even the kids, teenagers, were not fully included because they came with their mother.  We were actually asked to leave the cemetery at the internment.

My aunt died last week.  She’s been fighting with lupus and Parkinson’s disease for 27 years.  She’s stayed active and alert and always been interested in friends and family.  She and my father had a difficult relationship.  When she went into hospice he finally started talking to her when Mom would call to check in.  They were still merciless with each other, teasing always with an edge.   In an off-handed comment to my sister at the funeral Dad said, “I’ve been waiting for this day since I was 10 months old.”  Think there are any unresolved issues there?

yes, that’s snow on the woodpile 10/20/2013. Time is short!

The people we live with, the loved ones we take for granted, these too are our ancestors and descendents.  Take some time to say, “I love you.”  Be courageous enough to admit, “I was wrong, I’m sorry.”  Have coffee and agree to disagree about how you see whatever issue is keeping you apart.  The seasons turn and our time here is fleeting.

Thank you for following my blog.  Many of you have become very dear to me.  Your encouragement and support means more than you can know.

Grandmothers

Driving to Mankato (Kathy http://reinventingtheeventhorizon.wordpress.com We may not always have Ecuadorian skies but we do have our moments!)

I promised Kathy from Lake Superior Spirit that I would blog about my weekend attending and presenting at the Women & Spirituality Conference at the University of Minnesota Mankato.   Now my blog is late and I’m still struggling with what to write.  It’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s that I have too much.  My brain needs an editor.

I love this conference.  I don’t know why, but no matter how much or how little I participate, no matter how open or jaded my approach I seem to leave a little stronger than when I came.  There is something special about women gathering to talk about Spirituality.  There is something binding, bonding, supportive that comes simply from being in the presence of women.  It’s the break from being a Mom.  It’s the autumn weather and being “on campus”.  It’s seeing old friends, unexpectedly.  It’s finding out that the world is small and you really do know the friend of your friend.

There is so much to do at this conference.  So many choices.  I told one of my fellow participants that the reason I present is it immediately eliminates all the choices in that session slot.  It’s easier.  At this conference, this year, there was one workshop in particular I’m so glad I managed to attend.  It was titled “Circle of Life – Seven Generations of Healing”

There are a lot of reasons I went to this particular workshop.  The most compelling one was that my friend Judy is friends with the presenter.  Judy has been trying to get me to contact Rmay for a few months.   When I said I was going to the conference Judy said that Rmay was doing a workshop around her “Grandmother chairs.”  She told me, “I have no idea what the workshop will be but you HAVE to see those chairs.”

So I found the workshop on the schedule, looked for an alternative choice in the same building and stuck my head in to meet Rmay and see the chairs.  Of course I recognized Rmay (who I may have known by Mary or may just have known by sight) and she recognized that I was familiar as well.  And the chairs………..

Rmay Rivard and her chair

I stayed.

Rmay Rivard is an artist and she took on a project to explore her relationship to the women whose mitochondrial DNA she shares, her maternal lineage.  She dumpster dived for wicker chairs, coated them with plaster bandage painted them white and waited.  She used her intuition, her divination skills, her pendulum and decorated a chair for herself, her mother, her grandmother, her great-grandmother, her great-great-grandmother and so on seven generations back.  For most of these women she had very little to go on.  She didn’t even know their names.  Still the chairs became shrines, and many of them came to the conference.

We were invited to sit in a circle of Rmay’s ancestors.  We were told the stories of the chairs and the stories of some of these women began to unfold.  We also shared our own stories of our female ancestors, calling them to join us in the circle by sharing their names and stories.  We did meditations connecting us to our past and to our future generations of women sharing our DNA.  We were invited to trust our intuition and to continue this work.

A circle of ancestors. Find a spot and pull up a chair.

I can not explain how powerful, how moving and how incredible this experience was for me, and for most of the women in the room.  We had a sense of knowing Rmay’s grandmothers, as though we’d been brought over for tea and introduced.  We had a sense, hints, of knowing our own grandmothers as people, as women.  We saw them in our visions in their childhood and as young mothers.  We saw that they had struggles in their lives that made their difficult behaviors make more sense.  Several women also saw their children and grandchildren and were called to know the grandmothers to share their stories further down the generational line.

I’ve been to a lot of silent suppers and meditations for honoring the dead and connecting with the ancestors.  This was remarkable even in that context.  There is a power in this art, in these chairs and (I do say in my book that invocation encourages invocation) the visceral presence of Rmay’s grandmothers made our own more present as well.  Even the stories about creating the art added to the magic and the mystery.

Rmay talked about the polka dot pattern on one of the chairs.  After the chair was finished Rmay’s sister found a photo (in black and white) of this grandmother.  In the photo she is wearing a skirt in the same polka dot pattern as Rmay painted on the chair.  There is the story of Rmay using a pendulum to find dates while building another chair and her sister (on ancestry.com) finding the dates, and therefore the name of the grandmother.

matching polka dots

In the end we sat in a meditative posture and held our ancestors, past and future, in unconditional love.  This is the healing that the workshop title refers to.  Unconditional love and acceptance across the generations heals our family, and ourselves, in the very cells – the mitochondrial DNA – that we share.

This is the ancestor I chose to sit next to. Grandma Stella.

I also wrote an article about the conference for the Pagan News Collective if you want to check that out.

Sneak-tober

Storytellers

I don’t know why, but it seems October always sneaks up on me.  Maybe it’s that “start-up” thing I get going in September.  I never feel quite in the groove before October rolls around.  Maybe it’s that Orion’s birthday is in October (the second) so it’s not just the beginning the month, but an event that catches me unprepared.

This week, besides Orion’s birthday, I’m on Blog Talk Radio – The Priestess Show, talking about Ancestors.  (The first Friday of the month ALREADY?)  The universe is being particularly helpful to me on this one.  I was invited by a friend to attend the opening performance of the Black Storytellers Alliance festival.  This year’s theme “Leaning on the Ancestors.”

It was truly a privilege to participate in this event, and the audience does participate!  These were master storytellers.  Their stories come out of their experiences and their history, but they embrace and welcome the whole of the human experience.  The storytellers came from all across the country, and even (although he currently lives in Maine) from Brazil.

Drummers

The event began with drumming, the drummers mostly children from the community.  They did impressive work, shared the spotlight and encouraged the audience to clap along with the beats.  Then libations were poured out to honor the Divine that has gifted us with our lives, our ancestors and our descendants.  This piece was beautifully done.  I’ve seen many versions of this and both my friend and I were impressed with the grace and eloquence of this little ritual.  But then, these are storytellers aren’t they.

There were family stories and old fables with new twists.  There were stories of imitation and of recognizing our own worth.  Every performance acknowledged the ancestors as a source of power and wisdom.  These are the shoulders upon which we stand.

Orion and I also attended a community equinox ritual.  This too acknowledged our history and our futures.  We made wishes for ourselves and our community.  We cast our coins into the wishing well, but then were taught that we are the well, the water the change makers.  We are the one’s with the power to make our wishes manifest.

Roman Coin

Because making wishes has consequences we were also given charge of someone else’s wishes.  We each got an old roman coin (about 2000 years old).  So now I carry, not only my wishes, but the wishes of those who used this old coin to achieve their own desires.   Ancestors and Descendants.  I am blessed.

Legacy

weeds or ghosts?

With the storm winds blowing and waters surging up the east coast it’s hard to be in the “holiday” spirit.  With the elections looming and the mudslinging only getting worse it’s difficult to find the quiet mind for meditation.  This is the season of harvest, gratitude and remembrance.  Halloween when the ghosts walk and many cultures find themselves honoring their ancestors.

I wonder in this season what kind of ancestors we will be.  What legacy will we leave for our descendants?  Will they live in the zombie appocolypse because of some biohazard gone awry?  Will global warming change the climate so much that they will have mega-storms as part of their daily lives?  Will the bees disappear from their monoculture and pesticide laden diet and will our children follow after a generation or two of starvation and illness?

The bones of trees

The planet has seen many upheavals in its long life.  I’ve been reading the S.M. Stirling change series, which for post civilization literature is actually somewhat hopeful.  The motto of one of the surviving enclaves “the 14th century as it SHOULD have been.”  Complete with sanitation and plumbing.  Or to quote another popular culture phrase, “Life will find a way.”   On the bones of trees are already the hints of the new life of spring.

My maternal Grandparents on the farm

Such is the dilemma of working with the ancestors.  Even my Grandparents would have been hard put to imagine life as we experience it today.  Generations upon generations worked the land and even if they lived “in town” knew where their food was coming from and how it went from field to table.  The idea of spending days inside (house to car to work and back) would have made them wonder about illness and fragility.

“Size matters not, … Look at me. Judge me by size, do you?”

It’s good to be cautious about new things, to examine the possible repercussions of new directions.  At the same time, if we are to be good ancestors to our descendants it is critical for us to remain open and flexible to possibilities we can hardly imagine.  And now I’m round about to Halloween.  It is the holiday of celebrating the imagination.  Dressing up to become more powerful, or to face our fears.  We open our doors to strangers who often don’t even appear to be human.  Children costumed as animals, aliens, and nightmares offer a choice, “trick or treat?”

Ancestors and Descendants

There are many kinds of ancestors with advice and wisdom to help us through the storms of our lives.  There are the ancestors of our blood.  The legacy of our family.  We sort through the good and the bad, learning lessons from both kinds of examples.  We choose which of our family traditions to carry forward and which to let fall by the wayside.   May we choose wisely.

There are ancestors of the heart.  The souls that have touched us in our lives.  These are often people who were role models for us.  Or perhaps they were just the kind hearted souls that appeared at the time we needed them most.  They are our beloved friends and pets who we hold in our memories.  Our heart connection makes their own lives a part of our personal stories.  May we remember the love shared with these ancestors and may we further the legacy of open hearted love.

There are ancestors of the spirit.  These are our heroes.  The souls who’s stories inspire us.  They are the shining lights that encourage us to dream, to strive, to do better.  Let us our fears, make our choices, and move forward towards a legacy of spirit that continues to inspire and enrich those who come after.

Happy Samhein

BB

Shrines

The theme of Sacred Harvest Festival this year was shrines.  That’s where I was camping at the beginning of the month and where I also presented two workshops (neither of them about shrines.)

Shrine to Cernunos Irish Lord of the Hunt

I  really enjoy visiting shrines.  I’m fond of the side chapels in churches.  I like walking through cemeteries.  I nod at the statues in Asian restaurants.  I’m happy to stop and rest on memorial benches and enjoy the view.  I readily light a candle, or a stick of incense or drop a bit of libation when invited to participate in the honoring of a shrine.

Visiting a shrine is like meeting the relatives.  It’s a level of intimacy that, although usually not too risky, isn’t something where participating makes everyone who visits comfortable.  A shrine, like the relatives, must be approached with a willingness to simply accept them as they are.  Shrines are a gift to and from those who tend them.

I notice shrines when I visit peoples homes, even when they are tucked away and unremarked upon.  Some shrines are a very conscious part of a spiritual practice.  Some are entirely unconscious as though shrines are hardwired into our genetics.  Photos collected with the dead relatives in one cluster and the living in another are effective ancestor shrines.  Collections of shells from a visit to the ocean or acorns, or stones often honor the memory of a place.   People have shrines to music, and art, and literature which they honor but do not necessarily acknowledge in a conscious way.

An unconscious shrine to love and marriage

In my book, Manifest Divinity, I identify the Divine very broadly.  I suggest that anything that produces that feeling of awe is inherently a manifestation of the Divine.  Shrines, for me, are a way for people to connect with the Divine in their day to day lives.  By visiting them I get a chance to touch the Divine the way others experience it and expand my own experience and understanding.

Buddha in the snow

Here are a few more shrines:

Can shrines be portable? Prayer beads of Earth Conclave

Or temporary? Place setting for a dinner in honor of the Red Dragon

Ancestors of the blood, of the heart or of the spirit can be honored in ancestor shrines

Shrine to Epony. Do you know a girl with a shrine to horses?

I am of the Divine and the Divine is in me.

What shrines do you keep in your home or visit regularly?

Ancestors and Descendants

It’s the end of pretty autumn and the beginning of dead fall.  Halloween which is all about dressing up as the thing you either most desire or most fear, and eating candy until you’re sick.  Samhein about acknowledging the death of the growing season with the last of the harvest in and the gifts (probably prophetic) of the ancestors.  Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, a great time for a picnic with the relatives both living and passed. A chance to catch up on the news of the year on both sides of the veil.   All Saints Day, assuming of course that the Saints are also dead and that they have only positive things to offer.

I find myself starting to plan the annual holiday schedule.  What day is Thanksgiving dinner and who’s going to show up?  If I plan to spend the night do I get the bedroom or a couch or the floor?  Any rum cakes that have been started and will need regular tending.  I’ve received the list of ‘gifts I would like’ from my daughter, “just in case anyone asks.”   The calendar is filling up already into January.

We lost another member of the family this year.  It makes the ancestor part of the holiday a bit bittersweet.  I do find myself reminiscing in the season.  I no longer have my Grandparents, a niece and a nephew and a handful of very close friends, some of whom have been gone over 30 years.  The pets that have come through our lives over the years also check in to my memory around this time.

But life also goes on.  My daughter and her boyfriend are negotiating the family holiday exchange for the first time this year.  It’s likely that the timing will work in their favor since they both come from families accustomed to making accommodations.  But I’m not sure they both will get the time off work they will need to hit everyone’s celebrations.  Like the season demonstrates, part of life is learning about giving things up.

So I do a final weeding and bury the ancestor garden under a pile of leaves.  I’ll need to decide what to add next year to honor this years passed.  I’ll light a candle or two in memory and sit in meditation.  Hopefully I’ll get a pat on the shoulder or even a warm embrace by the ghost of one of my loved ones.

For me this is not the holiday of one day.  I don’t enjoy a dumb supper sitting in silence while the dead are invited to feast.  I am not a vigilant keeper of shrines to my ancestors, so I am not called to tidy them up for the holiday visit.  Instead I take long walks in the dry leaves kicking up ghosts and smiles.  I talk to the wind, light a fire, pull out a hand made blanket.

I am grateful to the spirits of ancestors past.  Those who love me beyond all reason and continue to support me in my life.  I am grateful for the lessons you have taught me in your life and in your passing.  I am grateful for the love that I continue to carry in my heart.

I am grateful also to my descendants.  I hope to also be remembered in love and gratitude.  I hope that I have made a mark on one or two lives that made a real difference.  I am grateful for the opportunity to pass on the few things I have learned so far in this life.

Seasons blessings