Getting ready for the holiday

What great imagination carvers of pumpkins have!!

Last Samhain Peggy Moore gave a ceremony for our church, as she explained... 

"Samhain is one of the Celtic Holy Days, the end of the ancient calendar year and the day to Honor the Ancestors. Long ago, when our ancestors experienced their lives intricately woven with Earth's cycles, they saw certain times of the year as gateways or magical thresholds between the visible and invisible worlds. For those who acknowledge Celtic Spirituality, the lighting of the Samhain Fire ushers in the Dark Time of the Wheel of the Year and a time of introspection." 

 
We celebrated Samhain by calling in the guardians of the elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water. We gave thanks to our ancestors who created the way for us and join our footsteps with all those who hold the Earth as sacred and all life as holy. 
 
We created an Ancestor Altar, of small items and/or pictures of our ancestors.

This year I have a small altar at home with the ancestors photos on it, and some pretty things I think they would like. To be more diligent, I could add some of their favorite foods, colors, clothing etc.

Today's quote:

Claude Monet, said: "I am following Nature without being able to grasp her. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

by Dorothy Laptrop, 1922 (Here's the skinny witch!)

Dia de los Muertos altars have photos of ancestors who are being honored, as well as things that they might have liked. Marigold flowers are often put on the altars. In Mexico, the tradition was to decorate the graves of ancestors also for this remembrance.

If I were being remembered, there would be chocolate on my altar, and some pretty flowers, and maybe some art and pottery which I'd made. I can hope for such. 

However, this is not another cultural appropriation. We are remembering our ancestors in our ways...and most of us don't have skulls on our altars.

I'm remembering my sister, Mary, this year, and am sharing her photo when the goddess Daughters of Inanna meet on Sunday (today) afternoon. I'll share photos where we aren't involved in ceremony, to respect the times we focus on our spirituality.

It may look like a jumble to you, but it's my altar for this Samhain.

I hope you have a few moments to think of your ancestors, or those who have gone before. Our thoughts help us bring their memories alive, and can heal any broken places in our relationships, yes, even with those who have gone before. We carry half that relationship in our lives, and if we heal that, then our lives are that much lighter whenever we think of them again.