Ancestral Feast
The night of the 31st, in addition to an unexpected and very welcome bonding ritual with my brother, and then a tiny bit of trick or treating in honor of the night... there was of course the feast with the Ancestors.
I didn't speak much of it in my post regarding the night's activities, as though I was still a bit hyper from the visit to the Red Barn (I wonder if maybe I should have gone to the Market also, they could use some luck with how that's doing now... but with their religious outlook maybe that wouldn't have been appreciated) I was still processing the other ritual.
With the kids, I only ask that they do one night, though if they want to eat with the Ancestors the full time that I do, I let them. When I was a teen, I observed the meal alone, late at night in my room by candlelight... I had apple juice in the wooden cup I'd made (when I finally got to take woodshop, before that it was just a glass), and often a cookie swiped from the kitchen and hoarded, candles and incense going on my tiny altar for light and hoping that dad didn't investigate and interrupt. When I got out on my own, it was baked pumpkin and bread, some apple cider to drink.
This is the first time I can think of having the meal with my brother. Yes, there was dinner Halloween night as a kid, but it was me that would silently ask my forebears to dine with us... it makes it a bit different when those eating with you are also eating with those that came before. During the consumption of the meal, we were shortly graced with the presence of a male spirit that I think will always visit my brother so long as he takes care of the family he is with...
I would have eaten again with them last night if I hadn't had to go to bed early sick. I'm not sure who's prompting it was to try to eat when I got up later last night... and I won't consider it part of my time with them unless one of them says "it was me."
The first meal was a pot roast, nothing hugely fancy... and quite possibly an internal nod toward my Irish and Scottish roots, as during the preparation I did see quite a few flashes of those areas.
I look out the doors over the valley, watching the rain fall and bounce back up from the ground to form a soft mist, and the drifting steam from the hotspring across the highway, listening to the song of the waters on the metal roof... and I think about the Ancestors and why we take particular times of the year to honor them. After all, not everyone acknowledges them as a part of this year unless as the ghostly sheets hung from trees. And I ponder why our beloved dead chose particular times in our lives and times of the year to remind us of them.
Not all of our Ancestors are particularly people we want to hang out with, not everyone is nice in life, and they don't become automatically nice in death... Yet, those of us that seek to live with them continue to reach for these people from the past. I've yet have have a murderer come to my table, but I'm well aware that not everyone in my bloodline or through fosterings was an upright pillar of society.
It is my thought that we reach back into the past out of love, and wanting to be again with those that we knew. It is also my thought that those from the past reach for us with the same desires... to feel the heat of a hug again, to hear music and laughter, to see the smiling faces of their children's children's children's children's children...
I notice that some families do not have this closeness. I often wonder how I would fare in one that was not so tightly knit (though widespread... I often come up with the idea of a net thinking about it). I don't think that I would do very well, or that if I were transported into one and had contact with my family cut off... there would be one heck of a withdrawl process. Ouch.
This draws me to examine the tradition known as the Dumb Supper. If I remember right, it's mentioned in the Witches Bible, but I don't have my copy handy to verify the veracity of that. I do remember reading about it when studying a small booklet that centered around devotion to Hecate. Hecate and I still have a good relationship, she just wasn't the being that resonated strongly enough with me to gain my devotion. Anyway, the dumb supper basically involved setting a place for yourself, your spiritual guest(s), calling them, and eating without saying a thing.
After many years, I moved out of eating in silence into holding conversations and trying to hear responses. I found things to be much more vibrant on instituting that change. I suppose this could be in part because I am less of a subterranean energy type and more apt to be up in water bodies, coastlines, or my thoughts off in the clouds. I have my times where the underworld calls loudly, but mostly I participate/observe growth... movement... life...
Yet, I can't help but wonder, is that all there is to it? Surely their must be some finer, more detailed, explanation as to why things seem to happen better in the latter sort of shared meal? Is it perhaps that my Ancestors are also the sort that prefer to affirm life, even in death? Perhaps... they sure seem to get riled up enough if someone does something wrong to the family, and they have absolutely no problem with bringing in family from other, extremely distant, branches of the family at times.
Probably where I get my loud mouth and attitude... which curiously, I still have this bad habit of squishing mercilessly if I'm face to face with someone, falling into old training... smile and pretend it's ok... Bah.
I also find myself wondering... why do I observe special times of the year to commune with my Ancestors, when I do it every day too? To show respect, most certainly, rather like celebrating the birthdays of those in my life even if I spend nearly every day with them... but is there something more to it as well? An acknowledgement of the energy webs? They seem to be a portion stronger after every thing that is done in their honor. I know that they are made stronger by energy gifts, and different religions encourage praying for the dead (or to the dead). So in some measure by doing this I care for my Ancestors as they care for me...
And I wonder, why the transition between is painful... when the living can be as easily acknowledges as Ancestors as those who have already crossed over are?
And in pondering all this... I still find myself standing firm in that when I die, if my friends and family don't throw a party and send me off with fun... they are all going to get thwapped in some fashion. Cry all you want at the funeral, but dear gods, thow a party, drink yourselves silly, and stuff your faces after it. Thankfully, it's going to be quite some time unless I get myself in a big accident, or Big Valley Mountain gets me.
I didn't speak much of it in my post regarding the night's activities, as though I was still a bit hyper from the visit to the Red Barn (I wonder if maybe I should have gone to the Market also, they could use some luck with how that's doing now... but with their religious outlook maybe that wouldn't have been appreciated) I was still processing the other ritual.
With the kids, I only ask that they do one night, though if they want to eat with the Ancestors the full time that I do, I let them. When I was a teen, I observed the meal alone, late at night in my room by candlelight... I had apple juice in the wooden cup I'd made (when I finally got to take woodshop, before that it was just a glass), and often a cookie swiped from the kitchen and hoarded, candles and incense going on my tiny altar for light and hoping that dad didn't investigate and interrupt. When I got out on my own, it was baked pumpkin and bread, some apple cider to drink.
This is the first time I can think of having the meal with my brother. Yes, there was dinner Halloween night as a kid, but it was me that would silently ask my forebears to dine with us... it makes it a bit different when those eating with you are also eating with those that came before. During the consumption of the meal, we were shortly graced with the presence of a male spirit that I think will always visit my brother so long as he takes care of the family he is with...
I would have eaten again with them last night if I hadn't had to go to bed early sick. I'm not sure who's prompting it was to try to eat when I got up later last night... and I won't consider it part of my time with them unless one of them says "it was me."
The first meal was a pot roast, nothing hugely fancy... and quite possibly an internal nod toward my Irish and Scottish roots, as during the preparation I did see quite a few flashes of those areas.
I look out the doors over the valley, watching the rain fall and bounce back up from the ground to form a soft mist, and the drifting steam from the hotspring across the highway, listening to the song of the waters on the metal roof... and I think about the Ancestors and why we take particular times of the year to honor them. After all, not everyone acknowledges them as a part of this year unless as the ghostly sheets hung from trees. And I ponder why our beloved dead chose particular times in our lives and times of the year to remind us of them.
Not all of our Ancestors are particularly people we want to hang out with, not everyone is nice in life, and they don't become automatically nice in death... Yet, those of us that seek to live with them continue to reach for these people from the past. I've yet have have a murderer come to my table, but I'm well aware that not everyone in my bloodline or through fosterings was an upright pillar of society.
It is my thought that we reach back into the past out of love, and wanting to be again with those that we knew. It is also my thought that those from the past reach for us with the same desires... to feel the heat of a hug again, to hear music and laughter, to see the smiling faces of their children's children's children's children's children...
I notice that some families do not have this closeness. I often wonder how I would fare in one that was not so tightly knit (though widespread... I often come up with the idea of a net thinking about it). I don't think that I would do very well, or that if I were transported into one and had contact with my family cut off... there would be one heck of a withdrawl process. Ouch.
This draws me to examine the tradition known as the Dumb Supper. If I remember right, it's mentioned in the Witches Bible, but I don't have my copy handy to verify the veracity of that. I do remember reading about it when studying a small booklet that centered around devotion to Hecate. Hecate and I still have a good relationship, she just wasn't the being that resonated strongly enough with me to gain my devotion. Anyway, the dumb supper basically involved setting a place for yourself, your spiritual guest(s), calling them, and eating without saying a thing.
After many years, I moved out of eating in silence into holding conversations and trying to hear responses. I found things to be much more vibrant on instituting that change. I suppose this could be in part because I am less of a subterranean energy type and more apt to be up in water bodies, coastlines, or my thoughts off in the clouds. I have my times where the underworld calls loudly, but mostly I participate/observe growth... movement... life...
Yet, I can't help but wonder, is that all there is to it? Surely their must be some finer, more detailed, explanation as to why things seem to happen better in the latter sort of shared meal? Is it perhaps that my Ancestors are also the sort that prefer to affirm life, even in death? Perhaps... they sure seem to get riled up enough if someone does something wrong to the family, and they have absolutely no problem with bringing in family from other, extremely distant, branches of the family at times.
Probably where I get my loud mouth and attitude... which curiously, I still have this bad habit of squishing mercilessly if I'm face to face with someone, falling into old training... smile and pretend it's ok... Bah.
I also find myself wondering... why do I observe special times of the year to commune with my Ancestors, when I do it every day too? To show respect, most certainly, rather like celebrating the birthdays of those in my life even if I spend nearly every day with them... but is there something more to it as well? An acknowledgement of the energy webs? They seem to be a portion stronger after every thing that is done in their honor. I know that they are made stronger by energy gifts, and different religions encourage praying for the dead (or to the dead). So in some measure by doing this I care for my Ancestors as they care for me...
And I wonder, why the transition between is painful... when the living can be as easily acknowledges as Ancestors as those who have already crossed over are?
And in pondering all this... I still find myself standing firm in that when I die, if my friends and family don't throw a party and send me off with fun... they are all going to get thwapped in some fashion. Cry all you want at the funeral, but dear gods, thow a party, drink yourselves silly, and stuff your faces after it. Thankfully, it's going to be quite some time unless I get myself in a big accident, or Big Valley Mountain gets me.