All Souls Day of the Dead

All Souls Night by Loreena McKennitt

All Souls Day. The Day of the Dead. Another day to remember and honor our dead. Another day to recognize the thin veils between the worlds. An electrifying time of year as people feel the energy and pressure of those on the other side of that incorporeal veil.

Loreena McKennitt's song All Souls Night describes today in haunting terms:

Standing on the bridge that crosses
the river that goes out to the sea.
The wind is full of a thousand voices.
They pass by the bridge and me.

We find comfort in our search to know what's happened to our loved ones after death. We long to know they are safe, holding space for us. This day we honor our ancestors ~ as well as reiterate they are on the other side of the veil. It's a time to visit, to acknowledge our continued connection, to express our gratitude, to heal.

After spending most of our year in the solid reality of our daily lives, having a day or two where we feel or hear or see those who have gone before us can strike us as eerie, scary, unnerving. Many of our workaday worlds teach us that death means our loved ones, our ancestors are gone. So when we feel the breeze of their presence or hear a long lost voice or catch a glimpse of someone clothed with familiar clothing, we are shaken and assume we are crazed.

Not today. Not in this brief season from All Hallows Eve to All Souls Day or the Day of the Dead. Now we allow ourselves to be comforted by the watchfulness of our ancestors. We have them momentarily near us again. Watch for them. Thank them and let them go. Today is the perfect day for that.

Which of your ancestors do you most miss? To whom do you feel connected? How does this season show up in your life? How do you sense the passing of the souls on the bridge between the worlds? What rituals do you use to honor them? to let them go?

All Saints' Day 2016

Sojourner Truth, Bartolomé de las Casas, Miriam, Origen, Malcolm X, Queen Elizabeth I, Iqbal Masih, & Teresa of Avila

Considering the seasonal closeness and thinness of the veils between the worlds, thoughts of the saints dancing nearby, celebrating with and in spite of us, brings a smile to my lips. In that place beside yet distinct and distant from us, there is no more separation. The saints find joy in everything. They celebrate, love, embrace, and glow with the light of their joy.

Where we find ourselves in the world, in this same moment, can be trying or frightening or enraging or sad. We are influenced by the moods, words and experiences of others as well as our own. However, the word influence comes from Latin and means into flow. We have choice of what influences us, what flow we step into. We can be in the flow of a mud-slinging election season. Or in the flow of the severe changes in our work environment. Or in the flow of the grief and death of a friend. All of these things touch our lives in their particular way. We can choose how much, how long or how deeply we want to allow ourselves to be in that flow. Don't deny the feelings. Don't wallow in them either. Learn the power of balance.

Sometimes, the immediacy of someone's words or actions or disappearance in our lives whacks us off our emotional feet. That is what being embodied humans is all about. We feel in all possible ways. It's good to feel ~ to allow the joy or sadness or grief or love to rush over us. It's also good to take perspective on those feelings, to look at the joy of the dancing saints in the icon above, and recognize ourselves in that as well.

At this season, the closeness of the saints can bring us to tears of sorrow, grief and joy all at the same time or perhaps wildly in turns. While we feel our own personal feelings around them, may we have the grace to touch into their dancing too.

What do you feel about the saints who have passed through your life? Who are they? How have they affected you? What can you do to acknowledge their presence in this season?

New Moon in Scorpio and Halloween

The season of Halloween, or Samhain, opened with the New Moon in Scorpio. New Moons bring with them a new wave of energy, the turning of the dark time as it heads toward fullness. As New Moons are literal dark times filled with potential, it is perfect for this one to be in Scorpio, the sign of secrets and shadows. This is a time of deep dreaming and intuition, a time for looking inside. A Scorpio New Moon is receptive and quiet ~~ hidden.

Scorpio is considered by many as the most powerful sign with those who are born under this sign being very powerful souls. Scorpio is all about dying and being reborn again, going into the deep slumber within the greater Self, the ultimate Consciousness.

Scorpio is ruled by Pluto and Mars: Pluto exposing the dead and decaying to throw in the transforming cauldron; Mars lasering in on the will, desire and achievement. Together they create the energy for dancing closely with our personal Shadows, to interact with the mysteries hidden within us.

This is the time to let go and shed the old skin as well as plant the seed of power to transform death into new growth. The strong Scorpio archetypes for doing this are The Healer, The Shaman, The Alchemist. This is a time to reclaim lost or hidden power and when the Divine Feminine and Warrior will be empowered to integrate more fully into world.

As the Scorpio New Moon leads into Halloween, it is evident that only those who believe in magic will find it. Halloween ~ All Hallows Eve ~ and the two days following ~ All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day ~ are days when the veils between the concrete, physical world and the ethereal, spiritual world are at their thinnest. Also, the veils between the living and the dead. Many people burn candles or dance for ancestors no longer with us. It is the time we not only acknowledge the passage into darkness and death, we ritualize and celebrate it.

How do you celebrate this time of year? What connection does it suggest to you about your ancestors? Do you light a candle to remember them during this time? How do you experience the thinning of the veils? What do you wish to reclaim during this New Moon? What will be reborn in you?

All Hallows Day

All Saints' Day in Poland

My personal and spiritual continually unfolding myth includes both the Pagan celebrations, such as Samhain or Hallowe'en, and the Christian celebrations, like All Hallows or All Saints' Day. Both encourage the honoring of the ancestors, of those who have already passed through the veil from this world to the next.

The image above is of a graveyard in Poland where there is an honoring of those who have died. Flowers and candles abound as far as the eye can see. It reminds me of a variety of festive days: weddings, family birthdays, funerals, graduations. Any of the days we choose to celebrate are decorated with floral arrangements and honored with lit candles.

I knew few of my ancestors. My maternal grands died when my mother was a teenager. My paternal grandfather died when I was perhaps five. I recall very little about him, except that my brother and I would play on his sick bed and he enjoyed our company. My maternal grandmother died when I was seventeen. My high school graduation was her last family event. I have stories of all of them. Images and words surface in the dreamtime, arising from that stored genetic pool of memory. This is a day when I can sit within that dreamtime, connect with them, talk through my day, the course of my life, gather tidbits of wisdom from them. At the close of day, I blow out the candles with a heart filled with gratitude, joy and grief. What an amazing time.

How do you honor your ancestors? What do you feel when you think of them? What would you like to say to them? to ask of them? to share with them? What do you want from them? Are you pleased with their responses?

Celebrating Birth and Death Days

What a lovely surprise recently when going to Google's search page. It was personalized for my birthday! On the one hand, sweet and touching to see. On the other, scary that Google wishes its clientele a Happy Birthday ~~ because it does know the birthdays of all who use Gmail or Google+ or Hangouts.... the list goes on.

My birthday was an incredible mix of celebrations ~ birth, life and death. I celebrated my own birthday in person with my partner; received greetings via mail, email, text, phone and social media; and spent time alone, contemplating my life. I played with my new 'toy' ~ a Samsung Galaxy S tablet ~ that I received as a gift. What fun!

My life has been a lovely string of events orchestrated by my parents, by my choices of partners, career and friends and by my daughter. Currently, I imagine hearing Frank Sinatra's voice singing, "Regrets. I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention." Or to remember. It's all been a most amazing blessing.

Lately, including on my birthday, I've been in and around several conversations about aging and about death. One friend posted a picture of her unsolicited AARP card (oh, dear!) bemoaning her aging. Another commented on the number of people she's known lately who've died (or passed over, if you prefer). One wept over her son who committed suicide; another laid a spread of Fall flowers on the ground for a daughter-of-the-heart who died too soon. One spoke about not being able to be around a mutual friend dying of AIDS; another about her fears of her own mortality. One spoke softly about missing her deceased husband; another ranted about her dead father. All of these conversations happened within the past week.

That's the season that occurs around my birthday as well. Death and dying are part and parcel of Fall. Yet there's beauty and harmony in the circle and cycle of life that happens too. We're coming closer to Halloween, All Souls' and All Saints' Days ~ Samhain, the time of year when the veils between the worlds are thinner, easier to pass through. All this is what I love about my Fall birthday.

What do you think of Fall? What do you celebrate on your birthday? Do you think about the fullness of the cycle of your life? How do you feel about it?

Thinning of the Veils

This is the time of year where we clearly talk about and accept that there is a thinness to the veils between the worlds of the living and the dead. There are also those who are no longer living, yet have not yet fully embraced the world of the dead. They too step between the veils more readily at this time of year.

I've long been amazed and amused by the three days that join together during this time. Three, a number sacred to God and Goddess alike: Trinity, Trident, Triple Goddess.
Found at http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost12aa.html:
     31 October: Hallowe'en: unofficially recalls the souls of the damned.
     1 November: All Saints: set aside to officially honor the Church Triumphant.
     2 November: All Souls: set aside officially to pray for the Church Suffering.
In these three days, we have the opportunity to acknowledge those who have gone from this world to the next. We can choose to be present to the comings and goings of our ancestors, our friends, all those who have gone before. We can choose to listen for their voices in the wind, in the dreamtime, in our memories. We can create ceremony and ritual to honor the wisdom of those who have gone beyond the veil.

What presence will you make available for your ancestors? How will you honor them?