Honoring Our Ancestors

An ancestor altar for Samhain including objects that belonged to my father and my grandparents

Maybe it’s the time of year, but I’ve been talking with a lot of clients about ancestors. We are moving through the autumn in the northern hemisphere, and we are approaching a sacred time when a number of different cultures honor their ancestors and the dead. This is a time between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, when the nights are growing longer and we are journeying deeper into the darkness. Many witches celebrate Samhain on October 31. Samhain is often called the witches’ new year, the ending of one year and the beginning of the next, sometimes described as the final harvest of the year as the crops release their fruits and the trees surrender their leaves. With the end of the harvest season and the gradual turning toward winter, it makes sense that we would be thinking about death and dying, and with the descent into darkness, it can feel as if we are moving deeper into the underworld—the realm of the ancestors.
 
Ancestor work has been part of my practices as a witch for many years. I generally think of ancestors in four ways:
-Ancestors of blood, those with whom we are related through heredity
-Ancestors of path, those who moved along life paths similar to those in which we are engaged, with whom we may or may not be related by blood but with whom we are related through practice. For me, ancestors of path can include dancers and choreographers with whom I am in some form of lineage, witches, astrologers, tarot readers, feminists, etc.
-Ancestors of possibility, those who lived in such a way that our lives are made possible. These ancestors are similar to those we might think of as “possibility models,” people who show us what is possible for our lives and inspire the shape our lives might take. For me, ancestors of possibility include queer and transcestors, people who lived beyond the conventions of gender and sexual norms in such a way that queer and trans life became more possible for me and others like me, for example.
-Ancestors of place, those human and more-than-human lives who belonged to the land where I live, to whom I am responsible, especially as a descendent of white settlers on colonized lands.
 
We do not always know who our ancestors of blood may have been or where they may have come from. Ancestral lineages can be disrupted or broken through war and displacement, through the violence of colonization, and through the devastation of slavery. Sometimes people who are adopted don’t have access to records about their birth parents, but do have access to the lineages into which they have been adopted. Even when we don’t know the details of our hereditary lineages, we are still a part of those ancestral lines, and we can honor those ancestors even if we will never know their names. And: this is also one reason why I think it’s important to acknowledge and recognize these other forms of ancestral connection because blood lines are only one way in which we are shaped by those who came before us. By acknowledging ancestors of path, possibility, and place, we shift into a more expansive understanding of kinship, all the ways we make chosen family through the lives that we create and by which we are created.
 
Being in practices that honor our ancestors can be profoundly meaningful and even healing, especially during this time of year but also not limited to this time of year. Doing different kinds of ancestor work can remind us that we are not alone—we have never been alone. We are accompanied and supported on our journeys by those who came before us, those who continue to live through us because of the life that they gave to us.
Ancestor work can give us a sense of purpose. When we accept that we are responsible to those who came before us and those who will come after us, we move beyond the dominant culture of hyper-individualism and live in ways that understand that we are part of much larger processes unfolding through many lives and lifetimes. Locating ourselves in such lineages can bring greater meaning to the choices we make, not only for ourselves but as part of these much longer stories.
It can also be healing to cultivate these kinds of connections. I often use the words “healing” and “connection” synonymously, and when we engage in intentional practices for connecting with our ancestors, that can be a powerful remedy for experiences of disconnection, loneliness, ruptured attachments, abandonment, and the absence of belonging. We can find and develop an abiding sense of connection and continuity, presence, secure attachment, belonging, and care when we tend to these ancestral relationships that are always already available to us.
 
Sometimes people don’t know how to begin to connect with their ancestors. I would say that there are many ways that we can honor our ancestors of blood and path and possibility and place. Perhaps the simplest form is acknowledgement, bringing these ancestors to mind, giving them our attention and holding them in our awareness as part of the world with which we are moving. Simply thinking about our ancestors can already shift our perception of ourselves and how we are moving through the world.
 
The ancestors are actually already part of our daily lives in countless ways, and we can choose to bring greater awareness to these conditions. For example, we are always moving with the dead.
Go for a walk, and every place your foot falls is full of those who have come before, those who have passed back into the great cycles of decomposition and regeneration. We can know this, even as we also know that death is a great mystery. Whatever you believe happens after death, in some sense, there is no death, only life, the endless transformation of states. As you walk, you might contemplate the countless lives—human and more-than-human—who have been supported and sustained by the land where you are, all those you will never know who have now become part of the land that supports and sustains you. When we honor and take care of the land, we are also honoring and taking care of those who are part of the land.
 
We can create altars to our ancestors, creating a place in our homes where we gather together objects and artefacts that perhaps belonged to our ancestors or that were connected to them in some way, photographs, or anything that brings your attention back to them, as well as offerings of things they enjoyed, candles, or incense. An altar to your ancestors can be a meaningful place to sit with memories, to offer love and gratitude for all that you have received from them, and to sit quietly and listen for their wisdom.
 
We can also honor our ancestors by continuing their traditions and dedicating those practices to their memories. For example, I love to cook my maternal grandmother’s corn casserole recipe that she made for me when I was a child, and I grew up in Louisiana, so I also love to cook gumbo to honor my paternal grandmother—although mine is vegan and hers was full of seafood, sausage, or chicken. Sometimes I dance in ways that connect me to my teachers and their teachers in the modern and postmodern dance traditions in which I have trained. Sometimes going out dancing at a queer club is part of my practice of honoring my queer and transcestors who also danced the nights away, claiming public space for their pleasure, joy, community, and connection.
You might consider cooking some of your own family recipes or telling family stories as a way of honoring your ancestors of blood. You might revisit the writing, artworks, music, teachings, or other offerings that have been left behind by your ancestors of path, offering gratitude as you return to those sources of inspiration. You might think about the lives of those who made your life possible, the things they did to celebrate, build community, or share pleasure, and engage in your own versions of those practices as a way of honoring those ancestors of possibility.
 
We can also honor our ancestors through ritual. Some people come from traditions in which there are clear guidelines for ritual ancestor veneration. Some of us create rituals of our own to honor our ancestors.
Here is a simple ritual for Samhain that I created several years ago:

Bring your hands to the ground and say:
“We bow our heads and hearts to our beloved and mighty dead.
We bring our hands down to the earth to honor our ancestors of blood and path and possibility and place.
We know that we are always standing on and with those who have come before us.
We know that those who have died have returned to the earth itself and have become more than they were.
We know that death and dying are part of life and living, that our lives are shaped by those who have died just as we ourselves will die and continue to shape the lives of the living.”
 
If you like, you might bring your body to the ground, let your eyes close, and allow yourself to rest in the darkness and in the knowledge that you will one day be among the beloved dead.
Listen for the wisdom of your ancestors.
And practice dying, surrendering to death knowing that death is not the end but is a process of becoming other and more than we were, re-entering the cycles of birth and growth and death and rebirth, the cycles of matter becoming energy becoming matter becoming energy.
Stay here as long as you like.
And then arise, greeting tomorrow’s dawn as the start of a new cycle in the wheel of the year.
 
I hope this time of year can be meaningful for you and that these ideas and suggestions can support you in cultivating your own ancestor practices, whether you celebrate Samhain, another sacred day for honoring the dead, or want to bring such practices into your life in an ongoing way.

 
My thinking about ancestors has been inspired by a number of teachers, collaborators, and friends over the years, including Starhawk, Keith Hennessy, Pavini Moray and the Bespoken Bones podcast, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Dori Midnight, Daniel Foor, and the writings of Tatsumi Hijikata. I am grateful for all of their work and wisdom.