How We Honor the Dead

We stood in the woods at the edge of the water, in a space we use every year. Years of gatherings lay upon each other like the bones of the dead beneath us, like the ruins of civilizations buried beneath cities the living walk every day. Even at the edge of a busy beach, stillness invaded the Ancestor Shrine, save for the sounds of birdsong and the wind in the trees. The magic was tangible.

Together, we called in the ancestors with a prayer I have been voicing for a decade, pouring water as an offering to the dead, to both the ancestral dead we did not know and the beloved dead of our blood and heart who were lost to us in our lifetime. To Those Who Have Gone Before…

We anchored our bodies to the earth. We anchored our spirits to the sky and we opened a Way within ourselves. We stood at the edges between them, so that we might stand with them, unafraid. You are the place where earth and sky meet. You are the doorway to the Ancestors…

We journeyed inward, down the path of ancestral rivers emptying into our veins. We remember our parents and grandparents, our great-grandparents, and their great-grandparents. We walk with them, travelling backwards through time with each step forward we take. We are that they were. We breathe in the echo of Those Who Took Breath Before. We honor them with our presence in the world…

We hung ribbons for our dead, speaking aloud their names and calling them into the circle with us. We opened the way. We hung ribbons for those we have lost within the last year. We shared their names with stories and tears, and heavy hearts. We added names to the list every day. May they be at peace. May the Ancestors welcome them home. May the Ancestors watch over the living left behind in their grief. May it be so…

We sang of circles within circles. We opened our hearts and voices to the air around us. We shifted the space to send our prayers for peace out into the ether. We shared work and magic in the morning mountain time, hanging colorful ribbons to mark stories of gratitude in memory of the dead. We remembered something they gave us, something we learned from them. We honored them in words and laughter and added the breath of the living to the web we built. We remembered our bodies and how our ancestors were our way into them. Every day we walk and breathe we honor those we have lost…

We read poems in the thicket along the water’s edge, remembered words for ears that no longer need them to hear. We lifted our voices in petition and prayer in that space. We remembered that we can still speak to those we miss, that the winds will carry our words to the places we cannot follow. And we left birdseed behind, in pockets of earth in gratitude for their songs filtering into the Shrine. The best way we can honor our ancestors is to love and care for the living.

What is remembered, lives. Whether we know the names of our ancestors or not, we simply have to connect into the energy thread of them that lives within our bloodstream. When we do this, we can feel them walking with us. And when we can do this, we know that we never truly walk alone. We are that they were. We live. We are that others will come after us.

May we remember the interconnected web. May we greet each other with kindness in both life and death. May it be so.