Remembering Those Who Died of COVID-19 This Samhain

This is the night each year where I speak the names of the Recent Dead, which for my purposes is anyone who died since the last time I did my personal ritual. Sometimes I include people who I did not know had previously passed. I light candles and call to my Ancestors. I ask them to welcome the souls of those who have died in the last year. I ask them to show any stragglers the path to peace.

This year I felt called to be in service to a more specific intention and focus. I will still do my private ritual for the recent dead. But on All Hallow's Eve under the blessing of the Blue Moon I will do a ritual for those who have passed this last year as a result of COVID-19.

We are still in the thick of this virus. We do not yet have control of it and winter is coming. As of this morning there are 226,132 souls to bid passage and rest to, just from this virus alone.

Just before October 31st becomes November 1st I will light my candles on my ancestor altar. You don't have to use candles. Any source of intentional light will work. I will open my heart to my family lines of ancestors, both blood and chosen. And I will speak the number of the dead until I feel my intention connect with other world and I am filled with a sense of peace.

I invite any of you who feel called to join me. I will update the total number of dead after dusk: 228,185 souls.

Blessed Samhain co-walkers.

May those we love live on through us.

Meet My Ancestors

Tonight is Samhain. It is All Hallows Eve. It is a night where the walls between this world and the next are thin. This is the night where the dead bleed through and if you wish to connect with them, you can listen to them, you can sense when they're present, and you can entice them to come. You can also make simple offerings to honor their place and presence in your life.

Because They Were...You Are.

I pour water in the glass cup on my Ancestor Altar. I light a candle in the fossil candle holder. It is the lighthouse guiding their way to me. I light more candles for specific prayers. I take in a breath and as I exhale I open my heart. I open myself to spirit world. I am not the lighthouse.

I am the light.  

I open to my Grandparents:  

Richard James Riddle & Donna MacDonald, my beloved dead
*

Mark Dutcher Eaton, my beloved dead, & Ruth Emma Ruston
*

Patricia Ann Art
~*~
~*~

I open to my Great-Grandparents:

Harold Riddle & Elsie Elizabeth Durant, my beloved dead
*

Robert Joseph Art & Margaret Loretta Burke
*

Frank William Ruston & Minnie Estelle Wicker
*

Royal Levant Eaton & Hattie Eva Smith
~*~
~*~

I open to my Great-Great-Grandparents:

Frances & Lafayette are in the center, front.

Lafayette Riddle & Frances Ann Gillette
*

George Frances Durant & Emma Louise Burnah
*

George Art & Katherine Pils
*

Frank Burke & Eliza Conners
*

Ruth & Charles are in the center back.

Charles Evan Ruston & Ruth Ireland [both from England]
*

Hiram & Emma are the center couple.

Hiram King Wicker & Emma Angeline Whitcher 
*

Bennett Eaton & Theresa Cordelia Tenney
*

Silas Parker Smith & Hattie Eva Dutcher
~*~
~*~

I open to my Great-Great-Great-Grandparents:

Marquise DeLafayette Riddle & Sarah Clickner
*

Levi & Jane are seated in the second row.

Levi Gillette & Jane Berry
*

Albert Durant & Rosella LaValley [both from Quebec]
*

Samuel Burnah [from Quebec] & Mary Fortin
*

Adam Art & Catherine Blume [both from Germany]
*

John Pils & Mary Burzee [both from Germany]
*

Thomas Burke & Ellen
*

David Conners & Mary Dowd [both from Ireland]
*

Richard Ruston & Anna Richardson [both from England]
*

William Ireland & Phoebe Lenton [both from England]
*

Thaddeus Rice Wicker & Cynthia Lusk
*

Bailey Harrison Whitcher & Ordelia de Lozier
*

Solomon Gould Eaton & Hannah Ann Treadwell
*

Philetus Tenny & Malvina H. Targee
*

Ammi Smith & Sophia Sears
*

Reuben Feagles Dutcher & Eliza Marsh Bird
~*~
~*~
I open to my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandparents:

Joshua Eaton & Lucy Gould
*
Solomon P. Treadwell & Fermicy Peters
*
Hiram Tenney & Esther Sally Tillotson
*
Thomas Targee & Eleanor Smith
*
David Smith & Betsey
*
Heman Sears & Clarissa Dubois
*
Martin Dutcher & Cynthia Ann Feagles
*
Manly Bird & Irene Pond Marsh
*
Edward Ruston & Jane Brooks
*
Thomas Richardson & wife
*
John Ireland & wife
*
John Lenton & Mary Wilson
*
Pliny Wicker & Chloe Morgan
*
Elizur Lusk & Mary A.
*
Simeon Whitcher & Dorcas Kittredge
*

Peter de Lozier P.O.W. & Lucy Raymond
*
Freeborn Moulton Riddle & Abigail Chaffee
*
Wilhemus C. Clickner & Anna Maria Hayner
*
Ezra Wheeler Gillette & Mary Ann Boots
*
Francis Berry & Elizabeth Ann Hill
*
George Durant & Safrona (from PQ)
*
Francois Xavier Paquet Lavallee & Rosella LaRoche (from PQ)
*
George Arth & Wilhemina Wernersbach (both from Germany)
*
Heinrich Blum & Margaretha Hesse (both from Germany)
*

John Burke & Ann Scott (from Ireland)
*
Barney Dowd (from Ireland)

I open to my ancestors, known and unknown. I open the front door. The air is cold and tinged with winter. I invite all who wish us no ill to enter and celebrate the night.

I ask my Ancestors to welcome in the spirits of the Recent Dead, of my beloved college friend Dave Bova. I ask them to watch over our community friends Sue Curewitz Arthen, James Johnson, Lorna Tibbetts, and Janet Rae McKee Banks. And may her family welcome my great-aunt Donna Riddle Mauri back into their embrace.

Leave offerings of food and liquor, of earthly things that smell strong and potent, of tobacco and candies. Leave them fresh, filtered water. Listen to the whisperings of the shadows. Feel peace fill your heart.

Let the candles burn low. Pay attention to your dreamings. The dead have things they wish to say.

Blessed Samhain. Happy Halloween.

Preparing the Way for Spirit to Come Through

Autumn has New York State in her grasp, even though my morning glories are still trying to grow new tendrils. We turn towards All Hallow’s Eve and it feels as though winter will not be far behind. Indoors, I make preparations to honor my Ancestral Dead and welcome them into my home and hearth. I do this every day but at this time of year I do it more formally and intently on a night when the lines between the living and the dead blur.

I see movements out of the corner of my eye, things tucking behind chairs and bookshelves that aren’t there when I look for them straight-on. I feel people entering the room behind me but no matter how certain my body is that I am not alone I cannot see anyone with my naked eye. And my scalp prickles as if a hand has gently touched me. It warms beneath another palm. I no longer reach up to check because I know it is not a physical presence.

This is how I live every October. The blurs are what I refer to as wayward spirits, harmless travelers drawn towards memories of being alive. The closer we get to Samhain the brighter my inner lighthouse gets. My room lurker is currently The German Guy who has made another appearance. He belongs to my maternal Grandma Art’s side. And the hand on my scalp is my Great-Grandma Elsie. Always. She is my spirit traffic guide. She is never far.

I leave her cups of tea and horribly salted chicken wings. She lived with us in the summers and was alive until I was seventeen. There is a space in my heart that was shaped by her, a part of me that remembers how she molded me. 

You can’t let the bullies stop you from living your life, she'd tell me.

That goes for spirit bullies, too. Sometimes, if you are sensitive to them, they can crowd the room and demand attention. So when I clean my Ancestor Altar and refresh it for the season I call in peaceful spirits here that do not wish us harm. I take a shot of some pungent liquor and make an offering at the edge of our property for those spirits seeking offerings with no regard for the living.

There is room for them all to be honored…just...out there. Not in my home.

On Samhain we feast a Dumb Supper with our ancestors, setting a place for special guests and one place for all the rest to come and join. Together, the collective of us living and dead will say a final farewell to those who have passed since last year and I will ask the Ancestors to safeguard those who may not yet be at peace and to watch over their families.

Some years the names of my Recent Dead are few. This year, the list is longer than I'd like, and the losses are heavy. A dear friend and community member. Several other community members... oh, my heart. My Great-Aunt. A beloved friend and college companion. The loss of him is still rippling out through our hearts. It will be felt for years.

I wish them peace even as I grieve the loss of them, the loss of their physical presence, of their wisdom, of all the time we’ll never have to repair or strengthen wounds and hearts. And I am left to figure out how to move on from unfinished work.

But not alone. Those Who Have Gone Before aid me in my grief. The Ancestral Dead, the centuries of others who have felt such loss, have been deceased long enough that they can hold space for my sorrow. When I am open to it, in my darkest moment, I do not feel alone.

For some people the thought of ghosts is isolating and frightening. We often feel such a way about things we cannot explain. I’ve always trusted what I am experiencing more than just my eyes. We do not see everything and we do not see everything the same way as everyone else. It makes our personal experiences valuable.

Open your heart to the thinning of the walls between this world and the next. Do not try to quantify or qualify. I will tell you that yes, your loved one is gone. And they are alive. And they are reincarnated. And they are with you. All of that is true, all at once, right now.

Now they are gone. Now they are everywhere.

How will you honor them this year?



(post updated from October 17, 2018)

Grief Poppets for Samhain

Without death, there would be no Ancestors to revere. With death comes grief. Ancestor practitioners spend so much time playing crossing guard and messenger that we need to have a tool box of ways to work through, accept, and integrate grief.

At Samhain, I tell people not to call on those who have not been gone for at least a year. That is partly so we do not hold onto spirits who were ready to move on. But it is largely an act of self-care. We humans need time to process our grief before being able to experience our friends as part of the slipstream of Ancestral Dead.

Some people need less than a year. Some people need more time. There’s no golden rule. It’s natural to fear and struggle with death. Humans cling to our science for answers to give us comfort. Death is perhaps the ultimate mystery for which there can never be any concrete veritas Truth. So we gather our personal truths and experiences with death in an attempt to flesh out the hidden image.

I have a simple but potent magic I use when I have a personal grief that sits heavy in my heart. I make a Grief Poppet.

They are not Voodoo dolls, although I consider Voodoo dolls to be a kind of poppet. Use of poppets in folk healing is old and crosses cultures. When I make a poppet for healing, I make the figure of it similar to the being it is meant for. They’re usually human silhouettes but I have also made cat-shaped dollies.

I always use cotton fabrics, something that can be burned or buried without further harming the Earth. I cut two shapes and put them wrong-side together, hand stitching them. While sewing, I focus my thoughts on happy memories of the one I grieve. I leave an opening in the head so I can fill it, then turn it inside out. This is poppet magic 101, for all poppet workings. Now I have a shell for the magic.

I use flaxseed as the base herb for grief poppets. It adds a weight to the fetish that feels good in my hand. I add lavender and rosemary internally for scent. I recommend investing in lavendin for grief purposes (not to be cooked with). It is a hybrid of two strains that produces more essential oil and has a potently soothing aroma to it. If my grief has sharp edges I add some nettle for protection.

The key piece of magic happens when I add the heart stone. I often use a piece of resin incense, sometimes a lotus seed, sometimes a small bean, or a small chip of a gemstone. The important part is that it is meaningful to the person I am crafting the poppet for.

Then I finish it off with an invisible stitch. I make it small enough to fit into a pocket but large enough to be weight in my palm. I carry it around with me for as long as I need. It is not a cure for grief. Grief is not a thing to be abolished or denied.

The depth of our grief is a reflection of the depth of the love we felt, lived, and lost.

Part of what makes the emotion difficult is the intangible quality of it. The poppet is something I can finger in my pocket. It’s less permanent than needing something to remind me of my lost loved one on a daily basis. It becomes a conduit for that grief. It becomes a container but it does not contain it. It takes in the excess but does not retain it. I use copal for grief poppet heart stones because it is a cleanser and purifier.

The nature of time is to lessen the hurt of grief. I will carry the poppet through my workings this Samhain, and burn or bury it at the next one (if I am ready), sending the remnants of that love back out into the world. Love is something death cannot take away.

Love is something death cannot take away.

When grief ebbs at your heart, feed it love.

Feed the world love that none will be hungry for it.

Honor the dead by caring for the living.
Be a good ancestor now.

Thinning Worlds

At Samhain I honor my Ancestral Dead and formally welcome them into my home and hearth. It’s a common practice for witches, pagans, and ancestor worship practitioners. It’s also something I do every day, not just in autumn. The other side of the Halloween coin is May Day, otherwise known as Beltane, and it’s another time when the lines between the living and the dead blur.

The living, the dead, and the energy beings that bleed into this world from another. There are too many stories of fairy folk from differing mythologies for me to not be open to the possibility that they exist on another plane. I mean, once you believe in ghosts the door to what is possible stands wide open.

And I believe in ghosts.

            They visit me in my dreams. But when the worlds are thin I see them in the waking world as well. I see movements out of the corner of my eye, things tucking behind chairs and bookshelves that aren’t there when I look for them straight-on. I feel people entering the room behind me but no matter how certain my body is that I am not alone I cannot see anyone with my naked eye. And my scalp prickles as if a hand has gently touched me. It warms beneath another palm. I no longer reach up to check because I know it is not a physical presence.

This is how I live. The blurs are what I refer to as wayward spirits, harmless travelers drawn towards memories of being alive. The thinner the worlds get the brighter my inner lighthouse gets. I have a room lurker who is also an old fixture I call the German Guy. I know he belongs to my maternal Grandma Art’s side and as she passed last spring I am not surprised he has come to sit with me. The hand I feel on my scalp is my Great-Grandma Elsie. She is my spirit traffic cop, never far. When the worlds bleed across each other her presence is more vigilant.

I leave out cups of tea and horribly salted chicken wings as a thank you to her. Or strawberry shortcake in season. She lived with us in the summers and was alive until I was seventeen. There is a space in my heart that was shaped by her, a part of me that remembers how she molded me. She saw what others in my family did not see and now, from a grown-up perspective, her experiences with a difficult son dictated the advice she gave me:

You have to love, anyway. You can’t let the bullies stop you from living your life.

That goes for spirit bullies, too. If you are sensitive to them, they can crowd the room and demand attention. So when I clean my Ancestor Altar and refresh it I call in peaceful spirits that do not wish us harm. I take a shot of some pungent liquor and make an offering at the edge of our property for those spirits seeking offerings with no regard for the living.

There is room for them all to be honored…just out there. Not in my home.

In this thinner world I ask the Ancestors to safeguard those who may not yet be at peace and to watch over their families.

I still grieve for Recent Dead. It wells up as the thinning comes and I can feel spirits more viscerally. I am both reminded of their loss and equally hurt that their ghost has not come to visit. I wish them peace even as I grieve the loss of them, the loss of their physical presence, of their wisdom, of all the time we’ll never have to repair or strengthen wounds and hearts. And I am left to figure out how to move on from unfinished work.

But not alone. Those Who Have Gone Before aid me in my grief. The Ancestral Dead, the centuries of others who have felt such loss, have been deceased long enough that they can hold space for my sorrow. Their physical connection to the World They Knew is long gone and they are drawn to that familiar emotion of loss. Whether intentional or not, they sit with me. I know this. When I am open to it, in my darkest moment, I do not feel alone.

For some people the thought of ghosts is isolating and frightening. It can drive them from a space. We often feel such a way about things we cannot explain. I’ve always trusted what I am experiencing more than just my eyes. We do not see everything and we do not see everything the same way as everyone else. It makes our personal experiences valuable.

Ghosts are real.

Those blurs I see out of the corner of my eye are not all ghosts. After years of working with spirits you can sense/see the difference. Some are land wights waking after a wintry slumber. Finding a way to embrace the life-waking in the same breath as life-transitioning-through-death is a way to honor those who are no more.

Look up the histories of your ancestors and leave offerings appropriate to the lands of your people. I leave out bread and seed and fruit and tea to feed those just waking and I do it in the name of those I miss. In my grief I choose to feed life.

Open your heart to the thinning of the walls between this world and the next. Do not try to quantify or qualify. I will tell you that yes, your loved one is gone. And they are alive. And they are reincarnated. And they are with you. All of that is true, all at once, right now.

Now they are gone. Now they are everywhere.

How will your heart honor them?

Preparing the Way for Spirit to Come Through

Autumn has finally found us here in New York State. As we turn towards All Hallow’s Eve it feels as though winter will not be far behind. Indoors, I make preparations to honor my Ancestral Dead and welcome them into my home and hearth. I do this every day but at this time of year I will do it more formally and intently on a night when the lines between the living and the dead blur.

I see movements out of the corner of my eye, things tucking behind chairs and bookshelves that aren’t there when I look for them straight-on. I feel people entering the room behind me but no matter how certain my body is that I am not alone I cannot see anyone with my naked eye. And my scalp prickles as if a hand has gently touched me. It warms beneath another palm. I no longer reach up to check because I know it is not a physical presence.

This is how I live every October. The blurs are what I refer to as wayward spirits, harmless travelers drawn towards memories of being alive. The closer we get to Samhain the brighter my inner lighthouse gets. The room lurker is currently The German Guy who has made another appearance. I know he belongs to my maternal Grandma Art’s side. As she passed this last spring I am not surprised to see him come to sit with me. And the hand on my scalp is my Great-Grandma Elsie. Always. She is my spirit traffic cop. She is never far.

I leave her cups of tea and horribly salted chicken wings. She lived with us in the summers and was alive until I was seventeen. There is a space in my heart that was shaped by her, a part of me that remembers how she molded me. She saw what others in my family did not see and now, from a grown-up perspective, her experiences with a difficult son dictated her advice to me.

You can’t let the bullies stop you from living your life.

That goes for spirit bullies, too. Sometimes, if you are sensitive to them, they can crowd the room and demand attention. So when I clean my Ancestor Altar and refresh it for the season I call in peaceful spirits here that do not wish us harm. I take a shot of some pungent liquor and make an offering at the edge of our property for those spirits seeking offerings with no regard for the living.

There is room for them all to be honored…just...out there. Not in my home.

On Samhain we feast a Dumb Supper with our ancestors, setting a place for special guests and one place for all the rest to come and join. Together, the collective of us living and dead will say a final farewell to those who have passed since last year and I will ask the Ancestors to safeguard those who may not yet be at peace and to watch over their families.

Some years the names of my Recent Dead are few. This year, the list is long, and the losses are heavy. My Grandmother. My Uncle. One of my wife’s closest friends. My primary doctor and friend. Three members of my spiritual community, the loss for one of them is still rippling out through our hearts. It will be felt for years.

I wish them peace even as I grieve the loss of them, the loss of their physical presence, of their wisdom, of all the time we’ll never have to repair or strengthen wounds and hearts. And I am left to figure out how to move on from unfinished work.

But not alone. Those Who Have Gone Before aid me in my grief. The Ancestral Dead, the centuries of others who have felt such loss, have been deceased long enough that they can hold space for my sorrow. When I am open to it, in my darkest moment, I do not feel alone.

For some people the thought of ghosts is isolating and frightening. We often feel such a way about things we cannot explain. I’ve always trusted what I am experiencing more than just my eyes. We do not see everything and we do not see everything the same way as everyone else. It makes our personal experiences valuable.

Open your heart to the thinning of the walls between this world and the next. Do not try to quantify or qualify. I will tell you that yes, your loved one is gone. And they are alive. And they are reincarnated. And they are with you. All of that is true, all at once, right now.

Now they are gone. Now they are everywhere.

How will you honor them this year?

Safe Journeys, Traveller

On April 11, 2018 I wrote My Grandma Pat is Dying which involved how I used my spiritual practice. Seven days later my mom messaged me to say that it wouldn’t be long. I lit my altar and called the waiting ancestors back in.

Parents of my grandmother

Margaret Burke & Robert Art.

*

Grandparents of my grandmother

Eliza Conners & Frank Burke.

Katherine Pils & George Art.

*

Great-grandparents of my grandmother

Mary Dowd & David Conners.

Thomas & Ellen Burke.

John Pils & Mary Smith.

Adam Art & Ana Catherine Blume.

*

Great-great-grandparents of my grandmother

Barney Dowd.

Betsey (uknown, married) Conners.

Ann (unknown, married) Burke.

I opened the way. I told her it was time. When she was ready she could let go.

But she wouldn’t. I was standing in front of my ancestor altar with one foot in this world and one foot in her limbo. I saw her, hanging on to an almost translucent thread. We were in motion, being pulled to the right. She stared at me, her left arm curled up around an empty space.

Bella.

Her cat.

I told her Bella would be fine. I promised we’d find her the right home.

Fuck. Those oaths you have to keep.

She relaxed. And she was gone. I was back in my room in front of my ancestor altar. I bent down to check my messages and as I watched, in Ethernet real time, my mom let me know her mother was gone.

I surprised myself by bursting into tears.

I was sad but wasn’t grief. I didn’t know her well enough for it to be sorrow. But it was sadness. Sad for my mother. Sad for the day I will lose my mother that I know will come. Sad for the years of getting to know the woman-my-grandma-had-become I won’t get. Because she changed at the end. I was sad  for the relationship I won’t get to have with her. The sadness was real. Just greater than I expected.

I didn’t cry again.

*

A few weeks later I attended an outdoor gathering where I went to a Grief Ritual. I didn’t necessarily feel like I was grieving but every cell of my body felt this pull to go. I felt I needed to go. So I did.

I was given a moment to speak to her one last time. And I did. I let two things be true. I wish she’d been able to make different choices. And I loved her. I almost qualified that with ‘anyway’ but I took a breath and held that word in.

She was one of my grandmothers. I knew of her growing up if I didn’t know her. She was Christmas Eve after-dinner and before-santa. There is a part of my heart that the shadow of her lives in. I have always carried her with me, imperfections and all. And I feel her loss.

*

In her last incarnation she adopted a cat and made friends with a local deer and their family. They would come to her ground level window and look for her. She would cut up apples and take them outside. The deer would let her walk among their young to set the apples on the ground. I wonder if they know what happened to her. I wonder if they understand what an empty apartment means.

I wonder who’s feeding them now.

The last time I saw her she gave me a book she said was too complicated for her—there were more than five characters and she couldn’t keep them straight. It’s not bad. I started reading it again when she got sick as a means of connecting in to her energy, to her heartbeat. I stopped reading when she died. It’s the last thing she ever gave me in a life where she didn’t give me many things… although she did give me a lot of my Nancy Drew Mysteries. I forgot about that until I was writing this. That’s something, too. They meant everything to me.

But I stopped reading. I put a bookmark in between the pages. It’s the last thing she will ever give me.

I’ll sit with that and set the book aside for now.

*

At the end of the gathering I was standing in the outdoor Ancestor Shrine and a friend was leading us through a meditation to connect with an ancestor. I opened myself to whoever wished to come through.

I almost audibly gasped.

For a moment I got a picture in my head. It’s almost always a similar one when I see him. Some forest glade, thick old trees and part of a rustic wooden fence. Mop of thick hair. Tall. Smiling. This was my German Guy. I realized in that second that he came to me through my Grandma’s family line. I also, instantaneously, felt the reassurance that she had crossed over.

Something like ‘we got her.’ But in German.

Hail to the Ancestors. 

Safe journeys, Traveller.

Bye Grandma.

Preparing to Revere the Dead

Spring has finally sprung. This is the time of year that I pull out my box from Samhain, from when we spoke the names of Ancestors and Beloved Dead and burned their ribbons in the fire. It is the time I take to prepare for the shrines I hold between Beltane and Samhain.

I pulled out white muslin and cut new ribbons, one inch by twenty-one inches. I cut one-hundred and one ribbons, adding them to what was left of last year. I folded them up and slid a straight pin through them.

A little danger as sacrifice for standing in the presence of the Ancestors.

I cut blue ribbons for those who died since last year’s shrines. My hands trembled at the list of names of loved ones who passed this last year. The seasons of hard losses stick under my ribs.

I ironed the ribbons one at a time. It is a meditation I enjoy. That level of mindfulness is the least I could do. So many remembered dead dance through my heart, as they did in life.

Mark Dutcher Eaton*, Melinda Tanner, Elizabeth Fricke, Jeff Patterson, Willie Lingenfelter, Elsie Durant Riddle*, Gabe Reynolds, Joel Pelletier, Victoria Eaton*, Edward J. Jerge II, Trent Illig, Donna MacDonald Riddle*, Jurgen Banse-Fey, Charles ‘Sienna Fox’ Duvall, Jack Singer, Tommy Amyotte, Paul Seeloff, Richard James Riddle*, Andrew Begley, Susan Alvarez-Hughes, Coswald Mauri*, Norm Herbert, Jad Alexander, Dr. August Staub, Princess Leather Falcor*, Melvin Chausse, John Simeon Croom, Karl Weber, Luna Jackalope*, Albert Gritzmacher III, Freya Moon Greenleaf, Patches the Crazy Circus-Freak Dog*, Barbara Jean Schiffert, Bella the Bear-Cat*, Joe Quagliano*, Soja Arumpanayil, Tracy Lee Flint Jr., Christina Adkins, Harry T. Brashear, David Ruston Eaton*, Carol Quagliano*, Paul Ames*, Robert Kiff, Sumant Malhotra, David Knight, Amy Maxwell, Ruth Ann Livingston Kiff, Zami*, Joseph Croteau, Norm Eaton*, Patricia Ann Art-Slomba*…

They are not forgotten.

I breathed deep and exhaled. And then my heart skipped.

This year the heat startled me. It pulled me from my litany of names, from my ancestors. The heat scared me. It’s a sign of how well-recovered I feel that I stepped back into my spiritual habit without remembering that I have not handled the iron since being on fire. I forgot that my wife did this part for me, sacredly, the last two years.

I ironed all of the ribbons. Slowly, reverently, cautiously, and carefully. My hands were unsteady and clumsy as I have been since recovering but I did not burn myself. My ancestors stood with me, hovering like they did in the Burn ICU.

But I ironed all the ribbons.

My wife came home soon after and ironed the prayer flags I use to mark the entrances to the shrines. There are 63 flags, all hand cut and hand sewn. It was a way of layering magic, fluttering flags calling those who hear to come greet their ancestors.

This is what it means to build a practice. This is how I prepare to honor the dead. Focus. Intention. Work. The spirits from the other side who meet me in the middle sure do help. This is how we open a doorway that others may walk through if they desire it.