Open to the 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
~*~

I open to my Great-Grandparents:

Harold Riddle & Elsie Elizabeth Durant, my beloved dead
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Robert Joseph Art & Margaret Loretta Burke
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Frank William Ruston & Minnie Estelle Wicker
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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 is peeking out in the back, behind Elsie & Harold.

George Frances Durant & Emma Louise Burnah
*

George Art & Katherine Pils
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Frank Burke & Eliza Conners
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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
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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
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Albert Durant & Rosella LaValley [both from Quebec]
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Samuel Burnah [from Quebec] & Mary Fortin
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Adam Art & Catherine Blume [both from Germany]
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John Pils & Mary Burzee [both from Germany]
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Thomas Burke & Ellen
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David Conners & Mary Dowd [both from Ireland]
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Richard Ruston & Anna Richardson [both from England]
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William Ireland & Phoebe Lenton [both from England]
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Thaddeus Rice Wicker & Cynthia Lusk
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Bailey Harrison Whitcher & Ordelia de Lozier
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Solomon Gould Eaton & Hannah Ann Treadwell
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Philetus Tenny & Malvina H. Targee
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Ammi Smith & Sophia Sears
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Reuben Feagles Dutcher & Eliza Marsh Bird
~*~

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 Grandma Patricia Ann Art and my Uncle Norm Herbert Eaton. I ask them to watch over our friends Joe Croteau, David Zander, Zachary Grover, Dick Huntington, Leigh O'Neill, and Morwen Two Feathers.

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.

Watched Over by Hiram King Wicker

When I was recovering in the bed of the Burn ICU I was existing in the blurred edge of reality, still alive and drugged beyond comprehension but also floating near the edge of death. There were spirits around my bed, standing still and holding vigil while the medical staff watching in and out of them. One spirit stood back, a statue in the center of the room he oversaw the other spectral visitors. I recognized his eyes from family photos. He was my 2x great-grandfather Hiram King Wicker.

Hiram was one of three sons born to Thaddeus Rice Wicker, originally from Connecticut, and Cynthia Lusk of Niagara County, New York.

After the Civil War, Hiram married Emma Angeline Whitcher and settled in Lockport. Hiram and his brother William owned and operated a feed store along the canal. He was a practicing Mason and, according to the markings on his gravestone, at some point he was in a position of authority within the organization. But there was another piece of information I knew about Hiram that was lost in my recovery haze.

I didn't remember until a week ago that H. K. Wicker was one of the first Fire Chiefs of Lockport, NY. A man in California, an avid collector of antique fire badges, sent me a photo of a badge he acquired that belonged to Hiram Wicker. His initials were engraved on the back. I had forgotten.

Of course he came to my aid acting as patriarch and overseer. Of course the man who saw it as his responsibility to keep his town safe from fire and destruction came to attend to his 2x great-granddaughter in one of her darkest moments. Those who love us never truly leave us and he was a man devoted to his family and those he considered in his care.

I'm not trying to convince you that ghosts are real. That ancestors walk with you. But they walk with me. I own my experiences. I am trying to show you my world, what I live as normal. Because the world we all live in is bigger than we can comprehend.

Hiram and Emma had one child, Minnie Estelle, who was the mother of Ruth Emma, who was the mother of my father. Hail the Wickers. Hail the Whitchers. Hail the Rustons.

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?