Summer Solstice, 581 Days After Near-Death By Fire, and Elsie's Birthday

Blessed Solstice everyone! My house smells like freshly made honey-butter bread and freshly cut strawberries. As the sun sets on the longest day we will eave a fairie offering outside to appease the fae folk. It's one of our traditions.

It is the first day of summer and the longest stretch of daylight we'll see for the year; roughly fifteen hours and fifteen minutes of light for New York. Even as we move into our warmest days the light is waning towards the longest night.

It's a hot one today, too, driving me mostly inside after a morning trip to the laundromat. It's been five hundred and eighty-one days since my accident and after too long in this heat, my insides feel poached. I am also extremely photo-sensitive.

So I am struggling to connect to this glorious holiday that I used to revel in. Today is the Summer Solstice. It is also the day my Great-Grandma Elsie was born. Happy birthday, Grandma-from-Florida! She was born in 1904. She was born one hundred and thirteen years ago. She died in 1994, when I was 17. She loved the summer. I think of her and I smile. It never fails. She is still with me.

Me and Elsie the first time we met.

Elsie and me the last time we saw each other.

Today on her birthday, I got a twinge to check Ancestry.com again and there was a hint on her name! I have never been so excited to see a leaf pop up! It brought up a new document that was scanned in- her marriage record to my Great-Grandpa Harold!

They were married August 16, 1924. I knew that already. It happens to be my birthday. I was born on their anniversary, the first one without my Great-Grandpa. He died the year before I was born.

It lists her place of birth as Potsdam NY, which we didn't know. The witnesses were Edwin Kinyon (likely Kenyon) and Pearl Riddle. It also lists her mother- the one whose parents I have been searching for- as Louise Burnett. We previously had Emma Louise Burnah (we know she went by Louise day-to-day). It feels like a present! I now have another lead in the search for more information on Elsie's parentage.

Listen to your gut! Allow your searches to be as intuitive as it is document-driven.

Tonight my house will rejoice in the healthy growth of our garden thanks to the mix of hot and stormy days leading into the beginning of summer. That will be my balm. I will toast to Elsie and thank her for all the love she gave me during the living days she was with me, as well as the days she has been part of my life since her death.

Blessed Solstice!

A screen-capture of the marriage record.

Harold and Elsie the day of their wedding, August 16, 1924.

Have Gratitude for the Day

I stood in the warm spring sunshine of the morning, cleaning out the garbage pail. The most current tenants across the way played something they probably called music on their phone at a volume that rivaled any boom box of my youth. Another neighbor walks her dogs, spilling gossip and unrealized hate from behind a white face mask. The kitty-corner renters, an elderly mother and daughter argue over whose turn it is to run to the gas station for cigarettes. And yet another neighbor smiles and me and waves good morning.

Her smile is enough to make me blind to the garbage littering the street. This is where I live. This is my life.

And it is good. It is heartfelt. It is honest. And that is enough to make me smile.

My thoughts turn to spring planting and the coming summer months and scheduling and before I know it, I am already mapping out October again. And I have to stop myself. And turn my face to the sun. It’s a balm, even though my eyes are hidden behind wrap-around glasses.

I let myself think of summer. I have to prepare myself for the coming days of compression garments and heat. I am still recovering and the road I am on is long. But there is sweetness in the distant promise of fresh strawberries. The bright red berry pops into my head and I think of my Great-Grandma Elsie, and the summers she spent with us.

Strawberries were a delight for her.

And in that moment, she is standing with me, face to the sun, in the small patch of yard in front of the apartment we rent. I was taller than her when she died. A lot of people were taller than her. But I see her ghostlight shimmering below my chin and I can feel Elsie take my hand. Even in death hers is always cool to the touch. She squeezes gently with all of the wisdom of her old age.

This time is a gift. Enjoy each moment. Have gratitude for the day. For right now. For what you have. For where you are. Count your blessings.

You were always one of mine.  

I totally cried in my front yard, unabashedly. She died when I was seventeen and my heart still yearns for her. Elsie loved summer. And I loved Elsie.

I turn my face to the sun, grateful for its heat and the warming winds. I know in my bones that those who came before me had the same moment of gratitude, over and over each spring. They were all New Englanders. We are connected in this gratitude. It transcends time within me.

And surely every creature who has survived a darkness, has that moment of knowing the worst of it has passed and a reprieve has come. And they turn themselves to the light.

Have gratitude for the day. For right now. For what you have. For where you are. Count your blessings.

The Dumb Supper

“And in one house they could see an old grandfather mummy being taken out of a closet and put in the place of honor at the head of the table, with food set before him. And the members of the family sat down to their evening meal and lifted their glasses and drank to the dead one seated there, all dust and dry silence…”

~ Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree, 1972

Tonight is Halloween, All Hallows Evening, a holiday also known as Samhain. Like my ancient forebears, my family and I began to practice the ritual of the Dumb Supper seven years ago, which is a dinner set for both the living and the dead. It can be as simple or elaborate as your circumstances require, but it is a rewarding way to honor the dead and keep their memories alive. This formal supper can be done on any night between October thirty-first and November third.

For the simplest form you can add an extra place setting at dinner and feed that plate first, welcoming in the weary travelers from the other world and offering them the hospitality with a place to sit at your table. Allow them an evening of humanity on the night when the overlapping worlds bleed through. It’s called a Dumb Supper, which means Silent Supper. It is not a place to chit chat about the workday or chores that need to be done as such mundane life can keep the timid dead who no longer recognize the world-as-is away.

Hold supper sacred and keep all conversation minimal, and to the experience at hand. It does not have to be solemn or somber event. There was much giggling on our end last year when we felt an overwhelming cry of “Taters!” erupt from our invited ethereal guests as the food was placed out. Some readings will tell you the night must be silent, and that may have been true in a time when silence was possible but for the scraping of forks and howling of the wind. But in this day, when our homes are filled with the not-so-quiet hum and thrum of electronics, appliances, traffic and plumbing, I tend to worry that those noises will keep the dead at bay.

We switch things up every year, with some kind of music that might appeal to our invited guests. Last year we listened to the radio drama of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, which we will continue this year. It was a special treat that brought in much more spirit energy than ever before. It seemed a familiar thing that pulled them in and the emotional sensation that filled our home was one of a joyous family reunion.

For our ritual, we set a chair at the head of the table called the Spirit Chair and we shroud it in black fabric and clothing. No human will sit in that chair tonight. The Spirit Chair is the setting for all spirits who wander the night and wish no harm, but wish a moment of hospitality.

Beyond that, there is a chair for each of us, and for the spirit we are personally inviting to the table. We write the name of the spirit who is our invited guest on a piece of paper and place it beneath their plate. If you do not have a particular name you wish to invoke, you may simply write the ancestors of your name, your bloodline, your spiritual heart, etc.

For my purposes, I place my guest’s chair across from me, so that I may gaze into the space there, like divination, during the meal. Ultimately, where you place them is not important. What is important is that you serve the Spirit Chair first, your invited guests next, and then yourself. It’s the intention of hospitality that matters most.

At this time of year, we use the dumb supper to open a space for the living and dead to dine together. I think of the table and meal like a reflection, a photo-negative image of your mundane life. To that end, the place setting is prepared the opposite of however you would normally set the table. Do you usually put forks on the left and water glass on the right? Reverse them.

Place a candle on the plate for the Spirit Chair and a tea light on the center of the plate for each invited guest. At the beginning of the meal, stand behind the Spirit Chair and invite your ancestors to come and dine with you. I even go so far as to open the front door and invite them into my home, literally. Light the candle on the Spirit plate. Pour a libation into the cup at the head of the table and call in the Ancestors:

To those who have gone before,

To those whose names live in our hearts and dance upon our lips,

To those whose names have been lost in the sea of time,

To those whose bones lie above and below the earth,

To those whose ashes have travelled on the winds,

We, the living, bid you welcome and entrance.

This is how you open the door for your personal guests to step in. Next, light the candles on your invited guests’ plates and call them in by name.

When you serve the meal, begin with the dessert course. The meal itself is also a reflected image of the meal the dead would remember. Start with the dessert course and sit down to enjoy it. Next, serve the main course, then the sides. Then serve the soup and salad, followed by any appetizers and pre-dinner cocktails. You should structure your meal in a way that seems appropriate to you, your heritage and your family traditions- just backwards from whatever that might be. What foods will you serve? I like to make items that were meaningful to my family as well as items I find that hearken to the cultural heritage I am slowly discovering in my genealogical research.

During each pause in courses, while we are eating, I focus on the space across from me and the multiple sensory impressions I receive. I always invite my Great-Grandma to dine with me and have been chastised for not salting her meatballs or being stingy on the chocolate cake. I have also heard the gentle trebling of her voice and felt the cool paper of her skin as our hands brushed while I was serving her. I have found myself responding to an unspoken request from her spirit for another napkin. On this night, they can allow themselves the human moments they had in life and we can be reminded of them; Elsie did often need an extra napkin.

When the meal is finished, we take a few moments and express our gratitude to those who came and supped with us. When the evening feels over, I thank my guest for coming and I open the front door, wishing them a safe journey for the rest of their evening. I tell them to leave as they will (in case they’re not done yet). I will let the ancestral tea lights burn out on their plates.

I thank the ancestors for dining with us and I snuff out the candle on the Spirit Chair. I carry the water from the Spirit cup and pour it on the ground outside:

To those who have gone before,

To those whose names live in our hearts and dance upon our lips,

To those whose names have been lost in the sea of time,

To those whose bones lie above and below the earth,

To those whose ashes have travelled on the winds,

We, the living, thank you for dining with us.

                        We, the living, wish you safe travels.

Ideally, the food would also be disposed of sacredly, either burned, buried or, traditionally, placed in running water. For me, it means leaving it out in the woods for critters, an offering of the bones of spirit-eaten food to other life in need. When I dispose of it, I do so with sacred intention.

            Many blessings to you and your family, both living and dead on this day. I have much gratitude to the Ancestors who lived, who opened the Way that we might walk this earth together. May we walk this earth softly, that those who come after us will speak our names in joy. May the peace and stillness of the season be with you. May the Ancestors walk with us, always.

Summer Solstice, Sunning Stones

It is the first day of summer. Gardens are growing, blackberry blossoms are opening, and strawberries are ripe in the fields. The green is unfurling into splendor and its heraldry is prompted by the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice. The natural world around us still holds that yellow-green hue of energy and growth.

In my childhood, summer meant the arrival of my Great-Grandma Elsie, who we called Grandma-from-Florida. She spent every summer with us, sleeping in the small spare room with the white chenille bedspread. I have memories of sitting in her room in the morning while she dressed, running hands over the raised pattern of the bedspread that only she used. Summer for us meant Great-Grandma’s sweater sets and culottes. I remember my fascination over how she put on her knee-high stockings every day before slipping on her sandals.

Elsie was born on June 21, 1904. If she was alive she’d be 107. The way her face lit up when we enjoyed the first fresh strawberry shortcake of her visit was a joy that could outshine the sun itself. Every strawberry I eat in-season tastes like that memory. It tastes like Elsie’s joy.

Summer was family time and the warmth that comes with it. Summer was the wild abandon of playing fantastical games with neighborhood friends for days on end, called to enjoy the heat while we could. We were like moths dancing around the sun.

The ancestor work that I do is as much about the living and the now as it is about the ones who came before me. Those layers of memories that I am lucky to have of what family means, with both my blood family and the chosen family I build around me, are the energy source that propels my genealogical research into uncovering the ones who came before. And I do it all so that the ones who come after will know the names and the stories.

Family matters. It’s not always easy or painless. We’re not all lucky enough to have it in our formative years. But finding it, creating it, birthing it, is at the core of what we do and how we survive.

When I think of that feeling, that energy, I think of the futhark runes Cen (aka ken or kenaz) and Sigel (aka sowilo or sol). Cen is the internal warmth and fire. Sigel is the sun, the outer heat. Cen is the heat of the hug that you give and receive when you are truly happy to see someone. It is the inner sun. The inner warmth. Moving from your internal hearth fire outward. Solstice is the perfect time to recharge your inner joy, using the heat of the sun above us, at its height as an energy source.

Make yourself a simple talisman for carrying that energy into the waning days of the year. Place a stone outside, where it will catch the rays of the day. It can be a special stone that has other meaning for you or it can be a stone you find in your yard or at the park. Charge it under the full height of the noon light and leave it outside until dusk finally sets in. As Solstice officially begins at 7:00 pm today, I will be setting my stone out tomorrow.

 Keep the stone inside your house during the year, in whatever room becomes your hearth, your nesting space. My stone becomes my talisman through the winter, through the other solstice with its longest night. When I have need, I hold it in my hands.

Beneath the cool exterior lies a flicker of heat. I can close my eyes and feel the warmth of the summer sun caressing my skin. I can hear the laughter of children at play. I can taste the juice of fresh, ripe strawberries. I can see the joy on Elsie’s face and I know she walks with me still. I know the ancestors stand with her and I know they stand with me from longest day to longest night and back again, turning on the wheel as the living world moves forward.

Spirit World: What is Ghost?

Not everyone who dies becomes a ghost.

Anyone who is ready to meet the moment of their end passes quickly. But not as the solid being we knew, loved and touched with our hands. We are more than our bodies. The matter dries and decays. But what is spirit leaves the vessel when the heart stops. I have witnessed it. I have felt the essence of my grandfather leave the room suddenly barren and cold. Empty. In that moment, the body was just… body. Not Grandpa. It is what I know to be true.

The rest is what I feel, what I believe, what I have pieced together through my practice and experiences. It is easy to accept death when you witness the exit of the spirit. Even then, I believe the spirit that leaves often splits, just as we can split ourselves into different functions; student, lover, spouse, parent, employee. I believe the spirit moves on, reincarnates and remains behind, becoming another part of the earth we live on. I believe in multiple truths.

Working with the spirit world relies a lot on trusting your gut, being quiet enough to listen to your intuition. It means you accept and work with the information you are receiving/sensing/seeing until it is proven otherwise. Then you reevaluate and adjust how you perceive and process. Nothing is either one thing or another.

I’ve had experiences with the supernatural world. I can’t explain them. They are what they are. These experiences used to create fear in me, and I allowed myself to be frightened and panicked by events that, years later when I was more open, I understood to be nothing more than worlds overlapping and attempted communications. There’s a difference between ghosts, or earthbound spirits, and haunted objects or haunted places. When I say ghost I don’t mean poltergeists or other unknown things that go bump in the night. I mean the echoes of people who were human once and alive in the living world with names and families.

I don’t see ghosts the way I see reality unfolding before me. It’s more like the flickering of form in the corner of my eye, in the corner of my brain. It’s the moment I lift my head because someone walked into the room- an instinctual sense of another presence- only to open my physical eyes and see the room is empty. It’s seeing movement in an empty space with clear and rested eyes. It’s the sense of sudden temperature change outside of the body at a fixed point. Once I moved through my fear of those moments, and learned to stand at the threshold, I began to get clearer impressions: male, female, approximate age, clothing silhouette, smells, time, etc.

A friend asked me recently how you know you’re interacting with spirits and not just going insane. If you’re not asking yourself that question, you shouldn’t be doing this work. For myself, I know where that line is and I know the difference. But this line, this unknowing is the place that is dangerous for others to follow. If you do not believe, you can fall into the rift between the two. If you do not believe that what you are experiencing is happening, you will give into the fear of it. You have to be willing to accepting, questioning and, at the same time, allow the story to remain unfinished and unended. Because the truth of it will change as your perception alters.

I have only seen Elsie, my Great-Grandmother, once since the moment I woke to find her sitting on the end of my bed the morning she died. I have only opened my eyes to see her once more, eating across from me at a Dumb Supper I hosted. She poured salt on her plate and I remembered that she put salt on her chicken wings when she visited us. It was one of her rituals that fascinated me as a child. I have heard her speaking but mostly I smell her. There was a scent of her skin like cool cucumber and baby powder. I smell it and I feel a hand touch my head. Then, I am awash with the emotion I attached to her. And she is with me.

The thing about ghost visits is that eventually, time doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to the mundane world. I can close my eyes and pull flesh-memory out of ether into breath. I can hear the sound of my Grandmother’s laughter at will. I can smell the scent of a dead friend’s skin. I can hold the hand of my Great-Grandmother and recall exactly the cool, paper-silk sensation of her flesh in mine. They become more than a remembering. It is a new experience. I become the meeting place of the living and spirit.

The ghosts that used to haunt me are comfort to me now. Because the ability I have learned with them transcends the spirit world. I can think of a friend from high school and I can recall how it felt to talk to them, how important they were, how small our world seemed then and how strong our bond was. I may not have that anymore, but it is a brick and foundation of who I am, that still swims in my own spirit body. For if flesh and bone can become ghost, surely so can time. Everyone who has ever touched me walks with me. Because of my work, I am never alone.

The Eulogy I Wish I’d Given

Grandma Donna & Grandpa Dick

After he passed, I realized that I was not sure what my Grandfather’s spiritual notions were. He was raised Roman Catholic and we all attended Sunday mass with my Great-Grandmother when she came to visit for the summer. But I spent enough Sundays with him to know he didn’t attend any church regularly. So, when my Grandpa died, we requested the minister attached to the funeral home to reside over a simple service.

It was humorous. The poor retired minister was so excited to be behind a podium again that he threw every bible story he could into discussing death, including Jonah and the Whale. Yet he couldn’t keep my Grandpa’s name straight. The minister meant well, but he lost me when he started talking about how death was like the small white dead skin cells that fall out of your socks at night. I’m sure everyone behind me thought my silent laughter resembled tears. I hope my Grandpa would have been amused at the absurdity, too.

I was so overwhelmed with the loss, I didn’t even think about talking. It never crossed my mind that I might look back later and wish the moment had been more personal, more about my Grandpa. He was the reason we were all there. One of my cousins spoke for him but I wish it had been more than just another funeral. We were just trying to get through it though; a strange service held behind stranger walls.

A teen Dick in front of his parents store.

Richard James Riddle

December 23, 1931 – March 25, 2004

My Grandpa was everything to me. He was every Saturday lunch, every holiday meal. He used to come over at noon on the dot. He would tease me with, “What’s for lunch this week?” and then feign surprise when I answered with the same statement every week; bologna, cheese, mustard and potato chip (salt and vinegar was the best flavor to add to the combination).

He and my mom would sit in the kitchen together, the only time the smell of coffee permeated our house. He had his own stash in our cupboard, waiting for his weekly visit. I loved listening to them discuss the world, the way it worked. I loved the way they talked their way into hope. My Grandpa tried the best he could to see the bright end of things.

Me & Grandpa.

When I was a little girl, I remember lots of summer afternoons at their house, playing in the cool basement and watching Grandma and Grandpa work their garden in the back yard, Grandma in her terrycloth one-piece and Grandpa in his shorts and sunglasses. In my memory they are summer, fresh vegetables and warm afternoons filled with the fragrant smell of roses. They were the spirit of growing things.

We would often have family dinners together and I believed my Grandpa to be an accomplished baker. Grandma cooked dinner and Grandpa cooked dessert. After each meal he would pull out his latest creation and go on about how he had even put it in a special box that he found, to make it nice for us. I was a bit innocent as a child and didn’t notice what a handy coincidence it was that he happened to have a Sara Lee Coffee Cake box the same day he made us one.

I’m not sure the grown-ups had any idea I was buying it. But my Grandpa could do anything. One night, He pulled out a cantaloupe and started telling us that he had grown it all up in one day, just for us. It was the first memory I have of recognizing the impish twinkle in his eye when he was teasing or pulling my leg.

Only then did my rational mind inform him that you couldn’t grow a cantaloupe in one day. In the moment that the grown-ups realized I had just accepted his stories all along, there was some well-earned laughter at my expense. One of my favorite desserts is still a quarter of cantaloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream using it as a bowl. After dinner we’d play the card game Scat together. He would lend my siblings and me pennies from his jar and at the end of the night, we’d pay him back what we started with if we won and the rest was ours.

Early generational- I'm the baby.

My Great-Grandmother Elsie spent her summers with my family and we would take generational photos while she was with us; her, my Grandpa, my mom and us. He adored his mom, as did everyone who ever knew her. We spent days at the Riddle cottage in Olcott on Lake Ontario. I remember the laughter, so much laughter, love and togetherness. It’s what I thought the world would be like when I was a grown-up. I know it’s possible, to be surrounded by that joy and love. It’s the greatest gift my family gave me, that he gave me. I won’t settle for less than that. I look for the spirit of my Grandfather in the hearts of the people I meet. I like to think that he would approve of my friends, just as easily as he took to my mother’s friends.

Grandpa Dick also had a beautiful Cadillac. I loved riding in it with him. Sometimes when he was watching us, he’d take us to his favorite diner for breakfast. All of the waitresses knew him and chatted him up. He’d happily introduce us and we’d hear how often he’d talk about us. I knew my entire life that my Grandpa loved me, even when he wasn’t with me. It’s such a thing we take for granted sometimes, but now that he’s gone, it means everything.

When his cancer came back, I went home to spend some time with him. I asked him questions about his parents, pushing through the awkward moment of both of us knowing I was asking him because he was dying. Because he might not recover and then there would be no answers. I picked up his prescriptions and took him some groceries one night, after copying old family photos. That was the night I learned that we shared a favorite flavor of ice cream… Black Raspberry.

He was every Christmas morning, all of my life. The very last Christmas we had together, I was 27. My nieces were opening presents and the youngest said “Thank you, Great-Grandpa!” To which the middle child said, “Don’t call him that. It’s rude!” My Grandpa smiled and said, “Why? That’s what I am.” And that’s who he was.

Dick & Donna's wedding.

Richard James Riddle was born in 1931. He had a brother and a sister. His parents owned a small store. He was a young boy when World War II began. He spent some time in the military. He was married twice, had one daughter, and three step-children. His second wife, my Grandma Donna, was the love of his life. He outlived her by three years.

He was the father of my mother and father to my aunt and uncles. He was a father to my own and to all of their friends. I heard stories all my life of him dropping in on my mother’s friends and helping them out. He was a good friend to one of my favorite high school teachers, who lived a stone’s throw away from him after he moved.

I see the ripple of his time on this earth stretching out in the wake of his loss, still. And when I sit quietly in the woods, I can hear the sound of his voice in the wind that blows through the trees. What is remembered, lives. What is remembered never truly dies.

My Ancestral Dead, My Beloved Dead

My ancestors are pillars of ice-blue fire, breathing in seasons like stars, stones and trees. My Ancestral Dead are fire that doesn’t burn.

Not so for the Beloved Dead. The energy of those who you have known in this physical plane, those you have touched, held, hugged and lost is not cool and calm. Hot salty tears burn my cheeks with a fever as the grief washes over me. The recent dead are changeable water, tumultuous with grief in one minute, still with acceptance in another, and then raging against the feel of loss… they are uneasy waters. Unless you feel called to step further on the path of this work, I recommend stating with clear intention that you are honoring the Beloved Dead and asking nothing of them in return. I routinely call on the energy of my forebears to watch over my nieces and nephew, but I do not ask that of the Beloved Dead.

It may seem strange that I do not ask the spirits who knew me to help watch over us. That’s the good thing about generations though- we keep coming. There are plenty of lives to call on, that I can leave the recently deceased be. It’s my belief that the Beloved Dead are transitioning what was left of themselves through the process of dying and moving on. I have experienced the moment of death with a loved one, and it opened something in me. When he died and his spirit left his body, when the life of him left the room, the air about me wavered and changed, as if a warm flame had been blown out. His body was not him anymore.

I do not claim to know what comes next or what happens to that bit of life. I don’t know what happens. But I have faith that something does.

You can’t discuss spirit without being metaphysical. As far as I’m concerned, spirit is energy and science has proven that energy exists. The way I talk about it is more romantic but that doesn’t remove the science; after all, I’m a writer, not a scientist. I believe what I believe because it makes sense to me based on what I’ve experienced. I am always open to adapting my beliefs. As I change and grow and evolve, so too will my concepts of faith and spirit.

My Great-grandfather, Harold Lafayette Riddle is one of my Ancestral dead, having died nine months before I was born. His life was a gateway between my ancestors and my beloved dead. Harold’s wife, my Great-grandmother Elsie, is one of my Beloved dead, an integral part of my life until her death my last year of high school. I may honor her on the same altar as I honor my ancestors, but I am aware that my connection to her is still partially in this plane, and not the other.

Anyone who came before me that I did not know is an ancestor. For example, my father’s mother, Ruth, is my ancestor; she died when he was five. Most of my known ancestors are a list of names with little known substance. Speaking the names aloud is a song that sings the story of my bloodline:

Marquis DeLayfayette Riddle, Sarah Clickner, Levi Gillette, Jane Berry, Layfayette Riddle, Frances Gillette, George Durant, Louise Burmah, Harold Lafayette Riddle, Adam Art, Katherine Maria Schmeelk, John F. Pils, George Art, Katherine Pils, Frank Burke, Robert George Art, Loretta Burke…

Sir Francis Eaton, Sarah Eaton, Samuel Eaton, Solomon Gool Eaton, Hannah Ann Treadwell, Philitus Tenney, Malvina, Bennett Eaton, Cordelia Tenney, Ammi Smith, Sophia Sears, Reuben Feagles Dutcher, Eliza Marsh Bird, Silas Parker Smith, Hattie Eva Dutcher, Royal Levant Eaton, Hattie Eva Smith, Ruth Emma Ruston, Richard Ruston, Ann, William Ireland, Phoebe Lenton, Charles Evan Ruston, Ruth Ireland, Thaddeus Rice Wicker, Cynthia Lusk, Bailey Harrison Whitcher, Ordelia DeLozier, Hiram King Wicker, Angeline Whitcher, Frank William Ruston, Minnie Estelle Wicker…

So many names, so many lives. These names are the direct line of people whose children bore children who eventually bore me. Were it not for them, I would not be me. The magnitude of that realization can feel like pressure bearing down, waiting for me to be something special or do something special. But standing in honor of these people doesn’t feel like pressure. Those lives are stones beneath me, giving me firm footing. I am because they were, whether they were people of good character or not.

A step to strengthen your ancestral ties is to begin writing down the names of your family tree you know. Ask your parents who their grandparents were if you didn’t know them. Ask your Grandparents who their parents were. Get as much information as you can. Where were they born? Where did they live? Where did they grow up? When did they marry? How many times? How many children?

As for your Beloved Dead, keep a list of those you were close to who have passed on from this world. For my own work, I have tried to keep a list that remembers those I was very close to, classmates I grew up with, people who helped shape and mold me, and people who affected a change my life in an enormous way:

Melinda Tanner, Mark Eaton, Jeff Patterson, Elizabeth Fricke, Willie Lingenfelter, Elsie Durant Riddle, Gabe Reynolds, Joel Pelletier, Victoria Eaton, Trent Illig, Edward Jerge, Donna Riddle, Jurgen Banse-Fey, Tommy Amyotte, Paul Seeloff, Richard James Riddle, Brett Elsess, Charles “Sienna Fox” Duvall, Andrew Begley, Coswald Mauri, Norm Herbert, Jad Alexander, Princess Leather Falcor (beloved pet), Dr. August Staub, Martha Dayton, Maurice “Strong Bear” Foxx, Melvin Chausse, Wilma Derbeshire Meade, John Simeon Croom, Karl Weber, Lunabelle the Jackalope (beloved pet), Larry Littman, Ellen Fitzgerald.

On Samhain, I will call out the names of my Ancestral Dead to come and bear witness as I honor those that I loved, that I have known and held. I speak the names of the Beloved Dead to remember them and hear memories stir at the sounds of familiar words on tongue. That is how I honor them, with voice and word and deed.

Known, or unknown, how best can you honor your ancestors? What legacy, in their name, can you offer your descendants?

*Looking Ahead: Some people are adopted and have no names that are known to them. Later on I’ll talk about working with your unknown ancestors, as well as taking on the ancestors of your adopted tribe, or family.