I Open to my Ancestors (A Photo Gallery)

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 honor my beloved dead, those I knew in this world, and my ancestral dead, those who paved the way for me.

I pour water in the glass cup on my Ancestor Altar. I light a candle in my 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, both my beloved dead

*

With her much-loved cat Bella.

Patricia Art, 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
*

With daughters Dolores & Biddy.

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 [NY]
*

George Frances Durant & Emma Louise Burnah [NY]
*

George Art & Katherine Pils [NY]
*

Frank Burke & Eliza Conners [NY]
*

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 [NY]
*

Bennett Eaton & Theresa Cordelia Tenney [MI/NY]
*

Silas Parker Smith & Hattie Eva Dutcher [NY]
~*~

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

Marquise DeLafayette Riddle & Sarah Clickner [NY]
*

Levi & Jane are seated in the second row.

Levi Gillette & Jane Berry [NY]
*

Albert Durant & Rosella LaValley [both from Quebec]
*

Samuel Burnah [from Quebec] & Mary (unknown) [NY]
*

Adam Art & Katherine Maria Schmeelk [both from Germany]
*

John Pils & Mary Burzee [both from Germany]

Thomas Burke & Ellen (unknown) [NY]

David Conners & Mary Dowd [both from Ireland]

Richard Ruston & Anna Richardson [both of England]

William Ireland & Phoebe Lenton [both of England]

Thaddeus Rice Wicker & Cynthia Lusk [VT/NY]
*

Bailey Harrison Whitcher & Ordelia de Lozier [VT/NY]
*

Solomon Gould Eaton & Hannah Ann Treadwell [NY]

Philetus Tenny & Malvina H. Targee [NY]
*

Ammi Smith & Sophia Sears [NY]
*

Reuben Feagles Dutcher & Eliza Marsh Bird [NY/MA]
~*~

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

Freeborn Moulton Riddle & Abigail Chaffee [MA/NY]

William Clickner & Mary Ann Hayner [NY]

*

Ezra Wheeler Gillette & Mary Ann Boots [VT/NY]

*

Francis Berry & Elizabeth Ann Hill [NY]

*

George Durant & Safrona (unknown) [both of Quebec]

Francois Xavier Lavalle & Rosella LaRoche [both of Quebec]

George Arth & Wilhemina Wernersbach [both from Germany]

John Burke & Ann (unknown) [both of Ireland]

(unknown) & Betsy Conners [both of Ireland]

Barney Dowd & Betsey (unknown) [both from Ireland]

Edward Ruston & Jane Brooks [both of England]

Thomas Richardson & Mary (unknown) [both of England]

John Ireland & wife (unknown) [both of England]

John Lenton & Mary Wilson [both of England]

Pliney Wicker & Chloe Morgan [MA]

Elizer Lusk & Rebecca (unknown) [NY]

Simon Whittier & Dorcas Kittredge [MA/VT]

*

Peter DeLozier & Lucy Raymond [CT/NY]

*

Joshua Eaton & Lucy Gould [CT/NY]

Solomon P. Treadwell & Fannie (unknown) [NY]

*

Hiram Tenney & Esther or Sally (unknown) [NY]

*

Thomas Targee & Ellen (unknown) [RI/NY]

David Smith & Betsy (unknown) [NY]

Heman Sears & Clarissa Debois [CT/NY]

Martin Dutcher & Cynthia Ann Feagles [NY]

Amanly Bird & Irene Pond Marsh [MA/NH]

~~*~~

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 this night.

I ask my Ancestors to welcome in the spirits of the Recent Dead, of my beloved and missed Liz Seib. I ask them to watch over our friends Michael Maxwell Carter Davidson, Peter Blakeslee, and grumpy old Oliver. 

Who do you honor and wish peaceful passages to?

Leave offerings of food and liquor, of earthly things that smell strong and potent, of coffee, 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. If you have any divination tools, ask the dead to speak through them. 

Lay the cards out. Draw a rune. Throw the bones.

Blessed Samhain. 

Happy Halloween.

George Durant and wife Louise Burnah, their daughter Elsie Durant (who I knew until I was 17), her husband Harold Riddle (who died nine months before I was born on their wedding anniversary). In the front are their children, my Aunt Donna, my Grandpa Dick, and my Uncle Sonny. All are deceased now.

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.

Honoring Death When You Can’t Be There

We recently cleared the 30 day mark of lockdown in New York. This week ten of my friends lost family members to covid-19. Any funerals or memorial or wakes or celebrations of life will have to wait until it is safe to gather. And that’s okay. It has to be. This is how the world is right now and we want to keep the losses to a minimum.

That said, grieving alone is hard. And it sucks when you can’t gather with everyone else who will miss them, too.

*

In January of 2004 two of my best family friends passed within two weeks, both extremely unexpected and sorrowful. I remember my dad’s tearful phone call when he begged me not to try to come home for the funerals. I know it upset him to have to say those words to me but we were in the midst of some really horrid ice storms and I lived across the state. He said he couldn’t bear the thought of having to go to three funerals.

So I stayed home. It needed to be done.

I didn’t get to be there with my loved ones. No one else in my town knew the men I was grieving. I didn’t realize how much that mattered to me.

*

Part of the funeral or celebration of life is for the deceased, for seeing the sacred temple that housed their spirit to rest in whatever manner they wished. The other part of the event is to serve as another temple in its own right, for those who loved the dead and are sad to gather to share in that so that for an hour or two, no one has to be alone with it. It’s acceptable to be publicly sad.

Grief is given safe space. We become an island together in an ocean of sorrow. No one feels adrift in it.

And the funerals that cannot be held right now will come. That doesn’t mean that we can’t honor the dead on our own, from the sacred space of our homes, our hearths. We can honor who they were to us and wish their spirits peace.

We grieve because we loved them. So it is right that the answer to grief is also love.

*

This is the ritual I do. Use it as a template. Use it as a starting point. This is about creating ritual for yourself and for your heart. You are the only one who knows what you need.

[When you’re ready...]

Call your ancestors in. You don’t need to know their names. Ask them to stand with you. Invite all-who-mean-no-harm to join you. It is just as easy as imagining my front door opening and welcoming them in with a full heart. But I do like to open my actual front door for a moment and say, “Welcome Ancestors.”

[I like to work with candles so have one ready. It can be a simple tea light or something like a seven-day candle. Small children and animals can make candles dangerous but if you like the ambiance, use a battery-operated candle.]

Speak the name of the one who passed to your ancestors. Say who they were to you. Speak out loud. Clear a spot somewhere. Light the candle. (Or turn it on.)

[Candles are good magic. They also have an ending. It might be 4 hours. It might be 7 days. But when it ends it is not symbolic of anything other than its own life cycle is over. You can always start over with a new candle.]

Burn the candle in their honor. Leave out a glass of water, or a preferred libation of the deceased. 

Say what you need to say to them. And when you are done, wish them peace. Ask the ancestors to welcome them home.

You can add favorite music, favorite prayers; make it personal. It can even be as simple as a moment of focus and then release as the candle flickers. Let the candle burn as long as you are up and about in the space.

[If you use a long-burning candle you can dedicate it as a sacred object for you to burn whenever you are missing your loved one.]

*

If you are suffering the loss of a loved one during this time of physical isolation—whether they died because of the virus or not—my heart is with you. May you feel held in your grief. May you have means of connecting to living loved ones. May you find peace in each other. May you find outlets for your sorrow. 

May you remember love.

Our Silent Supper in Pictures

On Halloween night, we held a Dumb Supper in our home, rearranging furniture to make room for non-corporeal guests. It sounds strange, but the ritual of opening the way for company is important. The first thing I did was light my Ancestor Altar, a beacon I use to guide them to my home.

We set our table festively, with candles, pumpkins, and the last of our marigolds from our garden.

Printed photographs of my ancestors were included on our table.

These are the Wicker brothers and their families. The man and woman in the middle are Hiram King Wicker and Emma Angeline Whitcher, my 2x Great-Grandparents on my father's side of the family.

This is the Riddle clan from my mother's side of the family. The tall man in the light suit in the back row is my Great-Grandpa Harold Riddle, husband to my beloved Great-Grandma Elsie Elizabeth Durant. His parents are in the middle of the front row.

The Spirit Chair was draped in black fabrics, and a black candle placed on the plate. I've been using the same candle every year since my first Dumb Supper in 2005. The black skull head is reverently stored in between suppers.

We set up a sidebar with drinks for various spirits we work with or remember fondly. Spirits for the spirits. And a proper cup of tea.

I also set a cup of tea on the table for all of my grandmothers and grandfathers, in one of my Grandma's old cups. In my family, tea was a thing.

The first course in a Dumb Supper is always the dessert. I set this plate for my Great-Grandma Hattie Eva Smith-Eaton, who helped me from the spirit world while I was in the ICU a year ago. When we were sorting out the menu, someone requested chocolate mousse- not something we would have picked, but we let the Dead weigh in.

Then the main courses came out while we listened to the radio drama of The Halloween Tree in the background. Meatballs and roasted potatoes with the last of our fresh garden herbs. Brussel sprouts, crescent rolls, and bread and butter pickles from the farmer's market.

And lastly the appetizer, spanakopita.

The table looked cozy and festive when the living bellies were full of warm, home-cooked foods. The house felt full of family, and festive energy. It was meditative and rejuvenating.

At the very end of the evening, the spirits showed themselves. It was an honor to dine with them. There were moments and voices and sounds and phrases that I walked away from the Dumb Supper with, more impressions to use in tracking down my family lines. I gratefully honor Those That Came Before Me, hoping to pass on the relationship I have built to Those Who Come After. Ashe.


[All photos were taken by Sarah Lyn and are not to be copied without permission.]

Celebrating Spirit with a Silent 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

Dine with the Dead

Bradbury’s text was my first introduction to the idea of the silent dinner with the dead, also known as a Dumb Supper. This formal sit-down is traditionally done any night between October thirty-first and November third. I enjoy it most when we can set the table on Halloween evening, also known as Samhain (sow-in), which we are planning to do this year. This one is also special as it marks the first anniversary of the accident where I almost died.

My Ancestors stood at my bedside with me, helping to channel the healing energy. I was so near death myself that I saw them clearly. A few were faces I recognized but most were new to me, with eyes or jaws or mouths set in familiar slants and patterns. When I was closest to the other side, I was least alone. My wife and I will be celebrating life as we honor those who aided my healing from the spirit world.

It’s meant to be silent but it does not have to be a solemn or somber event. Hold the supper sacred and keep conversation on the experience at hand; 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 away who no longer recognize the world-as-is. Perhaps there was a time when true 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 try to use the electrical aids to entice the dead to visit.

We play some kind of music that might appeal to our invited guests. We often listen to the radio drama of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, which pulls the spirit energy into our home. I grew up sitting around the radio with my family, listening to music. A generation before us it was music and radio serials. The emotional sensation that fills our home when we play the radio drama is one of a joyous family reunion.

The event itself can be as simple or elaborate as your circumstances require. The intention is the magic. Welcome in any weary travelers from the other world and offer them an extra place at your table. Feed them before you feed the living. Allow them an evening of humanity on the night when the overlapping worlds bleed through.

What We Do

We use the dumb supper to open a space for the living and dead to dine together. We have greatly ritualized the evening, though we keep it family-style-casual. At the heart of the evening, it is about honoring Those Who Came Before. We may make a connection and touch spirit world, but that is just an aside. It is not about us. So imagine you are gently trying to lull spirits who have been in other world back into the familiar trappings of life. Think about it like you are starting at the end and moving backwards, like a mirror image of their last breath.

It may seem like a stretch, but apply that to the table itself. I think of the table and meal like a reflection, a photo-negative image of your mundane life. Whatever order you would normally eat dinner courses, serve them backwards. However you would place-set the table, set it backwards. Do you usually put forks on the left and water glass on the right? Reverse them. Whether it makes sense or not, it works, and is one of the oldest guidelines for hosting a supper for the dead.

Prepare the Food

Planning the menu is part of the fun. 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 discovering in my genealogical research: German, Polish, Irish, Dutch, English, French-Canadian, etc. What lines live in your bloodstream?

In order to highlight what makes this supper different, it’s helpful to plan a series of courses. It ends up being a bit more formal than a meal we would normally prepare, but for us, this is a special occasion. It may be helpful to note that pungent and fragrant scents are more enticing to the dead who no longer eat.

Plate the Table

We set a chair at the head of the table and shroud it in black fabric to represent the Spirit Chair. A candle is placed in the center of its plate. This is the setting for all those who wander the night and wish the living no harm. During each of the courses, this chair is the guest of honor.

Then we each set out an extra chair for our personally invited spirit guest. It cannot be someone who has died within the last year. We write the name of our invited guest on a piece of paper and place it beneath their plate. Sometimes I actually write letters or ask a question I am hoping to gain spiritual insight on. If you do not have a particular ancestor you wish to invoke, you may simply write the ancestors of your name, your bloodline, your spiritual heart, etc.

A candle is placed on the center of the plate. 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.

Open the Door and Light the Way

At the beginning of the meal, we stand behind the head chair and invite our ancestors to come and dine with us. I even go so far as to open the front door and invite them into my home. We light the candle on the Spirit plate and pour a libation into the cup at the head of the table. I call in the Ancestors with this prayer:

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 action opens door for your personal guests to step in, too. We light the candles on our invited guests’ plates and call them by name. This year I am inviting my unknown-to-me-in-life paternal great-grandmother Hattie Eva Smith. She trained to be a nurse late in life after her husband died. She stood at my left thigh most of the time I was in the ICU.

Enjoy the Evening

A place set for our beloved cats.

The meal itself is also a reflected image of what the dead would remember. We start with the dessert course and sit down to enjoy it. Next, the main course, then the sides. Then 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.

During each pause in courses, while we are eating, I focus on the space across from me and the multiple sensory impressions I receive. In years past, I have invited my Great-Grandma (known-to-me-in-life) Elsie Durant Riddle to dine with me. From the ether I 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.

Bid the Dead to Rest

When the meal is finished, we express our gratitude to those who came and supped with us. That mostly consists of speaking our thoughts and feelings out loud. 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 put their candle out. (If I use tea light, I just let them burn out.)

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

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, bid 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.

Death is a part of the natural cycle we are all a part of and it’s healthy to find ways of acknowledging it as we celebrate the lives we lead. Our Dumb Suppers are portals that allow us, for one moment, whether we truly believe or not, to open up the part of ourselves that remembers the imagination of our childhoods. And we can believe that we might not know what comes after. And we can allow ourselves to speak words to the dead that would otherwise seem foolish.

            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.

[Article revamped from a post originally published October 31, 2012.]