Ancestor Altars

The Samhain season is a wonderful time to create an ancestor altar in your home.  This can be a permanent dedicated space to honor your Beloved Dead year-round, or a temporary set-up for use during Samhain.

To create an ancestor altar you will need:

• A skull (this can be a ceramic imitation skull, a candle in the shape of a skull, a drawing of a skull, or any other representation). Search the stores for Halloween decorations and you should find something suitable.
• A covering for the skull. This can be a handkerchief, a hat, sunglasses, or any item that suits you.
• Photos of deceased loved ones and ancestors.
• Items you associate with your Beloved Dead. These may include antiques, gifts from your loved ones, or inherited items. 
• An offering area, such as a small plate on which to burn incense and spirit money, or to leave offerings of food, liquor, ghost water or other items.

During the Samhain season lay a compass and cast a caim with yourself and your ancestor skull within.  Ask your the Mighty Ones to send forth your Beloved Dead to inhabit your skull for the season of Samhain, that you may honor your ancestors and share in their wisdom.

After the rite is complete, take the skull to your ancestor altar and cover it.  When you wish to speak with your Beloved Dead remove the covering and make your offerings to the spirits.

Here is a recipe for Ghost Water, which is a traditional potent offering to the spirits of the dead.

Ghost Water

At midnight on the night of the full moon (the full moon before Samhain is ideal) go to a graveyard with a glass container of spring water.  Leave the spring water on one of the graves in the cemetery, making sure that the light of the full moon falls on the spring water.  Remove the water after midnight but before daybreak.  Bottle and label the water, and use it as an offering on your ancestor altar.  Some witches like to add a splash of anisette liquor to the Ghost Water when making the offering.  Good anisette will produce a milky cloud in the water, like unto a spirit manifesting.

Graveyard dirt is another ideal offering to the dead.  I have a dear friend who is very interested in her family's genealogy.  She spent one Samhain season collecting dirt from all of the graves of her ancestors that she could locate.  The resulting jar was massive and fairly sung with ancient power.  Powdered mullein or patchouli are often labeled "graveyard dust", and these too make a nice offering, either with or without actual graveyard dirt.

Other offerings to the dead include incense (a Samhain blend or an ancestor blend will work well) and spirit money.  Spirit money is imitation money, such as can be found in children's playsets.  It is burned with prayers that the Beloved Dead have all they need in the world beyond this one.

Keep your ancestor altar clean and make offerings regularly, disposing of any old offerings in living water or at a crossroads.

Your ancestors deserve your respect and remembrance.  Samhain is the ideal time to create an ancestor altar for seasonal use, or as a permanent place in your home and in your life.

 

You can read more about The Ancestors at this blog post.

Ghost Water, Graveyard Dirt, and many other ritual supplies are available through our Etsy store.

Samhain

Samhain is the point in the Wheel that is directly opposite to Beltane, and the intents behind the holiday and the season are, subsequently, directly opposite to those of the fertility and mirth of Beltane. However, they are connected along the road that leads through the center of the compass, and they are both presided over by Tubal Cain, denoting their inherent connection and potency. In the case of Samhain, Tubal Cain guards the Western Gate of the compass, the gate that leads to the western sea and the immortal lands -- the Lands of the Dead. This is his quench tank, an alchemical mate to the forge fire of Beltane's East Gate.


Samhain is one of the portal times during the year, and it is one that many Pagans credit as the strongest portal time. It is a time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is the thinnest, and communication and passage between the worlds is easiest. It is a time to commune with deceased ancestors and loved ones. Though we should honor and rever our ancestors throughout the year, this is the perfect time of year to set aside sacred time to honor those who have passed.

Of course, since the veil is so thin, it is also expected that some rather nasty spirits might enter through the veil at this time, which can cause folks to be wary. Guardians of various types have been placed at doors and windows and hearth (all the entry ways into the home) to keep unwanted and unwelcome spirits out. The custom of dressing in costume comes from the idea of disguising oneself so as not to be recognized by unfriendly spirits.

Furthermore, it has long been a time of remembrance. The ancients had a deep respect for their ancestors, and this was a time to remember the deeds of forefathers and foremothers. They would recall the names of the people in their lineage and honor them with feasts and gifts. The ancestors would have a special place in the home during this time.

Samhain is contemporarily considered to be the last festival of the harvest, and we have encountered two schools of thought as two how this plays out. One says that Samhain is the final grain harvest and that it was imperative that farmers have all of their crops harvested before sundown on Samhain night. If not, tradition held that whatever was left in the fields belonged to the Sidhe. (We've also seen this said about Fall Equinox, but that simply couldn't apply to American crops.) The other indicates that, in Britain, Samhain would have been past the final grain harvest and would have been into a time that we might consider a "blood harvest" -- the time for slaughtering livestock before the winter comes. Technically speaking, we like the mytho-poetry of both schools of thought. However, we are trying to be practical about the Craft that we practice and the area where we live. In Indiana (where we literally live surrounded by fertile farmland), the harvest cycle has looked like this:

* Lammas -- call it "loaf mass" if you like, but it's not grain we're pulling in; it's tomatoes and squash -- the first ... veggies!
* Fall Equinox -- apples, more veggies, early corn, early wheat, early soy -- It'll be another week or two before the grains are really ready.
* Samhain -- the rest of the grains have been or are being harvested now. It's a race. November really is too late. As for the "blood harvest?" Maybe so.




Samhain Traditions

We celebrate Samhain as season, a "month" unto itself --  a two week period extending from October 15th until Octiber 31. This is a time for us to honor our genealogical and spiritual ancestors. We seek guidance from them, insight about the lessons from the pervious year and advice for work to be done in the coming year. We are making provisions within ourselves for the winter months ahead.  This is a time of reflection on death and rebirth -- contemplating beginnings and endings. As such, it is a time of introspection, reflection, communication with the Otherworld and Underworld. It is a time of profound spiritual growth. (It can be quite intense.)


We begin the cycle by Welcoming the Ancestors. In this ritual, we bring our skulls in token of all our ancestors – biological, spiritual, and otherwise. We then empower these skulls to be a vessel in which our ancestors can be manifest during the 13th month. Part of this ritual always includes a “genealogy chant” said by each person in attendance. (Women may name their mothers’ mothers, for instance as far back as they have knowledge of. Men may do likewise with their fathers’ fathers. Or, there could be a blending.) We work with skulls as a means of "tapping the bone" -- tapping into the knowledge, wisdom (hence, the skulls) and power of our Mighty Dead.  (As a note, human skulls, though *somewhat* available as curios, are extraordinarily expensive and are NOT necessary for this work. What you want is something realist -- either in look or material. Go for a realist replica from a science shop, a crafty skull of some sort, a Halloween prop that won't make you laugh, or an animal skull -- real bone, just not human.)

In the same general time-frame as the Welcoming the Ancestors ritual, we also empower our pumpkin guardians. Sometimes this is done as a group, and sometimes we do it individually. Whatever the case, one pumpkin is chosen for each member of the household, carved and empowered to protect that person and the home from harmful spirits during the 13th month. Some of the families choose an extra pumpkin to protect the family as a whole, as well. These are place outside the door and lit each night at dark during the duration of the 13th month.

The Dumb Feast is a ritual feast held to honor the ancestors. The entire ritual (from the point of laying the compass to eating the feast to finishing the ritual) is carried out in silence. A portion of the food from each person’s plate should be reserved for their ancestors. Their skull is placed in honor next to or in front of each person.

Individual dark mirror, cauldron, and skull trances -- We strive to do a great deal of individual meditation and trance-work with our cauldrons, dark mirrors and skulls, since they are among the key symbolic tools we associate with this Sabbat.

The Ancestors

The most important link that a witch makes is the one that links her to the ancestors of the tradition.  This link is the Red Thread.  Once made it cannot be severed except by the will of the witch alone.  It is this link that creates a witch in our tradition.  It is the link that creates us as family.

The ancestors are more than just names on our family tree.  They are the guardians and guides that shape our practice from the other side.  They are our allies in magic and our protectors in spirit.

Although none can truly claim full knowledge of what happens to our spirits after our bodies expire, we believe that the spirit and the eternal soul continue on.  The eternal soul flies from us to the shining realm of the ancients, the land of fey, Elphame, the isle of apples, Ynys Avalon, where it takes its repose. This expression of the soul lives in our bones, and it is for that reason that we honor our ancestors through the symbolism of bones. The spirit, an expression of our ego and “self”, may wander here for a time after death, creating the phenomenon we recognize as ghosts, or it may return to the source, the great cauldron, from which we are reborn anew.

Of special interest to us are the Mighty Dead.  These are the dead that have returned to the cauldron and have retained themselves in whole (both spirit and eternal soul) through many lives.  They are the great heroes and heroines of myth and history.  Their influence shapes our world, and their guidance can teach us much.

We access the ancestors by honoring them in word and deed.  The names we take are a litany of the generations before us.  We make offerings to the dead throughout the year, and especially when the veil is thinnest at Samhain.  We learn to tap the bone, to create communication with our guiding ancestors, through meditation and offerings.

The ancestors are honored at the center of the compass for our rites, by the skull placed at the foot of the stang.