In the liminal time of autumn when the dark is coming on--when plants are harvested or drying on the vine, our bodies are moving into the quiet time, and the ancestors roam the world--we speak of the veils being thin. This means it is easier than usual to step between the worlds, to make contact with spirits (Halloween), and coax our beloved dead into celebrating with us.
Our local library organized its first Dia de Los Muertos--Day of the Dead, a traditional celebration in Mexico and Latin America--and asked me to create a sacred space at the beginning of the fiesta. What came to me, as I listened and dreamed my way into focus, was the importance of calling in the ancestors of our ancestors to honor our many roots.
All of Us Are Immigrants
All of us are immigrants from somewhere. All humans come from thirteen people in Africa, who migrated in all directions across the continents. Some made their way into Siberia, across the Bering Straits to Alaska, and down through North, Central, and South America. Some crossed the oceans to Australia and Polynesia, later to Hawaii and Peru. Some migrated to Europe, and resettled in the Americas. Some of us have just crossed a border and others crossed long ago. Still, we are all immigrants.
On the morning of Dia de Los Muertos at the library, I invited the thirty or so guests to shake the blue corn rattles I had grown, harvested and prepared while I drummed to the four directions and the center. I called to our personal ancestors and the indigenous ones--naming a few tribes in each of the directions--to join us.
As ceremonies are intended to do, our drumming and rattling to the ones on the other side changed us, and changed the space. "I didn't expect it to be so spiritual" one woman said. Another spoke of how beautiful it was to include so many. What I discovered in myself was an expanded awareness of the ancestors. Simply calling in the indigenous ones made them more present in my life--and shifted everyone's consciousness of who might be considered ancestor.
"Ancestors of affinity" is the phrase Luisah Teish uses to describe those not in our direct lineage. Her term has helped me understand my own deep connections with my non-blood ancestors, the wisdom keepers who had stories and insights my own Irish and Norwegian relatives lacked, suppressed, or had forgotten. Giving yourself permission to include your indigenous ancestors of affinity in your family opens many doors of perception.
Life and Death as Continuum
In the many cultures around the world that venerate ancestors, honor them, and listen to them, there is a commonality of belief: everything dies and is reborn. The corn stalks feed the pigs, the squash vines go into the compost pile for next year's soil regeneration. The ancestors support and advise us. Death is not finite, but is part of the wheel of life.
Our attachments as humans keep us from thinking about the wheel too much, until illness or physical challenges force us to consider: what is it worth to me to keep going? How do I want to live in the days or years left?
Death and Suffering In Your Face
These questions are on my mind as I witness one friend with stage four lung cancer marshal all his resources to learn as much as he can, heal on every level, be positive, and live every day fully. They are on my mind as I witness another friend who suffers severe pain, is a recovering alcoholic, and who struggles to find his center and his path without his friend, the drink.
These questions have been on my mind as I listen to a young, healthy friend question her will to live. Her sudden, rare bladder cancer is untreatable with chemotherapy, and will require the removal of her bladder and probably many other organs. She wonders what kind of life she would lead, and cannot right now find anything she desires enough to keep going.
Two of these friends are drawing on their deep spiritual resources--shamanism for one, meditation for the other--and trying to heal on every level. Diet, energy flow, releasing sadness, engaging with the spirits of illness, western and non-western medicine, community support: all these weave into their processes. The third friend has yet to find a spiritual practice.
Yet all three of them have the same challenges. How will they meet each crisis? Do they have the resources and support to keep going? How will they make peace with what is happening and what will happen?
There are things we can do, and there are no clear answers. Whether you are healthy, ill, or in decline at this moment, there is always a choice. And for the rest of us, deep compassion for what each of us faces is essential.
