31 Days of Inspired Holidays: day 11: Ancestors

This is my 300th blog post in this blog! Wow! :-)

What is Samhain all about?

Death. Old age. Heritage. Ancestors. Tribe. Belonging. Silver lines. My place in life and universe – in the circle of life. Destiny. Fate. Divination. Otherkin. Other dimensions and lifeforms. We Are One. Gaia. Winter. Night. Eternal night. Funerals. Burial grounds. Cemeteries. Day of Dead. Rest. Eternal sleep. Sleep.

To me Death has always been Sleep's brother. 

“And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death”

Because of H. C. Andersen's Sandman

I also associate to the Tarot card, Death 

Samhain is the last day of Autumn and the first day of Winter. 

Sun God is dead and Goddess is old and mourning her son. 

 Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica

Isn't it interesting how the Pagan imagery can be found everywhere...

And to those Christians who are snickering because this is a Catholic statue...

try to remember WHAT is being depicted here...

Some imagery is clothed in words...

Antoine Caron; the triumph of winter - the Winter is represented by an old woman, sitting in a carriage drawn by white herons.

Winter, the nighttime of the year, is also symbol of death and old age. Samhain, being the gate of Winter, is a good time to think about people who are old and the blessings of old age. Our modern, Western culture is so horribly focused on youth, that we are ignoring the elderly and believe they have nothing of value to offer. Everywhere I look I see people trying to stay and look younger than they are, especially women. I would love for people to go to the Elders to learn, to sit down and admire what is worth admiring... Well... beauty is worth admiring as well, but... some people celebrated (as in celebrity, you know) are not quite worth it.

I saw Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" and she is just marvelous :-) Now, she is not old, she's one year younger than my oldest sister, but she is not young either. Another not-young woman who is amazing is Betty White. These ladies have the same kind of humor as my mother and her sister... and I assume my sisters and I have it too.

How about you and the female Elders of your family? Samhain is perfect time to connect backwards, to your roots, your heritage, your tribe, clan and family, and ancestors.

I always feel my family especially close at Samhain. I can see the silver lines connecting me to my parents to their parents and on and on to the first human... This is a very good time to do different family and ancestry related things. Find out more about your genealogy and express some heritage pride. It's not just minorities that should be proud of their ancestry.
To find inspiration, go to Pinterest and search "genealogy" at boards.

* Write a letter to distant relatives, especially the old ones.
* Visit a family grave.

* Think about your ancestors, tell their stories to the next generations

* If you don't have any, adopt an ancestor.

Genealogy, ancestry is about belonging. It's about my place in the circle of life. As we all know, death is part of the circle of life, but it's not all there is... and all that is what Samhain is about. Time. Hours. Fate. Destiny... Circle of Life. Divination is easy at this time of the year, because the veil between worlds, dimensions and existences is very thin at this moment. For a moment we all belong to every world and every lifeform, every form of existence is part of our ecosystem. The time, future, past, is the same... Samhain is about the fact that We Are One.