Resourcing With Land And Ancestors

In the Anabaptist Mennonite (read: Protestant) Christian community I grew up in, we did not celebrate All Saints Day on Nov. 1, as I understand that many Catholic communities do or have.

And my Swiss-German ancestors would not have celebrated Samhain as it was a Celtic holiday.

So, as I am in my own re-weaving of what it means to be in connection to land and place and the turning of the seasons, and have gotten curious about when and how my people may have honored our dead/ancestors, I’ve discovered that although the above weren’t our specific traditions, it’s likely that many people across what we now know as the European continent, would have been in connection to death and dying around this time of year.

As agrarian/peasant people’s for many many generations, my ancestors would have very much been land-based folks, and in this season, deeply connected to the ending of the harvest and the dying back of so much - plants, butchering animals, killing frosts, the sun/daylight decreasing, all heading into the dormancy of winter.

Once again, the rhythms of the earth inviting us to observe our human cycles as well. The seasonal shift makes timing ripe to connect to ancestors. As many traditions remind us, perhaps the veil is thinner this time of year.

And it wasn’t a seasonal thing, but I am also grateful to be able to call on the powerful ways that my cultural and family community did honor our dead - including through reverence of the Martyr’s Mirror (complex as it is to glorify the early Anabaptist’s religious persecution), and incredible deep dives into and documentation of genealogy. We have written record of our direct line of ancestors back over 1200 years ago. This is such a privilege and a gift.

Here on much of Turtle Island, we have mainstream Halloween, and to be sure, my 7 year old is very excited to actually go knock on real people’s doors and get real candy this evening. She has decided that she will be a butterfly and I will be a flower and she will probably try to climb all over me for pollination and silliness purposes. (Stay tuned for pictures?!)

And, this week, we also assembled our second annual (after me doing this on my own in various ways over the years) ancestor altar together. Extra special to have my parents visiting and helping us build the altar, adding in another generation of knowing and honoring our beloveds who have passed.

I was all prepared to make a very aesthetically pleasing altar, but my kiddo had her own vision. I did some serious letting go, and followed her lead. We ended up with a table covered with pictures and special objects from our beloved dead (including some of those Mennonite genealogy books!), heaped with rose petals she dried herself, and surrounded by a huge blanket-and-pillow nest.

At first I was overwhelmed by the chaos of this taking over the entire living room, but I’m so grateful in the end that this is our altar space. Turns out when your altar is in a giant pillow fort, it’s really cozy and you want to hang out there. We’ve been spending lots of time cuddling in that corner, telling stories about our ancestors.

It has been extremely precious to overhear kiddo telling visiting friends about all the different people pictured on our altar, many of whom she hasn’t known in her lifetime. She’s clearly taking in the stories.

Here we are, calling forth the threads of our lineage that we can find, resourcing from the land and the seasons now, weaving them all with our own intuition and longings. I am grateful, amidst the complexity.

How are you exploring this particular moment in the cycling of the season?

What might honoring death and decay make possible?

How might connecting to your ancestors, to the land, to your own lineages, resource you in this political moment?