There are more ancestors than you can imagine. There are a LOT more. It is much easier to see the Ancestors  when we abandon the myopia of human superiority or human ascendancy over all the rest of nature. From the far corners of the world that we share with every other living thing, let the ancestors rise.

We exist in the natural world. We do not live outside of it. Therefore, legitimacy is not ours to grant, nor does the natural world need us. We exist solely because of that world. I believe that we should look out through the forest into the world as opposed to the other way around. We are spirits in nature.

For me, my ancestors include my family members, but they also include those entities that are close to my heart. My former pets are my ancestors. My former poinsettias are my ancestors. The animals that I pass along the way as I pass through the world are my ancestors. I do not need to know their name nor their lineage to honour them, to revere them.

All these entities that make up our world arose through the bounty and benevolence of the Earth Mother. To begin with, they appeared out of her agency. Next, they survived because of the gifts provided by the Earth Mother. In the end, they returned to her, and the process started again. The Earth Mother brings you forth with the same arms that bring you back.

It is the cyclical nature of reality.

To begin with, when we lift the veil, we aren’t letting the spirits into our world. They are already here, intricately woven into the fabric of our lives, from a memory perspective, from an organic point of view. When we lift the veil, we open our eyes to their ever-presence all around us. The Ancestors will be there. Look closely at them tonight. Then, tomorrow, and every day thereafter, see that they still are there.

At Samhain, we see the world in its decline. The plants are giving way to the changing seasons. Trees acknowledge the diminishing light. Their leaves change colours in response to the changing of the world. We naturally remember all those in passing, as the pass through this world, and as we pass through it as well.

At Beltaine, the other side of the Samhain coin, we see the world unfolding, and celebrate all the newness that arises, but it arises through the bounty of the Ancestors and the eternal dance of the Earth Mother. Let us not be so linear that we cannot appreciate the ever-turning cycle of coming into being and returning to the Earth from whence we came.

The Ancestors await us each day. They wait to share with us. One day, we will be among them, sharing space with this world while existing the next. Once we do so, we will find ourselves inhabiting a space with so many souls who ignore us because they cannot see us. Our memories will change colours like the leaves upon the trees. Let us remember them all, as we wish to be remembered.

Leave offerings for the Ancestors, today, and every day. Give the human ones a bit of your coffee, or a morsel of your toast. For the feline and canine ones, leave them a gift of kibble. To the Ancestors of the plant world, offer water to the plants who have now taken their place. In our Right Practice, we honour them all in small but creative ways. In feeding the present, we honour the past.

We live in the middle of countless cycles, some changing, some seemingly never changing. The seasons change around us, and we along with them. The planets move, as do the Sun and the Moon, and they seem ageless. They have looked down upon the Ancestors for time immemorial. They cycle in their own permanence.

If, for one brief moment, one considers the growth of the human organism as it develops, it displays and portrays the ancestors in its evolution through time. We are all a part of the present, through the combinations of the past.

Let me leave you in this Samhain night with a prayer, to welcome the Ancestors tonight, tomorrow, and beyond:

Welcome, Ancestors, Always

Welcome, Ancestors, Always,

I remember you now,

With an act of recollection.

I dream you into my world,

In the darkest of night.

I feel you around me,

In all I have become,

As one days I will become,

A part of you as well.

Welcome, Ancestors, Always,

You pass through my room,

Like a ray of sunshine,

Or like a shadow at night,

Or like a whisper, ever quiet.

I feel you around me,

In all I have become,

And those small pieces of you,

Coalesce, and become a part of me.

Welcome, Ancestors, Always,

You are in my world,

In my understanding,

In my daily, quiet workings,

I remember you as I wish to be remembered.