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<\/a>We begin by honoring the ancestors we know.\u00a0 These are the people we knew in life, those we\u2019ve been told about or who we found through genealogical research.\u00a0 We have pictures of these ancestors, or stories about them, or a bit of biographical data.\u00a0 We can honor their memory because we have memories of them.<\/p>\n
I knew my maternal grandmother<\/a> very well.\u00a0 She came to live with us when I was 9 and lived\u00a0till I was 28.\u00a0 I have pictures of her, but I don\u2019t need pictures to remember her:\u00a0 I remember her face and her form, her voice and her hair.\u00a0 I remember the foods she liked to cook.\u00a0 Most importantly, I remember how she loved me and our whole family, and how she went out of her way to care for us, over and over and over again.\u00a0 I knew her well, and it\u2019s easy for me to honor her.<\/p>\n My father\u2019s family traces our history in this country through James Beckett, who was my great-great-great-grandfather.\u00a0 There are no pictures of him.\u00a0 We know he was born in Ulster around 1750, moved to North Carolina after the American Revolution, and died around 1820.\u00a0 That\u2019s it.\u00a0 But that\u2019s enough to honor his courage and determination to cross the ocean and provide opportunities for his descendants \u2013 opportunities that have benefitted me.\u00a0 I can call his name because I know his name.<\/p>\n Ancestors we don\u2019t know<\/strong><\/p>\n We knew a few ancestors in this life and we know more through history.\u00a0 But we all have many, many more ancestors who are beyond the reach of historical records.\u00a0 I know James Beckett\u2019s name, but I have 15 other great-great-great-grandfathers and 16 great-great-great-grandmothers whose names I do not know.\u00a0 They are also worthy of my honor and respect.<\/p>\n Mainstream history is helpful here.\u00a0 Many early immigrants to the Southeastern United States were Scots-Irish, meaning it is highly likely many more of my ancestors came here from Scotland by way of Ireland.\u00a0 I can visualize ancestors who were Irish, Scots, Celts, and Picts.\u00a0 I can go back further and further to ancestors who lived in places further south and further east, though I cannot know exactly where or when.\u00a0 At some point tens of thousands of years ago, I had an ancestor who walked out of Africa.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know these ancestors, but if they hadn\u2019t lived, I wouldn\u2019t be here.\u00a0 I cannot call their names \u2013 I can\u2019t even visualize enough placeholders for all of them.\u00a0 But I can acknowledge their gifts and honor their lives.<\/p>\n When we honor these ancestors, we subtly affirm an important fact:\u00a0 most of them weren\u2019t Christians.\u00a0 If I assume my ancestors in the British Isles converted to Christianity in 500 CE (it could have been earlier \u2013 it also could have been much later) then I\u2019ve got about 50 generations of Christians in my heritage.\u00a0 While the \u201cout of Africa\u201d migration date is highly contentious, even using the conservative date of 70,000 years ago I\u2019ve got about 2300 generations of non-Christian ancestors \u2013 and that\u2019s in addition to thousands more generations of human ancestors who lived in Africa.<\/p>\n Yes, in leaving Christianity I have rejected the religion of some of my ancestors.\u00a0 But I\u2019m working to restore the polytheist, animist, and pantheist religions of many, many more.<\/p>\n Ancestors of spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n While biologically we are all related at one level or another, there are people who have influenced us to whom we are only tangentially related by blood.\u00a0 Some of these we knew in life:\u00a0 teachers, neighbors, spiritual leaders.\u00a0 Others we knew by their work:\u00a0 authors, scholars, activists. \u00a0As a Druid, OBOD founder Ross Nichols is my spiritual ancestor and it is proper that I honor him, even though I never knew him and never heard of him before he died.<\/p>\n Because of my ancestors of blood, I have physical life.\u00a0 Because of my ancestors of spirit, I have spiritual and religious life.\u00a0 I have built my practice on the foundations laid by those who came before me.<\/p>\n People in other religions who are unused to ancestor work are likely to understand the importance of honoring civic heroes.\u00a0 We have Presidents\u2019 Day \u2013 I\u2019m old enough to remember when it was Washington\u2019s birthday.\u00a0 We have federal holidays honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and (for better or worse) Christopher Columbus.\u00a0 There are countless statues honoring war heroes, civic leaders, and sports stars\u2026 and don\u2019t forget The Apotheosis of Washington<\/em>, the painting on the rotunda of the United States Capitol Building which depicts George Washington becoming a God.<\/p>\n We\u2019re all familiar with the faces on Mount Rushmore and the famous monuments in and around Washington DC, but go to any small town square and you\u2019ll see statues of people you likely don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Local ancestors are just as worthy of honor as national ancestors:\u00a0 they may be less-famous ancestors, but they\u2019re our<\/em> ancestors.<\/p>\n Ancestors most ancient<\/strong><\/p>\n It is proper to honor our ancestors because we are in debt to them \u2013 if it weren\u2019t for them we quite literally wouldn\u2019t be here.\u00a0 Their lives and their work laid the foundations on which we build our lives.<\/p>\n We intuitively understand the need to honor our parents and grandparents, and it doesn\u2019t take much thought to extend that back to the first ancestor who came to the land where we live.\u00a0 A little more thought brings up ancestors further and further back:\u00a0 those who survived war, famine, and plagues, those who crossed mountains and rivers, those who overcame constant obstacles of a life far different from our own.\u00a0 Keep going back and eventually you reach the first modern humans \u2013 the first of our species.<\/p>\n But our ancestry does not stop in East Africa 200,000 years ago.\u00a0 Homo erectus<\/em>, Homo habilis<\/em>, and Australopithecus<\/em> are also our ancestors.\u00a0 If they were here we could not speak with them because they did not have the capacity for language (we think).\u00a0 But as with our more recent ancestors, if it weren\u2019t for them we wouldn\u2019t be here, and it is right that we honor them.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t stop here, either.\u00a0 We have ancestors who were long-extinct mammals and even-older vertebrates.\u00a0 We have ancestors who were smaller and simpler creatures stretching back to the first life.\u00a0 Each of us must decide for ourselves how much importance we place on honoring these ancestors most ancient, but never forget they are our ancestors.<\/p>\n The urgent need to honor our ancestors<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the core problems of modern society is our unwillingness to consider the needs of future generations.\u00a0 So what if we burn up all the oil and change the climate to something inhospitable for humans?\u00a0 I won\u2019t be here \u2013 why should I care?<\/p>\n But when we honor our ancestors we realize we are the beneficiaries of their lives and their work.\u00a0 Because of them, we are here.<\/p>\n Because of us, future generations will be here.\u00a0 Will they look back on us as mighty ancestors who left them a healthy world and a thriving culture?\u00a0 Or will they look back on us as we look back on ancestors who owned slaves and slaughtered the buffalo?<\/p>\n How do you want to be remembered?<\/p>\n * * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n For a solitary ritual of communion with your ancestors, excerpt or adapt the Main Working\u00a0from this Samhain ritual<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>