{"id":7510,"date":"2017-12-17T01:16:23","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T07:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=7510"},"modified":"2017-12-17T01:16:23","modified_gmt":"2017-12-17T07:16:23","slug":"ancient-oaks-honoring-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2017\/12\/ancient-oaks-honoring-ancestors.html","title":{"rendered":"Under the Ancient Oaks: Honoring Our Ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Walk into the homes of your friends and you\u2019re likely to see photos and mementos of parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. Honoring our ancestors is an intuitive impulse among Pagans, Christians, atheists, and everyone else. For some of us, though, it\u2019s not just a pleasant thing to do \u2013 it\u2019s an important part of our spiritual practice.<\/p>\n

Fellow Denton CUUPS member Linda Masten and I discuss ancestors: who they are, why they\u2019re important to us here and now, and most importantly, how we can honor them.<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nWho are our ancestors? Some we knew in this life, some we know only their names and dates of birth and death, and some we don\u2019t know at all. But no matter how close or distant we are from our ancestors, they answer the question \u201cwhere do we come from?\u201d We look at old pictures and we see the some of the same features\u00a0 we see in the mirror. We share a name or we hear a tale and realize that could have been us. We do a bit of genealogical research and we find roots in a faraway land \u2013 and sometimes living relatives too. All that reminds us that we\u2019re not alone in this world.<\/p>\nIt is good and right that we honor our ancestors. It\u2019s only because of them that we\u2019re even here, much less that we have things like religion, culture, art, and the infrastructure that supports our lives. We can\u2019t pay them back, but we can thank them, we can remember them, and we can strive to be good ancestors for those who come after us.<\/p>\nWhatever hard times we\u2019re going through, we have an ancestor who went through something just as bad or worse. We know they got through it or we quite literally wouldn\u2019t be here. They faced famine and disease, invasion and war, plagues and ice ages. They moved \u2013 the story of humanity is the story of migration. I\u2019m sure some of that migration was out of curiosity and adventure, but I\u2019m just as sure more of it was due to dwindling food supplies or violent attacks. They did what they had to do, and so can we.<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/12\/Lindas-ancestor-altar-782x411.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7511\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7511\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/12\/Lindas-ancestor-altar-782x411.jpg\" alt=\"Linda's ancestor altar 782x411\" width=\"782\" height=\"411\"><\/a><\/p>\nThis is the last video of 2017, so it\u2019s time to start looking forward to 2018.<\/p>\nFebruary 9 through 11 I\u2019ll be at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com\/e\/imbolc-retreat-2018-tickets-40154903397\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">ADF Texas Imbolc Retreat<\/a> at the U Bar U retreat center in Mountain Home, Texas. You don\u2019t have to be a member of ADF to attend, it\u2019s suitable for Pagans and polytheists of all varieties, and it\u2019s drivable from almost any place in Texas. This will be my fifth year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2017\/02\/adf-texas-imbolc-retreat-gathering-common-banner.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">at this gathering<\/a> \u2013 if you live anywhere nearby I encourage you to consider attending.<\/p>\nThe following weekend, February 16 through 19, I\u2019ll be at <a href=\"https:\/\/pantheacon.com\/wordpress\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Pantheacon<\/a> in San Jose, California. Pantheacon is the largest indoor Pagan gathering in the world. I\u2019ll be speaking on \u201cBuilding Alliances Across Our Many Communities\u201d on Saturday at 11:00 AM. I\u2019ll also be doing at least one and probably two presentations in the ADF hospitality suite \u2013 more details on those once they\u2019re finalized.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the Ancient Oaks, the video series. I talk with fellow Denton CUUPS member Linda Masten about ancestors and how we honor them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":7511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101],"tags":[427,535,4,120,5,8],"class_list":["post-7510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foundations-and-context","tag-ancestors","tag-denton-cuups","tag-pagan","tag-pagan-videos","tag-paganism","tag-polytheism"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Under the Ancient Oaks: Honoring Our Ancestors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Under the Ancient Oaks, the video series. 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