Sabbath for Souls

Today is my Sabbath, and also the day before Halloween, which marks the doorway to the dark half of the Celtic year, the opening of a new cycle. The early Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin at this time of year, and so spirits of the dead could visit the living.

This is the time of year to welcome home the souls of your ancestors. But I definitely feel some angst regarding my relatives who moved here to the "New World" to take it away from the Native Peoples, and who bought into the false American Dream, built on the subjugation of so many other living beings. 

Today I plan to spend the day opening my heart and healing our soul connection.

Agenda:

1. Medicine Art for souls

2. Study genealogy and anti-racism

3. Make Pan de Muerto, Bread of the Dead

4. Have a soul ceremony

5. Offer ongoing support for my ancestors

1. Medicine Art for souls:

I'm designing a Medicine Art practice, to heal our connection to the earth and Creation, and I wondered if it could be applied to healing my connection to the souls of my ancestors. While searching for how to manage this, I came across an article on ancestor offerings, from Lion's Roar: Buddhist Wisdom for Our Times:

"Ancestors are everyone and everything that existed on the planet before your birth. Ancestors can include the earth, moon, sun, and stars. They can include the people in your blood lineage (loved or unloved). Included are those we want to disown because we feel they did not walk with integrity or were harmful to others. Their “wrongful actions” have something to do with how we personally and collectively live, and they too are ancestors. Ancestors are also people in the lineage of your spiritual practice, and beings in the lineage of life itself. ...

 

When we bring in the ancestors at the beginning of a ritual or ceremony, we are starting with the bones. The bones, in this writing, are symbolic of wisdom. In some indigenous cultures, bones are said to hold memory. It is not our brains that hold the remembrance of human life before our births. The memories in the bone can be stirred or rattled, as they say, through ritual and ceremony. Through our bones, we can access wisdom that has been passed from ancestors to the present". 

I set an intention:

My intention today is to invite the souls of my ancestors to gather with me, so that I can honor them, and thank them for my life; I intend to use my creative fire to rattle the bones of my memory, heal the rift in my heart, and forge a stronger connection between us. I'll do this with study, meditative baking, and ceremony.

2. Study genealogy and anti-racism:

I have enjoyed studying my ancestry over the years, but I'm well aware of the inherent white privilege of this study. This document, Genealogy and anti-racism by Diane Kenaston, asks the question, "So, are there ways for white people to act as anti-racist allies while exploring our own white ancestry?" She could be writing my own thoughts here:

"Through ancestors' participation in the DAR, I have family trees going back to the 1700s ---- and the knowledge that the DAR was formed for explicitly racist reasons. Through ancestors' ability to purchase homes, attend institutions of higher education, and transfer wealth to their descendants, I have paper trails. ... Local, state, and federal governments have valued keeping my ancestors’ records and writing down their names. Some of my ancestors benefited from the Homestead Act, in which the U.S. government transferred to white citizens land stolen from indigenous peoples. Even for those who didn’t directly apply for land under the Homestead Act, by migrating to these shores, my ancestors participated in what is known as “settler colonialism” --- deliberately replacing native peoples with new settlers."

This document has some great suggestions for action, including sections on confronting slavery, confronting settler colonialism and homesteading, and confronting immigration restrictions.

So I set another intention: 

I intend to find out whose traditional territory my ancestors were on, learn more about the people, history, and contemporary concerns of these indigenous communities, and share that information with my family, because this is one way I can dismantle the systems of racism.

3. Make Pan de Muerto, Bread of the Dead:

It was a custom in many parts of the world to go ‘a-souling’ on Halloween - go door to door, singing and saying prayers for the dead; this is the origin of trick-or-treating! In Britain, these people were called Soulers, and folks gave them Soul Cakes. Each cake eaten represented a soul freed from suffering. The British recipe is here.

This year I decided to make the Mexican version: Pan de muerto, or bread of the dead, is a rich sweetbread flavored with anise and orange peel. It is most often formed into a simple round loaf with crisscrossed bones of dough on top, and colored sugar sprinkles.

Ingredients

• 1/4 c. milk
• 1/4 c. butter in small pieces
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1/4 c. very warm water
• 1 egg
• 3 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. each, grated orange rind and anise seed
• colored sugar sprinkles

Yield: 1 loaf or 6 rolls-

1. Bring the milk and butter just to a boil and remove it from the heat. Stir in the sugar and salt and stir. Let it cool to lukewarm

2. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water. Let it stand 5 minutes. Add the warm milk mixture, grated orange rind and anise seed.

3. Separate the egg yolk and white. Add the yolk to the yeast mixture, but save the white for later.

4. Add flour and blend well. Knead the dough on a floured board until it is smooth. Return to bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise in warm place for 90 minutes, or until doubled.

5. Preheat the oven to 350º. Knead the dough again, then divide out about 1/4 of the dough and set it aside. Form the remaining dough into a smooth round loaf (or smaller rolls), and place it onto a greased baking sheet. Beat the egg white lightly with a bit of water, and brush over the loaf.

6. Divide the reserved dough into one small ball and two larger pieces. Form the larger pieces into long thin bones. Press down the ends of each bone to look like the joint knobs. Cross the bones over the loaf so the ends reach to the pan, and brush with more egg white.

7. Shape the smaller piece into a disk or skull shape and press it firmly into the center of the loaf. Brush with the last of the egg white. Cover the bread with a towel and let it rise for 30 minutes.

8. After 30 minutes, sprinkle the loaf with colored sugar, and bake at 350º for 35 minutes.

3. Medicine Art Ceremony:

When we do an action as a meditation, a prayer, anything we do in life can be a way to heal. So, I've designed this personal ceremony to culminate my sabbath for souls:

1. Mis en place: Gather and prepare the supplies - a lighted candle, pan de Muertos, my ancestor altar, and a list of the names of hundreds of my ancestors.

2. Observe: Sit down, take a breath, and slowly read out the names of my ancestors, to really notice them and recognize them as being amazing and significant. Listen for messages.

3. Create: My intention is to use my creative fire to heal the rift in my heart, and forge a stronger connection between me and my ancestors. I decided to make 3 new runes for my set: 

Gebo = Gift; represents the honor and connection that is created between people when they exchange gifts, similar to the connection and honor that a person has with the gods for giving them life. 

Ear = Soil of Earth; symbolizes the grave that we will all return to, the unavoidable end of all things (which happens only because there was life to begin with. “Without life, there is no death and without time there is no life).”

Ansuz = Mouth (or Divine Breath); symbolizes stability and  order, intellectual activities, healing communication, and the divine breath of all life and creation.

 

4. Give thanks, share: The culmination of a Medicine Art project is to give thanks, and share. I will break the bread and eat it slowly and silently, giving thanks to Creation for my life.

4. Offer ongoing support for my dead ancestors:

I found this wonderful article from Ancestral Medicine - Five Ways to Honor Your Ancestors:

"Once the dead have become ancestors, part of their post-death journey may include making repairs for wrongs committed while here on Earth. For their sake and for ours, it’s good to spend a little time now and again feeding our relationships with the ancestors. The five suggestions below, none of which require belief in any specific tradition or dogma, are safe and effective ways to assist our beloved dead and to welcome the ongoing support and blessings of the ancestors in our everyday lives."

What a healing way to look at it! So, I've set a third intention:

I intend to continue to honor my ancestors, and heal my heart, by:

-fulfilling my soul's purpose as an ethical and loving person, because this is the best ways to help my ancestors fulfill their's; 

-dedicating positive actions in the name of my ancestors; specifically, I plan to donate money to Native American groups, saying “I dedicate the positive energy from this donation to the well-being of my ancestors; may their spirits be at peace”; 

-continuing to study and connect to the cultural and religious traditions of my ancestors, and create meaningful objects that I can use to honor them, and remind me of our ongoing relationship.