Communing With Ancestors

When it comes to a person's ancestors, you can never learn too much. More often than not, the truth is never as fanciful as we would like to imagine. For my own part, I surmised pretty quickly that I was more than likely not related to the Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, nor to President George Washington, although both of those myths have been current in my family for generations. I am also equally unlikely to be descended from the Plantagenet Kings of England.

It's a curious aspect of human life and it seems common among mountain folk to imagine such illustrious ancestries, probably as a mechanism for imparting some meaning into their humdrum existences and to give their own children an ideal to which to aspire. The irony is, it wouldn't make a dime's worth of difference if it were true.

It's actually unfair to your ancestors to try to paint them as something they were not. A second irony is that this is equally true of those ancestors who circulated these fanciful tales with for the most part the best of intentions.

One of my ancestors, I know for a fact, was, at an advanced age, a two year Kentucky legislator in the Kentucky House of Representatives in the early twenties, having been handpicked to replace another elected representative who for some unknown reason became incapacitated. He served his two years in obscurity during the Presidency of Warren G. Harding, and then retired into even greater obscurity. He was in his eighties at the time and established himself as one of the more unimportant notable bench warmers in the Kentucky legislator. But, he was there.

The rest of them consisted of a few rogues of various stripes, various soldiers of the Revolutionary War and both sides of the Civil War (one was a ferrier for the North), but for the most part, basically farmers. One owned land in Oklahoma and had the reputation as being quite the mean ass. One uncorroborated story relates that he beat a man to death with a board on election day. The exact term used for his weapon of choice was "fence post", which seems unlikely, if not impossible. I'm not sure to what party he belonged, but most of them were Republcians, though it seems I heard he might have been a Democrat himself.

Of course I have already related how yet another was an accused "witch" which in those days legitimately meant devil worshiper. This too however is unproven and may be more legend than fact.

Anyway, the point to all this is that your ancestors are a part of you, and to some degree or another helped to shape the person that you are. Their experiences culminated throughout the generations, passed down in ways subtle and not so subtle, until you became the end result. Everything about you, both good and bad and every shade of in-between, is traceable to an extent to them. This of course does not negate your own personal responsibility. You still have choices in life and must make the best of them or suffer the consequences. But it helps to know where you are coming from.

There are many genealogy websites of various degrees of worth, many of which charge a fee. The Mormons have quite an extensive list of records they have culled through many generations, and they can and will assist you in any way possible for a nominal fee. There are also generally genealogy sections at your local libraries, or you can turn to your local historical society for aid.

It is interesting and addictive to learn about your genealogy. If I were to dress up for a Halloween Party, I would feel more inclined to dress up as an old time Kentucky farmer. It wouldn't be much of a costume, but it would be yet another way of attuning with one's ancestors, at least in the privacy of ones own home. If you could happen across some old period clothing from the time in question of a particular ancestor you might have in mind ao much the better.

Another manner of attuning with them would be to extract some dirt from the gravesite of the ancestor of particular interest, place it in a pot, and carefully grow some plant suitable for indoor growth. Use the growing plant as a mean of attuning with the spirit of the ancestor under the glow of a white or light blue candle. It might help to leave an offering of food at the gravesite. I have a relative who lost her father, and leaves a candy bar on regular occasions, along with written notes. She never quite got over his death, and this amounts to a coping mechanism, of course, but it is probably helpful to her. It helps her feel connected.

Some people believe the spirits of the ancestors in some cases hover around us and provide guidance at necessary times. Still others believe they reincarnate, and that wee ourselves might in fact be such an incarnation.

Although it has become an article of faith with most Wiccans and other Pagans, I have had serious doubts of late about the potential for reincarnation. I think that if it happens at all, it happens rarely, and is not something to aspire to. It is in fact a natural event, not at all spiritual or "supernatural", but based on attachment to the world you just can't bear to leave behind.

If you hold to this idea, you are far from alone. In fact, some among the ancient Greeks believed that on certain nights, the spirits of the dead walked among men, much as we believe the veil between the lving and the dead becomes thin on the night of Samhain. During these periods, they believed the spirits entered into beans which, if eaten by a woman, would potentially lead to the spirits rebirth into the material world.

I don't advise leaving a bowl of pinto or other dried beans out overnight on the night before Samhain and eating them the next day as a means of giving birth to a reincarnated soul, but it might be a good manner of communing with the dead. Any ritual energy expended toward that end would be a legitimate method of communing with ones ancestors.

Of course, the main goal should be your own personal growth in the here and now. It is far too easy to get drawn into some fantasy world of the past and lose yourself in the process, thus missing the point all together.

Of course, some people really do believe in vampires too, so what the hell.