Happy Samhain, Halloween

 

Saying goodbye to a woman I never knew well, but who was loved by my ex-husband. I don't know what kind of relationship definition that is...I was first wife to him, she was third. Millie spent more years with him than either of his first 2 wives. I think they were happy.

We didn't spend much of our lives together.

But as I knew she had been hospitalized this week, I felt her and my ex's presence in my mediations.

May her spirit find it's way to the summer-land, and those who loved her have peace in their hearts.

Ancestors with heart disease

I have already listed my grandmother Ada Rogers, and invited her to be available to communicate with me through the Samhain (Halllow-een) thinness of the veils between the spirit and material worlds.

I just discovered that her death certificate says she died of heart disease at age 78. As a Christian Scientist, she never talked of her health, nor did anyone in my family growing up.

But Ancestry includes many death certificates. I won't copy them here, but they do tell of her disease a well as her father's. Her father, Alexander John Swasey died at 60 of a heart attack.

I mention both of these because of my recent brush with death in having a heart attack at age 77. Fortunately I had medical treatment, and have since had a wonderful rehabilitation program with a lifestyle change to reverse heart disease.

I wished both of these individuals from whom I'm descended could have had the treatments I've received. So when and if I can have any contact with their spirits, I need to share that our DNA has continued to create this susceptibility, and to thank them for living the good lives they did.

Other relatives were reported to have high blood pressure, which contributed to their deaths. There are a few people, like my grandmother's mother, who died in a car accident.

Talking with the ancestors

 

Now that Hallow-een is near, also known as Samhain, us Pagans believe that the spirits on the other side can communicate with us, as the veil between the worlds is thinner now. And I'm ready to send my love to these spirits that offer nothing but good to my life. The others can just take their hate and find it's only reflected back to them.

I'll share a little about my altar, which will show my ancestors who have recently passed through the veil, as well as some important earlier ones for this time in my life.

My grandmother, Ada, was a Christian Science Practioner. She helped people heal, and I figure she would be good to have around as we continue in Phase 3 of North Carolina's COVID-19 pandemic steps. Her approach to healing was to call upon the same powers that Jesus used to heal the sick. I'm pretty sure that energy or power is still available today.

And of course on my altar stand two goddesses, or figures that remind me of the values for which they stand.

Themis, a young wise woman, holds her hands out to weigh the actions of people against the laws of nature...as her mother Gaia set forth. A lot of these laws have been violated recently, and the justice that mother nature provides will continue to strike humanity with many environmental issues including global warming.

Hecate, the crone, stands at the crossroads of life, helping with decisions as to which direction will take us to our destination, answering questions that we may not know we have. Again, her wisdom offers assistance, and knowledge that we need. She is also connected with the underworld of death. She is a strong ally to have at this time.

The stone circles were all built before Christianity came to Western Europe...so are surmised to have been locations of religious significance to earlier civilizations. Most Pagans are interested in them as links to practices long forgotten. The solstices and equinoxes are recognized as part of the meaning of stone circles, and many early sites of significance for these earlier cultures.

Just a note quickly to my conservative friends and relatives. Pagans are a group of people who believe in the laws of nature, the significance of older cultures' anthropologies, and living to support our one home, the earth. All life has equal standing to Pagans. We do not hurt any living thing if possible. There is no wish for power over another living thing. A Pagan doesn't have weird sexual practices, nor does he eat babies. The do not put a hex on other people. That would be our sisters, the Wiccans...another recognized religious group where hexes may be made to heal negative energies.

Asking the ancestors for help

At the holy time when ancestors' spirits may contact the living, Hallow-een, I have upon my little altar placed images of the ones who have gone before, and will be asking them for specific help at this time...a pandemic and election and full-moon Halloween.

Margaret on the right, in the 1920-30s.

For political stability to be realized through this election, I will bring my Great Aunt Margaret, who was a early voter when women first acquired the vote. She taught high school math, and I thought the world of her. 

Grandmommy (Mozelle) before I knew her...when she was about 38. Her second husband died when she was just 29. 

 Of course my grandmother, Mozelle will be invited, as she represents so well how a single woman raised a child without a man to support her, (after her two husbands had died within a few years of their marriages in successioin) Her family and good friends continued to help her when our government didn't have any of the programs that it has today to help single working mothers. Her death from breast cancer at the same time I graduated from high school, reminds me of how many women still suffer from the pain of that disease today.

Rosie (in hat) and myself...before she helped me move to NC when I retired and before her breast cancer.

Rosie and her husband George after they moved to Washington state.

My dear friend who also died from breast cancer a couple of years ago, will definitely be honored on my altar. Rosemary gave me so many positive emails as we continued to communicate only in that way...and I loved her positive lifestyle as a vegan.

I will invite my great grandmother Eugenia (mother of Margaret and Mozelle) as a Texas woman who ended up in the position of being married to a German immigrant through WW I and at the beginning of WW II. 

Great grandpa Charles...

I also invite her husband, Charles, as they raised their 4 girls through the early 20th century, and I'm pretty sure they would know just what American Germans thought of Hitler and racial anti-semetic Natzis. Eugenia died in 1936, and Charles lived until 1946. Charles finally obtained US citizenship in 1939, after repeated attempts and affidavits declaring his patriotism to America. I invite their spirits as influence is needed to fight the etheric and political battle that has allowed many dark forces in America to again raise their ugly racist heads.

I am going to look for more of my ancestors to try to have their influence available as we look toward this important election...and to keep the democracy our America was founded upon safe from so many negative energies that are full of hatred and divisiveness.

"In the next room"

She just went upstairs.  Or in the next room.
But there's still a feeling of loss when I return to conscious daily life.

Before I woke this morning I dreamed I was having coffee with my own mother, who's been gone about 20 years.  We chatted as if we were really sitting at a table, no drama, no messages from on high. I asked how Dad was doing, what was he up to these days. "Oh, he's puttering around in his workshop."  We talked about things like I do with my friends, what books have you read? We had always avoided the subject of any medical things since she was a Christian Scientist.  But there were pets, TV shows, and plants...and the grandchildren.  Then she was gone.  And I woke up and thought, she'd just gone back in the next room.

This dream was 2 years ago, and I still have those feelings about my parents.

There was such comfort knowing she was there, loving me still in her own way, which was pretty difficult between us often.  I look in the mirror at this old woman and wonder that my own mother  recognized me the last time I visited her, years before she died.  My own old woman face looks to see if there's any of my sister in there too. Perhaps.

I have spent many hours working on ancestry stories here at the computer.  Honoring those who's DNA flows through me, and now another person who shares it has gone into that other room. 

We love those we share blood and bones with.  We try to understand them. 

My mother who worked an 8 hour job, then came home and fixed dinner and did our laundry and the house cleaning until we were teenagers, and did all the shopping. My father worked the same hours and came home and read the newspaper, and sometimes fixed cars, or mowed grass, or did carpentry...men's work around a home.

Mataley before she married my father.