Dandelionlady
As the wheel of the year turns to the darker half of the cycle we pagans turn our attention to our ancestors. Even as I am furiously sewing costumes and decorating with skeletons and jack-o-lanterns I want to help my kids reflect on the more serious side of death. We are lucky enough to be able to walk to a cemetery from our house now and a few days ago we gathered flowers from our garden and went to give offerings to the ancestors.
Now, these were not our ancestors of blood, nor were they people we ever knew. We live in a mobile and transient world and the graves of my grandparents are very far away. Instead, we wandered along like flower fairies, reading headstones and leaving little blessings in our wake.
Not only was this declared, “Super fun!” Our walk spurred lots of good conversations. We talked about death and about being kind to others (even other ancestors!) We had a great conversation on the reality of magic and I paraphrased the classic definition,”Magic is the art of changing conciousness at will.”
Instead I told them, “If you want to change the world with magic, first you must learn to change yourselves. “
The children particularly liked leaving flowers on the graves of children and grandparents. Maybe in some other town someone is leaving flowers on the graves of my ancestors for me. Sometimes all we can do is pay it forward.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In