NAMING OUR BELOVED DEAD
Halloween is a descendant of an ancient Celtic ritual called Samhain that marked the changing of the seasons. The Celts believed that in this transition time, the veil between this world and the world beyond was the thinnest. Ancestors, dead loved ones, and ghosts could cross over. People living on this earth could hear and feel their Beloved Dead more clearly. Modern Pagans continue to celebrate Samhain with rituals of naming the Beloved Dead, to honor and remember them, and ritually mark them in the lives of the living. We use these sorts of seasonal rituals to mark the passing time, to regularly remember those who we have lost and those who have gone before us, and to provide a container for understanding the cycles of life. This in-between, transitional time of year, when the earth is quieting down and getter darker, can be a time of vulnerability. We are entering the holiday season. This ritual of naming our Beloved Dead is a container to hold the names of those who have left this world--our loved ones, our family, our ancestors both blood and non-blood—and to hold us, as we go on.
The Anishanabe people (an indigenous North American tribe) say it is too soon to call out to a dead loved one in the first year after they died. It is too difficult, too confusing, too painful. More time must pass. You may say as many, or as few names as you wish, from your great great grandfather, to your dog, to Emma Goldman, to your spouse. Speak only what feels right to you. Maybe, like the Anishanabe say, it is too soon to speak a name, to soon to reach through the veil. Do not participate if it is not time yet.
We will begin with silence and breathing, and I will guide you in to the ritual. Then I will ring a bell, which signals the time for you to speak the names of your Beloved Dead into the sacred container that is held by your community. If you are not speaking names today, hold the container of silence for your community members as they remember and honor those who have passed on. Then I will ring the bell again, say a brief prayer, we will have another time of silence, and then sing Spirit of Life.
Find your feet on the floor, sit bones in pews
Attend to your breath
Come into being here, now.
Bring your attention to whatever veil separates you from your Beloved Dead. Feel it getting thin. Begin to feel the presence of the past.
SILENCE
Ringing of the bell
Speak the names of your beloved dead into the room.
Naming time
Ringing of the Bell
MEDITATION AND PRAYER
Spirit of Life and Love, Holy One of our Being and our Becoming, that which is Sacred Within, Among, and Beyond Us,
Hold us and all living beings as we remember our dead. May the circle of larger love hold all as the seasons of our lives pass, one to the next, as the cycle of life and death turns on. May the riches of lives passed fertilize our lives in the present. May we remember and honor our Beloved Dead by living out their greatest qualities in our lives today. Comfort us as we grieve, and be present with us, wait with us, as we wait with each other, and the earth turns on to a new day.
May it be so. Blessed Be.
SILENCE