Ancestors and Past Lives

October 23, 2013

altar

shrine

offerings

Day of the Dead

dead mariachi

cauldron

Spiritualism, as in seances to contact the dead, has never appealed to me.  I did once go to a hypnosis group that all went into trance in order to contact past lives.  I had some images of Austria in those trance sessions that were not clear.  I did continue to study and use hypnosis, but decided that past life group was not my style.  My frequent use of trance was during the stretch and relax segment of a fitness class, when I made an effort to put the students into trance at the end of the session in order to plant subversive thoughts of self care and healthy practices deeply into their brains.  Light trance can be helpful for all kinds of situations.  It would be very hard to distinguish between meditation, trance, and prayer.

As we move into the Day of the Dead season in Tucson the obvious popular attention is drawn to our elaborate public celebration of the traditional visit with the departed.  Dead gear is sold and created all over town.  Altars are built to remember the dead, and graves are decorated for the holiday.  A community mentality of welcoming the souls to earth in costume, effigy, performance, and spectacle creates a group trance.  The caldron is carried through the streets with written wishes before the contents are burned.  The ceremony is reverent as well as irreverent; It has aspects of humor along with serenity. The living are calling on the dead, and there is no way to say exactly how the dead are involved.

I can tell you after years of study into my family history, and the history around what my ancestors did that all your predecessors are your past lives.  All the trauma and glory they had in life has been passed down to you in your DNA.  You have talents as well as irrational fears that come from the family that created you.  What you absolutely have in common with all of your relations is mortality.  Some do live longer than others, and some have easier deaths, but in the end we all go back to Mother Earth.  The nature of mortality is the subject of All Souls’ Day.  Our acceptance of it will make our lives fuller and easier to enjoy if we admit it is going to end and transform someday.