Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Prayers for the Dead

Beginning yesterday,I light a small white candle on the altar of my ancestors for seven nights and say a prayer. Trying to remember, in detail, each face I knew and loved. Remembering their touch, smell and voice. How it felt to be in their home surrounded by all that loud crazy family, or how my grandmother's hair looked after I put one hundred bobby pins in it to form little buns all over her head. Ahhh, the smell of Aquanet and Noxzema. Sending these loving memories to those beyond the veil really connects me to who I am and I feel their support lifting me. These memories will live within me always. Here's a Samhain (celtic new year) prayer that I use.

I miss you most upon each Samhain

when the boundary turns to sheer

I wait until the veil is parted

At the ending of the year.

Sweet spirit, as you walk among us

At the tolling of this eve

I see your face beyond the sunset

and hear your voice upon the breeze.

In the glowing of the candle

From the shadow on the wall

I watch for you in every movement

and hear your footsteps in the hall.

Can you sit and spend the evening

As the portal opens wide?

Ancestral dead, I bid you welcome

Most recent dead, I pray, abide.

When you come I sense your presence

I put my hand out in the air

A moment, then, we stand united

Palm to palm while waiting there.

I miss you most upon each Samhain

When the boundary turns to sheer

We share these hours until the dawning

Then bid farewell until next year.

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