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On this second installment of Home of the Ancestors, your host Julian Marcus introduced the Home of the Ancestors Household Practice as well as empathized the importance of Ancestor veneration. While BTR decided to be stubborn, I was able to recover and move on to the main topic at hand.

The proposed question for this episode is: Briefly, how do you honor your Ancestors in your practice? Please post your responses on the Home of the Ancestors Facebook page  or email them. You can of course post your responses and comments directly to this blog by clicking “comments” below.

On our last show I proposed the the Question: “What does it mean to you to have a home of the ancestors?” Here are some of the responses:

Megan on Facebook writes:

I still keep to some traditions even if I don’t fully embrace their origins. For example, I still say the prayer that my great grandmother and great aunt taught me to say when you pass a graveyard or funeral. Even when it makes people stare, lol! I keep a crucifix above by doorway even though some people are put off that I would have it and a gay pride flag in the same room. Mostly it’s the little stuff.

Keren on Facebook Writes:

Vesta the Hearth Cat

Last week I learned my cousin was admitted to a hospice. My first thought was to hunt for a photo of her so I could honor her and how her life touched me. Hunting through bins of old photos, I came upon two letters. One from my Dad to his Dad (Poppy) when he was 20 years old and another from Poppy to my Dad eight years later. My Dad’s letter was full of drive, determination, independence — the know-it-all attitude of anyone in college, telling their parents to “Lay off, I know what I’m doing.” Reading how he stuck to his dream of working in radio broadcasting, even to sacrifice a summer off, helped me understand why my Dad pushed me to succeed. I also recognized a familiar stubbornness. The second letter, from Poppy, was quite revealing. Poppy died when I was barely two years old and reading his kind, supportive words to my 28 year old father showed me I had not fallen too far from the tree. Poppy believed in his son, then a newly minted father, to take the risk and go out West for his career. He even admitted to having always loved the Pacific Northwest — it’s people, the countryside and the beautiful Pacific Ocean; an ocean I was drawn to just as deeply. I found a connection I did not realize existed. In that moment, I knew my Poppy as the person he was….not merely a story. What it means to me to have a Home of the Ancestors, at least in this aspect, is to reach through time and discover there are more threads connecting you to long lost relatives and how they have an affect on who you are…..more than you originally believed.  

Jaymi on FB Writes:

I’m not sure what it means to have a home of the ancestors, because I am adopted. However, I imagine that a home of the ancestors would be a place to communicate with those who have gone past, and honor the linage of where I came from. That said, as an adoptee… I imagine that this home could contain anyone I feel a kinship to.

“The thing is, this is my life. This is me, right here, trying to be human.  And I think my biggest challenge in being a part of ADF was that I didn’t feel like there was anyone really speaking to the challenges of being human. In a devotional religion, the emphasis is placed over there, not in here. The things that cut deeply for me, that are real and sometimes really difficult for me — things like compassion, despair, forgiveness, hope, kindness, patience, honesty — I don’t feel like we spend any time talking about these things. I think we experience these things, but they always feel secondary to “right relationship.”

You can read the full story here: http://www.bishopinthegrove.com/archives/on-leaving/

Music Played

1. Frenchy and the Punk – Steampunk Pixie – Hey Hey Cabaret 
2. Blackmore’s Night – Play Minstrel Play – Shadow of the Moon
3.  SJ Tucker  – Cheshire Kitten – Mischief