Talking about “the ancestors” can be provocative language to some…

But we all have them.

And many traditions and cultures make a practice of honouring and acknowledging the ancestors around this time of year – from the Celtic wheel of the year honouring Samhain (pronounced Sow-heen), to the Dia de las Muertas.

Some say the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest at this time of year. I don’t have a professional opinion about that. But the weather, this seasonal shift, this in-between time, as we make a descent into the dark of winter, does feel charged for me, with a feeling of loss and grief and change and consequence – like, we’ve brought in the harvest from the fields, and literally now have to live with what we planted, what we cultivated, and what we neglected, or didn’t make happen, for several months, at least. Second chances will happen in six months when the ground warms up again and can receive our seeds/hopes and dreams that we might actually grow a lettuce cos apparently it’s not that hard. But for now, we are in a time of little reckonings. (Granted, on an agricultural level, the reckoning is softened by the fact I could still go buy a freaking tomato right now if I wanted… but you get that the metaphorical level aspect is not just about food, right? I mean, I’m also living the consequence or harvest of the time I took off work through the summer, the books I read that are still echoing around inside my head, the triathlon training I did and the gym workouts I did not do, and, let’s face it, the alcohol consumed and the water not imbibed. All being reckoned with. Or reckoning with me.)

Death is a big reckoning, and it makes sense to me, seasonally, that cultures would have festivals and practices and ways of exploring that – playfully, with macabre costumes and spiked drinks and costumes, or reverently, with food, feasts, candles, lanterns, altars…

Harvest and the dead – it’s a combination that makes a very earthy-kind of sense to me, when you switch your relationship with time from a linear one, to a cyclical one. Because one feeds the other, and on and on.

This idea of ancestors feels alive for me this year, because I have a new piano. Which is kind of a big deal. We found it, via our piano teacher, who noticed it on a local Facebook Buy and Sell, and mentioned it to her student, my kid, who has been learning music on a keyboard that he officially outgrew last week when he announced, “dynamic shading is what brings music to life and this keyboard doesn’t do dynamic shading.”

I was pretty maxed out last week, and this was one of many things that felt like NOT EASY FIXES coming at me, so in my journal, that night, I wrote down a handful of bullet point reflections about the day, followed by a kind of hands-up-help-me-someone prayer, “Grandfathers, please help us find an instrument that will help the boy meet his musical potential.” I didn’t have anyone else to outsource the job to, so I opted for my late Pa, who was a lover of music, wonderful singer, harmonica player and by-ear piano player, and my husband’s late Grampa, who was a barber shop quartet singer and lover of music. I don’t pray to these men on a regular basis. I don’t have a particular ancestral veneration practice. I just am curious, as parenthood sometimes makes us, about what makes my kid tick, and how much of it is nurture, how much is nature, how much is random genetic lottery, how much could be traced to specific humans. How much is science and how much is magic… So my little bullet-journalled prayer for help was where I left the whole piano situation.

AND LITERALLY SIX DAYS LATER, MY KID HAS A LEAD ON A FREE PIANO.

And 10 days from the writing of that “prayer”, we have a piano now installed in our home. (Anyone looking for a keyboard that doesn’t do dynamic shading but is otherwise quite handy?)

And if I hadn’t written it down, I wouldn’t have remembered even making that prayer. (Soft plug to the benefits of a journalling practice. It’s remarkable what a person forgets in the space of 24 hours.)

So, it feels appropriate to me, given that very immediate response to my request, that I should give thanks, in some way. Especially as the connection was brought to my attention. (Imagine if our prayers and requests are ALWAYS being answered and we just don’t notice, because none of it arrives in our lives with a little tag noting “re your request of October 20 for piano to help child meet musical potential.” Until it does.)

What is an appropriate thankyou, I wonder?

Burn some tobacco, suggested the kid.

Light a candle, leave an offering of food or drink out, write a note of thanks in the journal, write a blog post telling everyone that this beautiful thing happened and whether or not it was instigated by two men from our family, it has brought them into my heart and thoughts and I want to give a shout-out to them, how grateful I am to have a love for music in our lineage, as one of the possible things that might take root and flower in my kid. Go look at some photos of them. Maybe tell a story.

Maybe there is no formula or right or wrong way. Maybe there are specific ways, and practices, that are part of your tradition, faith or culture.

Maybe, you can follow your instincts.

We were invited, at the Signal Hill Harvest Pit Cook on Friday, to witness Barry Dan, as he led an offering to the fire, for the beautiful food we were all about to eat. His sister Leah, held a plate with items on it. I don’t know precisely what was there – pieces of food, tobacco? Barry led us all in a moment of mindfulness, and explained that this offering was for the ancestors, the ones who have gone before to make this moment possible, not just the biological ancestors, but all the beings who preceded us in this moment – the insects, the rooted ones, the plants and veggies, the finned ones, those fine salmon…. and our grandmothers and grandfathers too. It was the most beautiful, elemental, simple and deep prayer I’ve ever heard. A kind of grace that wrapped us all up in a sense of deep belonging and interconnection. And it was sealed with the offering of those things to the fire. Where they could become smoke. And the smoke could serve as a kind of prayer or transmission or reminder that we too, we flesh-bags, we physical ones, we carbon-creatures, will one day be smoke too. And hopefully, someone will think fondly of us, will be grateful for a gift, a joy, a song, that we shared. And will light a candle and send a prayer our way. And maybe even, we’ll be in the kind of state that lets us sprinkle magic on our beloved ones, lets us answer some of their best prayers, or give them protection and support.

There were a lot of helping hands who made that Pit Cook feast possible on Friday, and it was appropriate to thank all the amazing folks who made it possible – as Kukpi Gelpcal did, before Barry Dan spoke, acknowledging the kids in the garden growing the veggies, and their supportive teachers, and their parents who make them breakfast every day! And there were real life humans who made our piano possible – including the generosity of the woman who was passing it along, our piano teacher, my partner for his muscles and willingness to tackle a freaking piano-moving mission. So, yes, the good things that come our way, don’t just drop out of thin air, with no effort or contribution required, from those of us here on the ground. But, it also did, in a way, drop our way out of thin air. And it feels good to acknowledge the invisible support – whether it’s past, or somehow still part of this present moment because time is not what we understand it to be – as well. And to remember ourselves back into a beautiful state of interbeing and connection.