On all soul's day we create a special ancestor altar.
This is a way to let our loved ones know we remember them and love them still.
Some times it helps with our grieving process. To place a picture, some flowers and a little candle in a special place. Every time we go by it we can remember the good times we had with that person.
The Celts were some of the first people who would create an Ancestor Altar. They were very superstitious people.
They were just worried that the ancestors that had died in the past year would come back and haunt them. Maybe bring their death, illness and bad luck to the living.
So a lot of times the people would create little Ancestor Altars as a way to appease their ancestors and to symbolically feed them.
They would even create bonfires and light candles to feed the spirits to make them happy and then send them back to the spirit world.
The Ancestor Altar back then might have an item that the ancestor had left behind like tools or clothes. They would place it on a table and decorate around it with the bounty of the harvest such as apples and squash and nuts, things that they had harvested.
Sometimes they would create a dish that the ancestor loved, such as an apple pie.
They might set that on the altar by their memento as an offering to that loved one so that that loved one wouldn't haunt them or maybe so whatever bad luck that had caused them to die wouldn't rub off on the living.
They also set this altar up as a way to offer the Divine, the God's and the Goddesses, and as a way of showing thanks for the bounty that they had taken in over the harvest season and as king of a plea for them to help them make it through the winter.
As we got more knowledgeable and photography came into being, people started setting up their ancestor altars with photographs of loved ones that are in the spirit world. They might even include pictures of animal spirits.
I have my ancestor altar behind me with pictures of family, special pets that have crossed over, some of my horses, some of the fiesta items from Mexico's Day of the Dead that some of my clients had gifted me with and I think they are a fun way to decorate the Ancestor Altar.
The skull is a symbol of wisdom and a symbol of gaining wisdom every time we reincarnate. That is one of the reasons that you see the skulls out on my altar. In Mexico they have a lot of traditions with decorating their Ancestor Altars.
They might make an individual altar for different family members and sometimes they will even create and Ancestor Altar at the grave and they will decorate it with light and especially Marigolds, different things that the ancestor liked to eat and drink, pictures and candles.
They kind of like to have a fiesta there at the graveside. There are various traditions for Halloween all over the world and they all contribute to the holiday, but this is my way of creating an Ancestor Altar and a way of honoring those spirits who have gone on before us and remembering some of the lessons that they helped us to learn and to keep their memory alive.
I hope you have enjoyed my article today. And, I would love to see your own altar of the dead. So take a picture or a short video and you can link it to this one on YouTube or you can send it to me in an email or on Facebook. I would like to see how you honor your ancestors this time of year!
And of course, if you would like to purchase a mediumship reading with me this is the best time of year to do it. I would love to hear from you and you can do that at my website at www.marveena.com. Have a very powerful holiday season!
MarVeena
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Psychc Medium MarVeena Meek from Dallas, TX publishes her Psychic Development E-zine each week with hints and tips for spiritual development and psychic awakening. You can sign up for free on her web site at www.marveena.com
