A TOUR OF THE ALTHORP ESTATE GRAVEYARD (PRINCESS DIANA SPENCER's FAMILY) : IS THE ISLAND REALLY HER GRAVE?

 I had no idea there was a possibility that Princess Diana, the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry, may not be buried on the island on her family estate.  But while watching videos after the death of Queen Elizabeth II I found this video.  I had thought about how her grave might not be water resistant, though there are probably ways to make it so.  Well, take the tour because there is a church, Saint Mary;s, first built in about 1200  I don't have a problem with the Memorial because it's carved wood rather than real marble. Nineteen generations of the Spencer family buried in their private chapel area....

Dead Good Walks is the poster.

ALL SOULS - CEMETERY VISITS VERSUS CREMATION

So many people are being cremated now. I think it's about affordability and mobility.  So many people have moved from what was once the family home town that visiting cemeteries also seems to be passe. No more going to clean the grave.  A cemetery might notice that no one visits and decide they can recycle your ancestor, dig up or move or destroy the grave. And sell it again. Thought it was permanent.  Find out it's temporary.  Or they might want to hit you or your family up for more money. It happens.

I currently live near a cemetery where it would seem most people are not forgotten.  You see whole Christmas trees on some graves. Flowers in the little holders in the crypt. 

Is this all for the LIVING?

Very occasionally I walk around a cemetery just looking at the carved tomb stones.  I know obits lie.  This week I looked at a couple that belong to people who were horrible in life but the obit mentions all the loving they gave and got.

Cremation does away with the bed board - his and her - married persons tombstone. That gives the impression they are resting together in eternity when in real life they had terrible fights and probably should never been married before. And despite belief systems that marriage ends upon death and they have separate heavenly rests.

I haven't made up my own mind about the disposal of my earthly body.  I'm still attached to it.  I know I don't want to be dropped into the sea.

C 2020 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy 

ALL SOULS DAY - JULES BASTIEN LEPAGE

Painted in 1878  Image from WikiArt

According to Wikipedia, Jules Bastien-LePage ( 1848 -1884) was born in the French village of Damvillers, Meuse, where his father grew grapes in a vineyard and his grandfather grew apple, pear and peach trees.  He showed early talent which was encouraged by his family.  

To me this painting appears to be a grandfather taking his grandchildren on a walk, and only the title of the painting would indicate that perhaps he is taking them to visit the cemetery and talking to them about their family history.

ALL SOUL'S DAY painted by JAKUB SCHIKANEDER,

Ran into a lady today who told me that Saint Theresa of Avila said, "if the saints fail you, try the souls" or something like that... basically it struck me that she was saying to pray to deceased ancestors.  Found this painting looking for a public domain image appropriate for the season of Halloween, Day of the Dead, and All Soul's Day.  If ever there was a celebration akin to ancestor worship in Christianity, this is it.

DAY OF THE DEAD - THOSE SKELETONS SURE ARE HAVING FUN!

ARE DOG'S REINCARNATED PEOPLE? LESSONS OF LOYALTY

This may seem like an odd topic for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY, but as my more frequent readers know, I combine professional level genealogy research with a vivid interest in the human family and human beingness - DNA, early migrations of our ancestors, ethnicity, historical and cultural studies, some archeology, and the spiritual aspects of life, including theories about genetic memory (sometimes called cell memory), and reincarnation.  I ask, could it be that a person, when discovering an ancestor, is actually discovering themselves - in a past life?


This week I encountered two individuals while out walking my dog who had interesting things to say about dogs and reincarnation.  (The term transmutation is correct when saying that a person has incarnated from an animal to human life (usually seen as progress), or when a person next incarnated into an animal (usually seen as a demotion) but the term reincarnation is used more to describe any repeats of life on earth.)  Much of the world has long believed in reincarnation, and some Christians do, though usually, in Catholicism and most versions of main stream Christianity, we learn that this one life is it.  We have one chance to prove ourselves worthy of eternal heaven as an afterlife.  Or, we wait after death for a resurrection by God.


I was walking my dog in the park when I saw a man up ahead wearing the rolled white head dress of a Siik.   I  couldn't help but stop and talk to him.  He was pushing a fancy cart that contained not only his bright-eyed Chihuahua, who sure did seem to be enjoying being up front for the ride, and his beautiful toddler, who clearly loved her dog.  He told me that a friend of his was told by their guru that his dog was, in the last life, his partner, but that she had been reincarnated into this dog to learn the lesson of loyalty!


Certainly some pet dogs seem to be all about that, especially the ones that make the news for walking a thousand miles and somehow finding the family that left them behind when they moved,  or the ones who sit on a person's grave and don't want to give up on them even though it's been a while.


Then, my dog and I stopped at a corner store where a few of the employees are from India, and I tied her up on the door since I didn't want to take her inside against their rules.  One of the clerks and I got to talking about dogs and I told him mine was such a person.  He said he was a Buddhist, and incarnation into a dog was definitely a punishment.


My dog, I tell everyone, is most certainly feminine, not only because that her sex, but also her gender.  I give, as examples, her love of baths, her love of being dressed in clothes, wanting to smell and look pretty, as well as the way she has taken to pretending to be not interested at all when males approach her.  She has developed very specific taste, preferring males who are well past puppyhood, who are about her size, and who are usually poodles or part poodles!  One of these males lives across the way and high up on a balcony and I've seen them lock eyes - like Romeo and Juliet. However, I've seen her and a large young male fall in love with each other at first sight - not wanting to pass each other but stay put.  I've seen more than one male pup, at the sight of her, take in a deep breath and stare.  (In a month or two, when they've been there, done that, they get over it.) 


Many people who have rescued dogs from shelters have stories about the DOG PICKING THEM. I do think my dog picked me, though I don't have any strong feelings about her having been in my past life or lives.  I do hope, however, that I will be someday reunited with her in heaven, that she will be waiting for me when I get there, hopefully, and, full confession here, sometimes I do call her "daughter!"


Because many people who have pets these days see them as, perhaps not human, but as sentient beings, the relationship has changed for those people and those dogs.  There are still wild dogs, dogs who help people herd or hunt, dogs who people eat, dogs who people steal and sell for medical experiments, dogs who are terribly abused, dogs who stay outside their entire lives and never have a comfortable bed, and then there are dogs like mine, who is right now, all curled up in a swirl of old blankets.  I can only hope her previous owners were good to her!  She is not spoiled.  She is a survivor.


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FAMILY TRADITIONS - WRITE ABOUT THEM - READ ALOUD - INCLUDE THEM IN YOUR FAMILY HISTORY BOOK

(Check out my past posts about Halloween and All Souls Day using the search feature embedded on the sidebar of this Google Blogger!)

Did your family have any special holiday celebrations or traditions that were ethnic or their very own special invention?

I find that writing about this subject can really bring a kind of "warm and fuzzy" feeling to a family history writing project, along with all the genealogy data that you're compiling.  You can even gather your family to have a little writing group and write as individuals together in the meeting on various events, read your writing to each other aloud, and include the writing in the MEMORIES part of your book.

For Halloween you might write about the first Halloween costume you ever wore.  Could you breath through the mask?  Did your mother sew it?  Did you walk wearing it in a parade?   Did your family celebrate this holiday in any special way?   Is Halloween a holiday that is spiritual, funny, or spooky for you?

All Souls Day;  Did you go to church?  Did you pray for a relative that passed?  How old were you when you understood what death was?  What was the first funeral you remember attending like?  How did it make you feel?

Thanksgiving:  The best and worst Thanksgivings you've experienced.  Favorite foods (be sure to credit the right cook!)  The furthest you've ever traveled to attend a Thanksgiving Dinner.

Christmas:  Your earliest memories of the holiday.  How old were you?  Pictures with Santa.
The year it didn't snow.

You get the idea.

As for me, I have some rich holiday memories such as:

That my aunt, in the days before you had to go through inspections at airports, actually took a cooked ham in a roaster pan on an airplane as her contribution to a meal in Florida.  Reportedly at some point the ham beneath her seat moved and had passengers scrambling.  (She proudly walked off the plane with the roaster pan before her.)

Being six years old and seeking my first body in a casket.  It wasn't creepy exactly.  The person appeared to be at peace - and waxy.

Wearing costumes that were made for me at dancing school for Halloween too - just with a simple mask.  My neighbor who made home made candy apples - just a few for the closest neighbor kids - and gave out candy bars to the rest.  Living in a suburb where one year several hundred kids came to the door.

The Christmas that my most treasured present was something small but yearned for that was in my stocking.  The Christmas my cousin swore that she saw Santa and the reindeer from the window view from the top bunk bed.  The Christmas a loved one died.

HAVE FUN!

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ALL SOUL'S DAY - DAY OF THE DEAD - PRAYERS AND CHANTING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE GONE ON BEFORE US

Did you know that Buddhists believe that chanting certain mantras, hundreds of times, for the recently departed can get them to heaven?  Or that Catholics also believe that praying for the dead may release them from Purgatory?  How about that some people believe that when a person comes to visit you after death - be it in a dream or as a ghostly apparition - they may be there to ask you to pray for them?  Latter Day Saints believe that when you are doing your genealogy you can pray to ask the ancestors to help you with your research.

I've had spiritual experiences such as dream contact with the dead.  In one case I was not aware the person had actually died until much later but in the dream they were coming by to see me before leaving town.  I've had the experience of seeing the face of someone who has died in my mind's eye like a small cameo at a time when I was not at all thinking of them consciously. 

I've seen one full-on ghost, years ago.  The person had recently passed from a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol, and because I saw this ghost smiling and waving, but also going about his worldly profession, I knew it had been accidental and not a suicide.

I recall what the late psychic medium Sylvia Browne had to say about ghosts.  She said that if the apparition you see has its feet on the floor, they are indeed a ghost.   If they are up off the floor, floating, then are already on The Other Side, which is what she called the afterlife.  (My favorite of the psychic mediums is James Von Prague.  He has stopped doing readings and is focusing on education.)

What strikes me about these experiences of mine is that they happened when I was not seeking contact.  Some people do, with rituals, seek contact with spirits or other entities.  (I think this can be dangerous.  I prefer to just let it happen, if its going to happen, as a natural part of living.)

When researching your genealogy, you sometimes find that amazing synchronicities are occurring.  I say do everything you can, do it right, but also be open to the gifts of information that you may encounter and keep in touch with your own ability to be psychic.

Here is an example of something that happened to me recently.

I got to the research library I was using for the day a little early with a strong plan of action for using my time.  However, it turned out I was going to have to wait my turn to get on the Internet.  So I sat in front of a database machine that had the Social Security Death Index on it, as well as other databases.  Suddenly the thought came to me "I wonder, is Katherine dead!"  So of course in two minutes I had her married name in the SSDI and sure enough she had died a little more than one year prior!  I had not thought of Katherine in years.  She had died young.  When I got on the Internet I not only found her obit but other information that I wished were not true. 

Katherine and I were friends in our late teens and early twenties before our lives diverged.
I guess she really wanted me to know that she had died and so I do!  

She had changed religions and was Jewish at the time of her death and had a husband who could do the prayers and rituals of that religion for her,  which normally go on for a year, and I did not seek him out or involve myself in her spiritual evolution past death.  I had a strong sense that this was not my place and also that I wouldn't know what was truly appropriate.  But I did note that she had waited that year to get her message to me across somehow.

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DAY OF THE DEAD PAPER DOLLS - EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

 

ANCESTOR WORSHIP and HALLOWEEN OR SAMHAIN

Here is a video that retells a tale about Stingy Jack and the Devil by a Pagan Witch Collective!

ANCESTOR WORSHIP and HALLOWEEN

The Halloween that is celebrated in the United States is rooted in Celtic traditions and is associated with the cycle of life and death.  The carved Jack O' Lantern pumpkin we are familiar with now had its roots in Celtic Ireland where a turnip was carved to hold a candle and held in hand.  The turnip was probably a practical idea since a turnip was  simply available.  I'm not sure how or when pumpkins were used and then turned into laughing Jack-O-lanterns, but maybe it was as simple as that pumpkins grew in the Americas.

In the South-West, and that includes California and wherever Mexican immigrants have settled, a Halloween-like celebration is called The Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead is a day - even a week - for family to gather at the graves of loved ones, to celebrate with food and drink (and offer them some).  With humor many creations of sugary skeletons include skeletons participating in all aspects of life, singing, dancing, and simply performing their earthy professions, and are sold in special bakeries.

While Halloween has taken on horrific, even evil, connotations, that many of us do not involve ourselves in and it has even turned into an "anything goes" weekend, to those who are more interested in the spiritual tradition, Halloween is a time when the"veil" between this world and the world of the afterlife is especially thin and so communication with those who had passed on before us.  Some people do rituals to contact these ancestors, others simply light a candle, do special prayers (All Souls Day of the Catholic Church), or mantras to release any soul that is in Purgatory to Heaven.

The belief of ancestor contact has roots in the Pagan or Country or Folk beliefs and is tied in with the agricultural cycle of the year, which is also coordinated with the seasonal weather cycle.  Fall is the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the European countries, when the harvest takes place.  The pumpkins and gourds are about to be harvested.  Some plant and tree life is only resting and will grow again after dormancy in the spring.  Soon the earth will cool, snow will come, and people will spend more time indoors.  To our ancestors who lived generations ago in caves and other dwellings, staying close to the burning fire, busy themselves with crafts, and resting was essential, as was relying on many foods that had been stored. 

From watching the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life, a great many early cultures decided that reincarnation makes a lot of sense. 

ALL SOULS - CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST or HINDU or JEWISH PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD GOLDFISH?

...to be released from Purgatory or Bardo to Heaven or Eternal Bliss...

I believe there is an afterlife. I also believe there is an experience best described as reincarnation. I eagerly read about the experiences those who "almost died" come back with. Although the tunnel of light and loving ancestors and friends who have passed on seems to be the most commonly reported experience, I have also read some very dark stories, some intent on converting the reader.

My most favorite reference to the near death experience is from prolific author and psychic, famous through television, Sylvia Browne. Sylvia has such a forthright personality. She tells it as she sees it, even if it's a little ouchy, at first.

OK, Sylvia Browne says that all the PETS you have owned and loved in ALL YOUR INCARNATIONS are also waiting for you when you make it through that tunnel of light to the OTHER SIDE... the very idea makes me smile.

CAN YOU IMAGINE YOUR PET FISH over there swimming, swimming, swimming in the ether? Waiting, waiting, waiting...

You know what? I can't. I am afraid that long ago I accidentally, through ignorance, killed some pet fish! One time I killed three fancy goldfish in their mucky mucky because I had the brilliant idea to put clean fresh water in their bowl! But maybe in eternal bliss they forgive me.

The turtle that never came out of hibernation in our basement: him too?



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FALL is a TIME OF HARVEST, REST, REMEMBRANCE, and ANCESTOR WORSHIP

At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the Fall equinox has recently passed, the Harvest Festivals are in high gear, and Thanksgiving in the United States - celebrating plenty and prosperity - is not far away.
Until recently, until the Industrial and then Technological Revolution, our ancestors lived around AGRICULTURE, and fall was a time of rest before the harshness of snowy and sometimes bitter winters.

It is during this season that the remembrance of our ancestors, be it through the Mexican DAY OF THE DEAD festivities (all those sugary funny skeletons going through the paces of daily life in the afterlife!) or ALL SOULS DAY (throughout Christendom).

Today I try to imagine what life so close to the earth and the weather and so dependent on local crops must have been. Today we live lives extended through better nutrition (vitamins!) and medicine, but in the past, at this time of year many people must have wondered if they would live through the winter to see the spring flowers bloom.

Today we are sheltered from death in many ways. We expect to live a long time and plan accordingly. When someone dies it is not so often at home but in a hospital, where professionals come to take the body away; it used to be the relatives did so and layed the person out at home.

This is a good time to collect the memories of our living relatives and to ask their cooperation in our genealogy and family history projects. You may want to record the stories of funerals - the wakes, walk around cemeteries recording information from tombstones, or simply light a candle to those ancestors who help you in your research!

ALL SOULS... HALLOWEEN... THE ANCESTORS

This blog is called ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY because I think that genealogy IS a form of ancestor worship... And Halloween is the time when they say that the "veil between the worlds" is the thinnest. Be it the Catholic celebration of All Souls in early November, or the Mexican tradition of THE DAY OF THE DEAD, remembering those who have passed on is tradition in many cultures...