All Souls Ceremony

I feel them pressing on me. I have spent much of the weekend exhausted from being ill and in some kind of liminal state. I heard Snatam Kaur chant the Akal mantra on YouTube yesterday and I felt an immense detachment and release from my heart; I howled and wept. I feel my ancestors with me. And the presence of those unhealed and trapped with me. I tried to "be" with them today but all day people wanted to talk to me - so much for being off sick! When I did clear time to rest my heart was pounding in my throat. I put on my boots and coat and went for a walk in my pyjamas; the first time I have left the house in 3 days. I walked along the Pilgrim Way. I had seen on the map that there is a well nearby and I went to look for it. I couldn't find it but I found a perfect rock to hunker down on to watch the hillsides picked out in bronze through the autumn fog. I breathed. My eyes closed I breathed and called deep on the Mother to sustain me. When I opened my eyes they stood before me in various stages of opacity, like dust turning and twinkling in half light... I focussed, they faded.

I have moved to live on the Taith Pererin! I didn't even know that when I took this house. When I walked it last year I took a variant on the route at this stage. I am obsessed with pilgrimage. It is, for me, about reclaiming and assimilating my catholic/celtic heritage that was not present in my liberal spiritual upbringing.

They are pressing upon me today. All Souls. I am planning to do a ceremony later and it will go like this:

I will gather images of my ancestors and a candle and create an altar

I will light the candle invoking my God and all that hold and guide me

I will smudge myself with sage and lavender, and the house

I will welcome all those to me that are present and I will inform them they are dead

I will recite the Ho'onoponopono 9 times for them

My guide will take them to the Light

In honour of my catholic roots I will recite the Hail Mary

I will then play Akal and chant along

I will smudge again and blow out the candle to close acknowledging, thanking and releasing all those that came to hold the safe space