By and Gemma Polo
When we live the loss of someone we have loved and who has been part of our life, we find the need to find new ways to connect with them and continue giving them a place inside us.
Traditionally, in many cultures, there is a special day every year in which we consciously dedicate a time to remember and honor their life and renew our connection with them.
In the Christian culture, «all saints» are celebrated on November 1. This holiday has its roots in the old pagan tradition, at the midpoint between the September equinox and the December solstice, when it was known from the experience of being connected to the earth that the veil between the tangible and the spiritual was finer.
We want to share with you a ritual with the intention of honoring your dead, that you can do the “Day of the Dead” around November 1, or also at any time in the cycle of the year you feel that you want to give a sacred space to the beloved people who left. You can do it alone, or together with other people.
Preparation of your altar and cleaning
We propose to look for an intimate, warm place, where you can be comfortable. We invite you to find a special cloth that you can place on the ground or on a table to create your own altar and place a candle in the center of the fabric. It would be ideal if you could keep the altar alive in this place for a few days.
Take time to transform the energy of space with incense, sage or stick Santo, as you prefer. While cleaning this space, let the smoke help you to enter silence, open yourself to the subtle world and connect with the sacred.
Root yourself and open to the qualities of the gayatri goddess
Let yourself feel your body, fully arriving in this place. To help you be present and root yourself, you can visualize that from your body roots down to earth, nourishing yourself deeply, while you feel connected to the amplitude of the sky, visualizing branches that grow from your body up.
For this ritual, we propose to cultivate your connection with the Gayatri goddess, recognized in India as goddess of light and wisdom, which has the ability to transform the dense into light and the separation into connection. She helps us overcome obstacles to discover the luminous wisdom that lives within us.
To connect with these qualities, we can help us with the well -known Gayatri Mantra. We have chosen a very special version, from Makaruja, which you can listen while you do this ritual:
Honor our dead
When you feel prepared, you can start connecting with some people you have loved and who have died. We advise you to be between 3 and 5 people, the first to reach you.
We invite you to feel each of these people and connect with the gifts or the qualities that you perceived in them. To look at them from the heart, connecting with their essence.
Now take in your hands one of the stones you have collected, and while you remember that person, write his name on one side of the stone, and behind, one or two words that reflect their essence, their gifts.
Do this meditation for all the people you want to honor, making it tangible in a stone.
Once you have finished writing on the stones, place them in a circle around the central candle on your altar.
And in a conscious gesture, we invite you to light a candle next to each of the stones that represent your dear dead. In this gesture you can put the intention to remember them from love and give them a bright place and live in your heart.
Take time to simply be in the presence of candlelight, of the stones, welcoming the emotions that arise within you.
If possible and sure, you can leave the candles on until they go out. Or leave the altar raised for a few days if you feel like it, turning your candles again whenever you want.
Hopefully this ritual helps us to transform our connection with death and gradually heal this ‘tabu’ in our society, from love, sensitivity and light.
Materials you will need
As you can see, for this ritual you need the following materials:
- A fabric for the base of your altar
- A big candle
- Incense/Palo Santo/
- 5 stones to paint
- Pen that paint on stones
- 5 small candles
- Internet connection to listen to music
If you create this ritual, we invite you to explain some of your experience in the comments.