The Dark Night, and the Blood Moon.

To my ancestors, all my relations, even down to my great-grand parents, grandparents, parents and myself, this is the last harvest. I'm bringing in some of the last wildcrafted fruit, mostly persimmons, and a few exceptionally late-ripening berries. I'm topping the plants for their seeds, and bringing in fall-tinged leaves for artwork.

When we had Rabbits this would've been when we picked the breeders we wanted to keep, and my mother's cousin would come out to butcher the rest, taking half the lot as his fee. The discussions would center around the practicalities, financially and physically, of feeding forty individual animals over the winter. Would it be cost-effective? Would they freeze anyway? That one is too weak, this one is a better mom. Remember that one? He had snuffles all winter. Let's go ahead and cull him.

Blood soaked the soil, and -that- is why these days get dark.

Humanity has walked pathways for so long, the energy of their footfalls has dented the earth. Like the floor-stones of Buddhist monasteries, it has been worn down. Like a riverbed, it has been shaped. The energy flows there, a sort of ley-line, a new artery. Places which saw great celebrations, and slaughter have remembered. The earth there wells with the memory of it, the power still stuck between the grains of dirt.

"Power flashes from newly shed blood" said Ol' Gerald. To me, it is a shimmering radiance, it is Life, clinging to the carrier of it, fading slowly (but always, like a stone, refracting a little of that fire). As we bleed the life from this world, by our hands and by nature, so it blooms in the Otherworld. Our fall is the fey spring.

It is because of this that now is a good time to remember our ancestors. I make little distinction between "not currently a living human" and "never has been human" - the otherworld is the afterworld as far as I concern myself. Our fall is their spring, and our ancestors surge to a new life therein.

To The Ancestors

To all who share my blood, I give thanks. Without you I would not be, without your actions this world would not be the one I know.

To all those who share my family-tree, I give thanks. Without you,the lives of my ancestors would have been poorer, and would have lacked love.

To all of those who walked the path I now walk, to all of my fore-bearers, I give thanks. Without you my path would lack the signs of life which give me the strength to go on.

To all those who share the suffering of my life, my body and my soul, I give thanks. Without you I would never have known it could get better.

To all of my relations, from the least to the greatest, I give thanks.