Tea with My ancestors

This year I started practicing witchcraft. I was a skeptic for a very long time, but I started to notice that I was able to predict things, then I noticed that I was able to influence things. So I started to study. As I sit here with my cup of tea, which was heating as I finished my coffee, I reflect on the ideas of witchcraft and the things I have learned over the past nine months of study and learning.

This fall was my first holiday as a practicing witch. I say practicing because I guess I have always been a witch, it is only recently that I have started making my intentions more focused. I started to read about the holidays in the fall and the meanings behind them. It was then that I realized that my first holiday as a practicing witch, was, in fact, Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) or the witch's new year. I felt like it was a new beginning for me.

During Samhain, it is tradition to honor your ancestors and those people who have influenced your life and are no longer with you. The overall feeling is one of gratitude and reverence. This can be done in a group or it can be done along. I chose to do both. I invited four close friends over, two were practicing witches, one a believer, and the last a skeptic but stayed respectfully quiet.

My husband, a supporter but not a practitioner, built a fire pit in the back yard and worked very hard to help me prepare a traditional dinner with our own foodie twists. We had a pleasant meal and great conversation. But it wasn't until everyone was gone and we had returned to our quiet evening, that I really took the time to reflect on the evening and the feelings I had while around the fire and the table.

It is strange acknowledging that I am a witch. Sometimes it is hard to say it out loud. I felt self conscious around the two non-practitioners and was afraid they would not understand why this was important to me. At the same time, I felt a deep well of gratitude that they chose to come and celebrate with me regardless of the fact that they do not believe what I believe.

That evening, I noticed that the air seemed so much more crowded, despite the few people in the house. I felt the pressure of "otherness" that I had not felt before. I felt emotional thinking about those I had lost, even my extremely special, but oh so dumb, kitty we had lost the spring before. It was then that I wrote a note to my ancestors, those witches that came before me that I had never known, those people that influenced me in subtle ways, and yes, to my cat. I then burned that note and I felt the pressure recede. Was that what they wanted? Did they just want to be acknowledged?

If we took the time to acknowledge those who came before us, more than just once a year, would our connections be stronger? Would we continue to learn from them, despite them being gone? Would we feel more connected to those we had lost, if we acknowledge them at other times of the year?

Samhain is a time for celebration and gratitude. The world has continued and the connections we have made through the year are strong. Things are constantly changing and our lives are evolving faster than we can keep up. But if we take the time to be grateful for our lives and for those that have come before us, would that gratitude help influence the world for the better?

Witches are taught that the energy you put out is the energy that you receive. The energy that anyone puts out into the world is received not only by yourself, but others. I have noticed this in my household, where one person is in a bad mood, everyone else quickly follows. Bad feelings quickly overtake the good and more easily influence the collective. There has been a notation by many that the overall feeling of the world right now is angst, depression, and overall just plain sad. This is why so many witches are "light, love, and happiness". Its not that we feel this way all the time, but that we feel the responsibility to put something bright into the world and help combat the overall bad feelings going on. There are few of us. Many times, we feel like our energy is just a tiny drop in the bottom of a swimming pool of world energy, but maybe, if everyone takes the time for gratitude, even for a moment, the energy of the world would be changed for the better.

I have found that the best way to combat a bad mood is gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful emotion that can spread through the entire psyche and infuse itself into your everyday life. I feel that gratitude is the first step to a better world as long as people take the time to feel it.