At Samhain we
confront that mystery, and honor it. 
In contrast to most earlier Pagan traditions, most NeoPagans do not
spend much time honoring their ancestors. 
Samhain is our most fitting opportunity to do so.  Usually we have pictures on our altars of
those close to us who have died the previous year.  Certainly that will be true for me.  But as I grow older I appreciate ever
more deeply that all of us are simply the growing tip of the adventure of
life.  We are individuals, but we
are also the sum total of everything previous that has gone into making us what
we are.  And that meditation opens
up a vast vista, one I think should also be explicitly honored.

I very much like
the approach of those hunting and gathering peoples who treated eating as a
kind of give away, life gives of itself that life can continue, and asks
primarily for respect and consideration from those who are the consumers for
the moment. To me it is the lack of any respect whatsoever for the beings who
are raised and killed that marks the true horrors of industrial
agriculture.  This extends to the
meals, which rarely have any thanks given – especially to the spirit of what we
consume.  Including plants.

I know many
people think plants have no awareness. 
I also know they are wrong. I will never forget the experience of what I
guess would be a dryad that  I had
in New Mexico.  It was quite
unexpected, and I have never looked at plants the same way since.

These are
somewhat disjointed thoughts on the road as I take a breakfast break while returning from
wonderful hikes and explorations in southern Utah and the Anasazi ruins of
southwestern Colorado.  

More
later.