Nowadays it seems like more and more folks are getting into honouring their own Ancestors, which is great. This doesn't have to be allocated to just Samhain and similar holidays, but can be done on wedding anniversaries, birthdays, days of passing, or other days of note.
The 12th of August marks my Grandparent's wedding anniversary; if they were alive today they would have been married for 71 years. They spent a life time together and being so devoted to one another, they both passed away due to unrelated health conditions within days of each other, just about a month shy of their 67th wedding anniversary.
I gathered flowers from our garden and made a simple feast for my family to share. What I made was simple "farm-fare" that probably would have been similar to what my Great-Grandmother would have made for her daughter's wedding, being a farm wife herself. Potato salad with fresh veggies from the garden and our local market, peach crisp, along with ginger beer and ginger peach herbal tea to wash it down.
Even if Ancestor reverence was not such a big part of my spiritual path, I think that I would still observe their anniversary every year, celebrating the examples they lived by and the legacy they left behind.
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Sláinte!
Laurel
