 Hi, my name is Danny, and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today I wanted to share a bit more about my own personal practice and what I've been thinking about this Samhain season. Behind me, you can see my ancestor altar. This is something I put up every year, and I mostly fill it with pictures of family members that have passed away that were really important to me. This year, since I'm living with my boyfriend, we are also including a few of his family members, but we're still searching for photos for that. I also put some black candles down, some leaves and crystals, and that changes every year, kind of depending on what I find and what the cats don't run off with. The ancestor altar is a way for me to reflect and think about the way that my family members and my ancestors have impacted my life and how they lived their lives and what that means for the choices that I make today. It's also an opportunity to let me grieve and feel for the people I've lost in my life. I feel that a lot of our American society is focused on getting over grief and moving past those that have left us. And when my sister passed, especially, that was a very difficult concept and something I had to throw out and be like, that doesn't work for me or my life. So Sauen is a really powerful time where I can embrace the fact that I still love these people and their influence on my life is very great. During the season, I also wanted to mention a really great book that I think every pagan should read, and that is The Pagan Book of Living and Dying by Starhawk. For a really long time this was kind of the only pagan book talking about how you care for someone who's dying, how you prepare a ritual for death, and what that means in a pagan sense. There are, thankfully, a few more titles out there. I have not reviewed some of those copies myself, but I have a couple of those titles listed in the description below if you're curious. Starhawk's Pagan Book of Living and Dying, though, is really amazing and has a multitude of information that you might need. And I think every pagan should read it because it is important to know what you want for your death and how you can handle death around you. So it's not something that you read only after you've gotten a diagnosis that says you have six months to live. And it's not something you only read after your mother or father pass away. It's something that you should read right away and reread as those deaths impact your life. I also wanted to touch on a death that was really powerful to my practice in my life, and that was my sister, Heather. Heather was nine years older than I was, and she was the quintessential responsible big sister, and I was very obnoxious to her. But for the most part, we got along really well. She also had a disease called FOP. FOP causes the muscles and ligaments to turn to bone. It's a really rare genetic mutation, and research is limited. So there's no cure. There's very little treatment and very little funding. A few years ago, my sister went into hospice care. She was really lucky through some community funding to be able to go to a grace hospice care in Madison. And this was the first time that she had really received care that included her as a person and really focused on all of her needs. So I'm very grateful to a grace and really appreciate the people who work in hospice care centers. They do some powerful work that is very underappreciated. During Heather's hospice stay, she had a team, which included her regular doctor and a grace doctor, nurses, a social worker, the family, even a spiritual mentor or contact. My sister was Wiccan, and this wasn't something that a grace had tons of experience with, but they found someone who was doing some other volunteer work who was pagan and volunteered to work with Heather. And this woman was incredible. She got along really well with my sister who had a very sarcastic and dramatic personality. Especially at the end, like you kind of had to be a really confident person to be able to spend a lot of time with Heather at the end. And her spiritual contact, her spiritual mentor was really excellent. This woman helped us find a ritual for cord cutting when my sister had a lot of trouble kind of letting go. She wasn't really with us anymore, but she was still alive. The cord cutting ceremony used elements and the whole family that was there to let her be released. To kind of give her permission to pass on. Now, this cord cutting ceremony did not work. My sister stayed around for quite a while longer, but it also helped the family start to be okay with my sister passing on. Heather was 33 years old, and in many ways was still in the prime of her life despite her disability. She went into hospice care for inpatient use at the beginning of August, so right around Lama's, which we know is the first harvest festival. The doctors didn't think she would live past Labor Day, and she made it all the way until October 28th, right about Salon time. I like to think that my sister was aware of what was happening and how her presence was impacting people, and she left when it was easiest for her to leave. And I think the veil thinning at Salon time had a lot to do with that. For the first few weeks, she was present in a lot of pain, but was able to make decisions and talk about what she wanted. Towards the end, there was very little coherent conversation left. It took family members and the caretakers there to really monitor her to know when she was in pain, when she wasn't kind of the story she was talking about, and how to see to her needs in the best way. My sister's death and time in hospice care had a huge impact on how I see the season, and every Salon I really reflect and kind of connect with the part of my life that was impacted by my sisters. So on my ancestor altar, she has a very large photo because she was probably the closest ancestor that I have, and is a big focus point to what I do at Salon time. I really hope that the Pagan community learns to not just talk about death as being part of life and being cyclical, but that we really help usher in a new culture that allows death and grief and the process of dying to be honorable to all members. It's not just the dying, but the family and the caretakers involved in the process. And I hope that we give each other more time to grieve and be less about, well, you take two weeks off and then you get back to work, but more that this is a process that you will take as long as you need to take and it will come back to you. There will be days where you really feel that grief in profound ways, and days where you hardly even remember what that grief felt like. I think the Pagan community has a good intellectual understanding of how death works in the cycles of nature, and we are at a powerful point where we can help usher that understanding into the wider culture. Well, thanks for listening to my ramblings about Salon and Ancestral Alters. I hope that you guys have a really beautiful Salon season. If you're doing labyrinth work, I wish you the best of luck and most open hearts for that. And as always, may you find peace in the sacred grove.