Ancestors surround us. Their constant presence is more pronounced this time of year, as we approach Samhain and Día de Los Muertos. An invitation to pause to ritualize the beloved dead. To honor and grieve lost loved ones with gratitude for the guides they have become. 

With the recent tragic loss of an untold number of beings in Appalachia, these rituals feel all the more essential right now. My heart is raw and ready for sacred remembrance. 

This will be the first year I put photos of my parents on our Día de Los Muertos altar. The first year we’ll honor Odell’s memory, along with Chris, Steve, and Jason’s aunt Jane. The loving ache of loss had already changed me before the storm. Since then, my sadness has stretched even further. I will be forever shaped by heartbreak over the special places and people and trees and bees and critters ripped from us. The dreams and creations smashed. We are shattered by these losses, and on a long journey into whatever is next. 

While the veil is thin, what wisdom and comfort can we harvest as we grieve? 

As Jason and I build an ofrenda in our home, we are also making one in our yard with pieces of fallen trees from the neighborhood. We will place offerings on their altar as well. We will sing and dance and cry as we remember departed loves. 

This week Tepeyac Mountain Sanctuary is distributing 300 Día de Los Muertos care packages. Going forward, we are creating trauma-informed, bilingual, BIPOC-centered children’s library sets. We’ll deliver storybooks about hurricanes, trauma, resilience, recovery, and community into homes and classrooms throughout our region. We know and believe that stories – the sharing and receiving of them – can be powerful medicine. Click here to purchase books for this initiative through Firestorm.

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Neighbors will be gathering at El Porvenir on Saturday, November 2, for the Colaborativa La Milpa event, “Ancestros, Cultura, y Sabores,” to honor Día de Los Muertos and particularly those lost during the hurricane. We look forward to this healing space. 

We will cherish this gorgeous autumn in WNC, having recently been reminded so dramatically that nothing is promised. We will thank our ancestors for the gifts they give us, and ask for fortitude as we approach winter. We will reflect on all they survived as we face our own struggles. Again and again, we will weep, offering our tears as blessings for this world. 

We will not forget those lost to Hurricane Helene. We know the days ahead of us are full of the work of rebuilding, and part of that work is tending to our grief. 

May we hold each other tenderly and know we are also held by the spirits that surround.

I love you. 

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