Calendar of the Sun Ancestor Day Colour: Black and grey Element: Earth Altar: Spread a black cloth, and lay it with photographs, paintings, and other depictions of our ancestors. Add also symbols of their old tools, and statues of ancestral deities, a bowl of seeds for the future garden, pots of soil, a pitcher of water, and many candles of black and white and grey. Offerings: Things they would have liked to eat, drink, smoke, or smell. Tend a cemetery and clean up the graves. Daily Meal: Food from an earlier era, using authentic recipes. Invocation to the Ancestors Our ancestors got up at dawn, Slaved in the dirt, Sweated in the sun, Chilled in the cold, Numbed in the snow, Scattering each seed with a prayer: Pray that there be enough, That no one starve this winter. Pray that no bird nor beast Steal the food I have struggled for. And most of all, Pray that each seed I save Of this harvest Shall next year Bring forth a hundred more. We live today Because they worked Because they sowed Because they harvested Because they prayed. Chant: Those who came before We are your children Those who came before We honour your names (Each person takes seeds from the bowl and plants them in the pots of soil, speaking the name of one of their ancestors as they do so, as in: "In honour of _______." The pots are watered, and the candles put out one by one.)
[source:paganbookofhours.org]