Category Archives: still life photography

Samhain: Honoring the Dead

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Honoring the Dead

Honoring the Dead

For me, Halloween is no longer about costumes and candy. It’s a chance to honor the dead, all those who have influenced and touched our lives, human and non-human.  Every year, my husband and I gather photos and spread them on an altar, light candles, and place family heirlooms or keepsakes along with offerings of food and drink for the departed.

Samhain is a pagan holiday celebrating the Celtic New Year that predates Halloween as we know it. It’s a day meant to honor the ancestors and the cycle of life and death.

Samhain Prayer

This is the night when the gateway between
our world and the spirit world is thinnest.
Tonight is a night to call out those who came before us.
Tonight we honor our ancestors.
Spirits of our ancestors, we call to you,
and we welcome you to join us for this night.
We know you watch over us always,
protecting us and guiding us,
and tonight we thank you.

(common Samhain prayer)

The End of a Season

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Dried

Dried

Ah, when to the heart of a man                                                                                                Was it ever less than a treason                                                                                          To go with the drift of things,                                                                                                  To yield with a grace to reason,                                                                                         And bow and accept the end                                                                                                  Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost, “Reluctance”

And he remembered it no more…..

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And he remembered it no more....

And he remembered it no more….

I found this small, leather-bound SwedishPsalmbok in a used bookstore in Ventura, CA. In addition to how lovely it feels in the hand, its leather softened by the hands of another, its delicate weight, the fact that it is written in Swedish was intriguing. How had that book made a journey from Sweden to southern California? Moreover, who is Kris Lind, whose name is embossed in gold on the bottom right corner of the front cover, and how did he or she end up in California? Did his or her effects end up in this bookstore after a death, both book and man to be remembered no more (a line at the edge of the page reads, “Och han minnes den ej mer…” meaning, “And he remembered it no more……”)? Although I can’t read Swedish, I recognized the language on the page as some of my ancestors emigrated from Sweden to live in the northeast region of the U.S., where my maternal grandfather, Bernard Oscar Sandquist, was born. Growing up, I was told I was named for his mother.

Kris Lind may not be related to me in any way, but his or her Psalmbok now lives with me, no longer stripped from memory.

Vila väl, Kris Lind. Inte alla är glömt.