Thinning the Veil: Honouring Ancestors and Spooky Tales

Samhain, all hallows and halloween

On this night of Samhain—known in modern Western culture as Halloween and in Christian tradition as All Hallows Eve—we stand at the threshold between worlds. This ancient festival marks the time when the boundary separating our realm from the spirit world grows gossamer-thin, when the portals open wide, and when we have the sacred opportunity to honour those who came before us. It is a night to remember our ancestors, to celebrate our beloved dead, and to acknowledge that death is not an ending but a transformation, a passage into another form of being.

Creating Your Ancestral Altar

Tonight, I’ll be decorating my ancestral altar, and Samhain is a perfect time for you to create or refresh your own. If you don’t yet have a dedicated ancestral space, don’t worry—you can start simply. Find a small table, shelf, or corner that can become a sacred space for remembering and connecting with those who came before.

Consider adorning your altar with fresh flowers—their beauty reminds us that life and death are forever intertwined in nature’s eternal cycle. Add offerings of food and drink that your ancestors would have enjoyed. I’ll be placing old-fashioned porter on mine, the favourite tipple of my maternal great-grandmother, but you might choose tea, whiskey, wine, or whatever held meaning for your loved ones. Sweets and traditional foods also make wonderful offerings.

Photographs, if you have them, give us faces to focus on, eyes to meet across the thinning veil. If you don’t have pictures of distant ancestors, don’t let that stop you. You can represent them symbolically, or focus on those you did know. Include other memorabilia too—small objects that carry memory and meaning, touchstones that connect you to those who walked before you. A piece of jewellery, a tool they used, a letter in their handwriting—each item chosen with intention becomes an act of remembrance and love.

Beyond Blood: Honouring All Your Ancestors

As the night deepens, I’ll raise my glass to toast my ancestors, and I encourage you to do the same. But remember, ancestors aren’t limited to blood relations. Consider honouring:

Ancestors of blood whose DNA flows through your veins, whose struggles and triumphs shaped who you are today. Even if relationships were complicated, you can honour the gifts they gave you while acknowledging the challenges.

Spiritual ancestors—those teachers and guides whose wisdom has illuminated your path. These might be authors, artists, activists, or spiritual leaders you never met in person but whose work transformed you.

Ancestors of place—those who walked the land where you now live, who knew its secrets and seasons, who are buried in its soil and whose spirits still move through its landscapes. Ancestors of place also include the spirits of place — such as deities, elements, and plant allies — who grace our current lived environments.

By broadening our understanding of ancestry beyond genetics, we open ourselves to a wider web of connection and support.

Working With Ancestors All Year Round

Here’s something crucial to understand: like puppies at Christmas, ancestors aren’t just for Samhain. While tonight’s thinning veil makes it an especially potent time for ancestral work, developing an ongoing relationship with your ancestors is where the fundamental transformation happens.

Consider establishing a regular practice—perhaps lighting a candle on your altar weekly or making offerings on meaningful dates, such as birthdays and death anniversaries. Talk to your ancestors. Tell them about your life, your struggles, your joys. Ask for their guidance. Thank them for what they’ve given you.

This consistent connection creates a living relationship rather than a once-a-year commemoration. Your ancestors become allies and guides you can call upon when you need strength, wisdom, or simply the comfort of knowing you’re part of something larger than yourself.

A Practice of Ancestral Healing

Tonight, I’ll be conducting a healing ritual specifically focused on my maternal lineage, and this is work you might also consider exploring. We inherit not just genetic material from our ancestors, but also their unresolved traumas, unfinished business, pain, and gifts. By engaging in ancestral healing work, we can begin to transform these inherited patterns and send healing both backward to those who came before and forward to those who will come after.

My ritual tonight draws upon and adapts the profound work of Daniel Foor in his seminal book Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. If you’re interested in deeper ancestral healing work, Foor’s book is an invaluable resource that offers both understanding and practical rituals.

In my practice tonight, I’ll invoke the four great archangels, each positioned at one of the cardinal directions:

Raphael, angel of healing, who stands in the East with the rising sun, bringing the medicine of renewal and restoration.

Michael, angel of protection and courage, who guards the South with his flaming sword, offering strength and the power to cut through what no longer serves, as well as protection.

Gabriel, angel of messages and communication, who dwells in the West where the sun sets, facilitating dialogue between the worlds and carrying prayers to the spirits.

Uriel, angel of wisdom and illumination, who stands in the North, bringing the light of understanding to illuminate the path of healing.

If this approach resonates with you, you might adapt it to your own practice. Or you might work with other guides and guardians who hold meaning in your tradition. The key is creating sacred space and inviting in help—ancestral healing work is not meant to be done alone.

Within this sacred space, I’ll call upon my maternal ancestors—specifically the well and healed ones who can serve as guides and helpers—and ask them to assist in bringing healing to the lineage. Some wounds are too deep, too old, too entangled to heal in a single lifetime or even in a single generation. But we can begin. We can always begin.

Beyond the Veil: Spooky Stories for Halloween

If you have an appetite for the spooky and the strange on this most haunted of nights, I invite you to listen to my recent appearance on Strange Familiars, Episode 557: “I Would Have Described It as a Monster.” In this conversation, I share some of my own personal experiences beyond the veil—encounters that range from the profound to the spooky to the genuinely frightening.

I speak about meeting Flannel Man (a globe-trotting phenomenon), a giant black form, strange nighttime visitors and other encounters with the liminal and the uncanny. Some of these experiences brought wisdom and transformation. Others brought fear. All of them changed me and deepened my understanding of the thin places and the beings that move through them.

My interview begins around the seven-minute mark of the episode, but I encourage you to listen to the whole show—Tim, the host, is a warm and wise human with many interesting stories of his own. Pour yourself something warming, turn down the lights, and settle in for some tales from beyond the veil. After all, on this night, when the boundaries dissolve and the spirits draw near, what better time to hear stories of those strange and numinous encounters that remind us there is far more to this world than we can easily explain?

May your own Samhain be blessed. May you honour your dead well. And may the veil, though thin tonight, allow only love and healing to pass through.

Blessed be 🙏💜

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You can watch the full Strange Familiars episode above or listen at this link: I Would Have Described It as a Monster