When it comes to traditions revolving around death, some folk traditions have a place within the culture of a family that may be unique to those people. Sprouting out from the necessities of the spirit of kin, we branch off from various ideas and traditions that may already be familiar to some, and to others, they may feel like a foreign language.
Something that may have a familiar taste for many is the concept of a family shrine.
This shrine is usually within every home; it may only be found in the home of the family that generally hosts seasonal events and holidays. This is usually a grandmother or elders of the family. Like the one aunt who has a farmstead and 120 cows, 170 sheep, 80 chickens, seven horses, and an ancient European colonial-style house in Germany that was built between 1840-1880. No one knows. No one can tell. And there are at least four anomalistic documents dating the home between those years that no local historian can accurately seem to determine and, for all intents and purposes, the house has “always been there, for as long as the generations can remember…”
As was in our case growing up.
In the current case of our broken and fragmented clan, it is in my own home. This is the Altar of Kin or the Altar of Blood. It is here that the belongings and images of the passed kin are kept.
This is where you seek advice or guidance by calling upon loved ones and the progenitors of the family or in general find appreciation and love through kinship here.
It is also where we always hold our vigils for the newly deceased or the sick and dying.
If a member of our family is knowingly unwell or otherwise seems to be within the last days of their life, we prepare a small votive. We gather together to craft this votive ourselves as a family project. Sometimes we simply purchase a favoured scent or brand of candle in their honour if they had preferences. In the chance we are crafting the candle, we would imbue the candle with the aromas and herbs that this family member was most fond of. If I can afford to or get a hold of it, I will try to add some of their favourite cologne or aromas they may already have in their possession.
This candle is lit every morning until their passing, and prayers are offered to Veles as well to ask Him to watch over the dying. We pray for the ease of passing and the peaceful relief of suffering and pain. Generally, this little votive is burned in the early morning hours and then snuffed out for the day. Sometimes we get a nice little jar or glass container to keep it in and if possible, like in the case of one of my cousins, we sat it on his dresser in his room and just let it burn all the way.
On the off chance that the candle does not burn out before the individual passes away, we then will leave it to continue to burn within the space of the vigil as well.
When the time comes that they pass away, we prepare a seven-day candle in glass. The glass itself will provide a vessel for a later ritual during the funerary service. We have used tall glass jars and tapers before if we couldn’t get candles we liked or had a preference for. It is usually the immediate kin and myself or other friends and close family that all go out shopping for this candle.
I melt the candle down just enough to add herbs and spices and oils to the contents so it is personalised to the deceased. Whatever they would generally like as well as some of the given and common herbs that we sometimes may associate with the spirits of the deceased.
This candle’s glass is then adorned, decorated, and passed between family and friends to add to the glass whatever they wish to bless the dead with. We traditionally add their birthday and their death day as well as the time to the bottom of the candle. I usually glue flowers and herbs to the glass. Jewellery is wrapped around the glass of the candle and little messages are attached to it with blue thread; it is, in the end, so widely decorated and well adorned that it sometimes is obnoxious.
This candle gets placed at the centre of the altar, always upon a black swath of silk. A pewter offering bowl is carefully out on this cloth in front of the candle and on the left we burn a funerary incense which is (usually) a blend of mullein, cedar and pine (for Veles), a little bit of saffron, dried cranberry, and laurel that has had a drop of vetiver on the leaves.
On the right, we place a strong spirit of some sort. Traditionally this is vodka or gin. If the deceased was opposed to or had an adverse reaction to alcohol, we pick a favoured beverage. This ends up being coffee or tea most commonly. This never stays for long. It is left for but a few hours and then discarded (we try to pour the contents outside). This will happen daily until the funeral.
Usually the night after, we all gather together in the house of the deceased. The candle is placed wherever the general "hearth" is, the kitchen, or the sitting room. And then it is lit. This stays lit for the entire duration that it takes for it to burn out. I understand this is a bit of a fire hazard, but we are not foolish enough to place anything over it or within a vicinity that it may catch. After the first day going into the night, the flame has burned down enough for me to not feel nervous about leaving it unattended.
In the meantime, while we are all gathered in this place, we generally break out a bunch of food and drink. This is when we begin to celebrate and have fun. We sometimes will play games that the deceased liked, (my husband’s grandfather liked gin rummy) or just play silly games in general. We drink and eat and talk about the deceased and their accomplishments and our favourite memories of them and we express how excited we are that they get to go onto the next part of the journey - a difficult transition, one that leaves us behind, sure, but they have bigger and broader horizons now. We talk about the potentially wild and adventurous things they may do in the next part. We’ll joke and have fun, remembering them at their best; we’ll talk about what we’ll do come their birthdays and if they’ll even answer prayers or calls come the days of the dead because they were awful with answering the phone in life. There are tears. There is laughter. There is silence and quiet wordless moments. They all happen.
Other guests paying respects will come in and out, speak to the party that is staying for the vigil, and leave little gifts and offerings in the pewter bowl. Usually, everyone will bring something for the bowl. I have seen playing cards, trinkets, compasses, coins from ancient and faraway places, old family heirlooms, rings, candies - all having something to do with the deceased and the life they had lived.
Some people may drive or walk home depending. However, usually, we all end up putting on a movie that the deceased was fond of and we all sort of drift off to sleep in various places in the living room as the night comes to an end. We all try to remain awake until about three o-clock into the night.
For the next five days (or until the funeral service), we will leave this candle to burn either in the home of the deceased or it will remain at the altar of kin depending on circumstances; if the home needs to be cleaned out and we are concerned about it being disturbed - that sort of thing. It will be snuffed and relit if it needs to be transported of course - and we use the black silk to cover the candle in its entirety to preserve the presence and the essence of the candle.
Once it has burned to the end of its life, the contents of the pewter bowl are emptied into this now vacant glass jar that once held the vigil candle. The remnants of the funerary incense are added on top of it, and any remaining alcohol or beverage is removed and dumped so it is discarded. This is the last time we will leave something out for the deceased that is a beverage or food. From there, we burn a cedar, pine, and mullein mixture for Veles, and light a candle for Him in offering. We then get to work on wrapping it all up in that black silk cloth. The rest of the space is cleansed and the items and vessels are cleansed as well, and we “seal” the cloth around it with either wax or if the deceased had a hairpin or a broach, I’ll work it in a way to secure the container to ensure none of the contents spill.
This little cylinder of gifts and incense dust is added to the casket in some way - if the deceased desired to be cremated then we will keep this and it will remain on the altar after the funeral itself. We generally try to ensure this container remains with the deceased in some way, shape or form. Once ashes are handed out and split between people, this cylinder may be passed onto whoever wishes to have it as a memorial with their urns. Sometimes we will bury this glass on their family estate or property or in a favourite location they liked to be or go. We have family take it out to the middle of the ocean before and let it be taken by the water. Whatever the deceased may have liked.
We will not call upon or call to the deceased for a year after unless a birthday has come or the days of the dead come; outside of sacred days, we generally give a lot of space and time to the deceased for as long as it is appropriate to allow them to settle and find sanctity and peace in their own time.
This is how we (my kin and I), will approach death and ritual revolving around the dead and dying. We like to place an emphasis on the brilliance of that which is temporary. Our time here is always limited and it is a more magnificent experience than we have a tendency to appreciate. In life and death, there is celebration and appreciation, change and growth, as well as memory and understanding. We all experience both life and death, and it is not something we generally feel the need to be shy about. We also give our household pets the same treatment!
We take all lives and their deaths seriously and in both a mournful and celebratory manner. It is a way for us to gather and find appreciation for what we have for while we are blessed to experience it, even our pets.
