For Samhain. The first paragraphs of KINDRED RITES

The dead are always with us.

Most folks don’t fully understand that. People wrap a corpse in ritual and custom, say their good-byes, and try to move on. But it doesn’t work. We carry our dead, always. Long years later, something will bring the past to mind—a child’s motion, a woman’s perfume, a man’s sputtering laugh. For a brief moment, the past is now, and our dead live again.

As long as we remember them, we are shadowed by our dead.

---KINDRED RITES by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The year turns; the dead may return.

Welcome their visit, their love, their wisdom should they give you enlightenment.

May you find good health, great creativity, and renewal in the year to come.