Dancing With the Dead
Love, Loss and the Beauty of Remembering
Across the world, every culture finds a way to connect, honour and celebrate their ancestors. In Japan, lanterns drift downriver during Obon to guide ancestral souls home. In China, families sweep graves and leave food for their elders at Qingming. In West Africa, drums still rise to honour those who walked before us. And in Eastern Europe, a table is laid for the dead to dine again. Death, in these places, is not a horror to be hidden — it’s a guest to be welcomed. And oh, what a difference that makes to our daily lives.
When Death Dances, Life Shines Brighter
Here in the Celtic lands, the wheel turns to Samhain — the festival of fire and spirit, when the veil thins and the ancestors draw close. It’s a time of remembering, of letting go, of lighting the hearth for those who came before us.
And across the ocean, in Mexico, the same veil flutters for Día de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — when marigolds bloom like firelight, sugar skulls smile from every altar, and families gather to celebrate those they’ve loved and lost. The Mexicans remind us that love doesn’t vanish with death; it changes form. It becomes present in new ways and together we can share our love by celebrating our memories of those past together, with light, flowers, dancing and music.
The Tender Alchemy of Grief
This year, my own altar has grown. Earlier this month, I lost an aunty — a woman whose whose warmth lingered long after she left. Now her photo rests among the others: my Nana and Grandad, my lineage of light.
I will bake a cake to share with the living and the dead, rich with cacao, to help heal our hearts. I will place a slice for my ancestors on the alter and add a little tobacco and alcohol, and light a candle as I always do. A little offering for them all. My Nana and Grandad both loved a smoke and had the sweetest sweet tooths, and their spirits get to feast on a slice too! As I light the candle, I feel that familiar ache — grief and gratitude, hand in hand.
It’s strange how both can live in the same breath. You can miss someone so deeply your chest, sometimes your whole body aches, and still feel joy remembering them. You can cry and smile in the same heartbeat.
Psychologists call this a continuing bond — the understanding that grief isn’t something we finish, but something we tend to, like a garden. The love doesn’t die; it just finds new ways to bloom.
How to Host Your Own “Dance with the Dead” Ceremony
Ceremonies to connect with our ancestors can be simple and just for one (plus the ancestors), or can involve your family and friends, even the whole community - like the Mexicans do!
🌸 Create your altar:
Suggestions for an altar - lay a decorative cloth on a table, add photos, flowers, heirlooms, or the favourite foods and drinks of your ancestors. Light a candle, perhaps some incense. Let intuition lead.
🔥 Invite them in:
Speak their names aloud. Tell their stories. Laugh. Cry. Feel everything that comes — all emotions are welcome, allow them to flow, give them the space they need to move through you.
🎶 Add music:
Play something they loved or something that moves you. Dance if your body wants to — movement turns emotion into prayer.
💬 Speak your heart:
Thank them for their lives. Ask for guidance. Share what’s changed since they’ve gone. Let it be a conversation, not a goodbye.
🕯 Close with love:
When it feels complete, you might let the candle burn down naturally, or perhaps for safety reasons you blow out the candle softly, whispering thank you into the air.
Drinking Cacao for the Ancestors
Cacao has always helped me connect to spirit, open my heart and third eye, and create a safe and natural bridge between our worlds. Cacao is also a heart medicine that brings softness to tough emotions, deepens our understanding, and enhances our spiritual consciousness.
If you like me feel called to sit with the altar for a while to honour and engage with them (for me this is like visiting a grave stone which my ancestors do not have - as they were cremated and scattered on the winds), prepare a warm cup and hold it to your heart before you drink. Offer the first sip to your altar and say something heartfelt and simple,
“For those who came before me — with love, with laughter, with thanks.”
Sip slowly, letting the warmth move through your chest, connecting you to every ancestor who ever loved you into being. And speak to your ancestors as if they were present with you, because whether you believe it or not - they are, even if its just in your own mind.
Choosing Love Over Fear
This is what this season teaches me, again and again: Grief and joy are not opposites. They are two hands clasped together, holding the memory of love.
So this Samhain, this Día de los Muertos, may your home be bright with candles, tears, memories and laughter. May your ancestors feel your love in every flame and crumb of cake. And may you dance between worlds knowing that death isn’t the end of love - it’s just love, transformed.
