Ancestral Pathways International

Group Clearing: Becoming Wealthy Within, Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:00 PM | Meetup

In this Group Clearing you will learn how to shift your focus to what is important in the context of wealth. Learn how to take charge of your attitude towards wealth and money. Understand how to use your unconscious mind to step into wealth as you new mindset.

Join me at Group Clearing: Becoming Wealthy Within

Group Clearing: Becoming Wealthy Within, Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:00 PM | Meetup In this Group Clearing you will learn how to shift your focus to what is important in the context of wealth. Learn how to take charge of your attitude towards wealth and mo

Today is Halloween and most people who are reading this will think little more past costumes and candy but long ago this was not the case.
Samhain ( pronounced Sow-win meaning "summers end " ) was a scary time for homesteaders and people going back millenniums. No,it was not that you forgot to get candy for the trick-or-treaters. This was a time of herd culling and wrapping up the farm for the onset of winter. You needed to harvest part of your herd because you did not have enough fodder to sustain them thru the winter and early spring. At the same time you needed to keep the best breeding stock alive thru for the next year rotation. Did you cull the right amount of stock? Did you harvest too much? A scary prospect indeed when you see that your next year success or failures could depend on what you do or didn't do this year.

Samhain is what the ancient Celts called the festival,which also is the beginning of the Celtic new year, but many peoples of Europe had different names which suggested a similar attitude. The Germans called it Blood month or the month of slaughter. Sanguine , hunters and harvest moon names all speak of similar ancient beliefs.The onset of colder temperatures made harvest a little easier and safer as flies and pathogens are less numerous.
Likewise all around the globe, thru Asia and North America, people had similar names and practiced similar techniques to preserve meat to sustain them thru the winter.

Often local harvest parties and gatherings would happen to celebrate summer's end and to share in the bounty of harvest as meat at this time is very plentiful.
Sometimes the preparation of this meat was a multi homestead endeavor where you helped your neighbors out and likewise they came over and helped you.Many of these techniques are more easily accomplished with help from your neighbors and likewise these practices supported large farm families.

People hunted together as herds and flocks were also in migration. In the summertime these animals might be plentiful but come wintertime some of them might be nonexistent making hunting that much more important.

Meat isn't the only thing on the menu and likewise this was a time where root cellars were stocked and packed for the incoming winter temps soon to be their way.
"One bad apple spoils the bunch " comes from this time where your root cellars were checked and double checked to make sure the minor amount of produce that had turned would not turn the rest of the produce around it.

Mills were super busy grinding flour as farmers would trade whole grain for milled flour. Grain was sold in bulk just like it is now and also stored on the farm for future use.Making sure you had your grain away from animal predation like mice while simultaneously staying dry was another concern. This is probably a reason why the cat is so closely attached to the season and pre-dates any Christian association with witches. Like today, cats are still an important homestead fixture to reduce mice and rat predation.

The saving of seed was very important and no matter if you had a good year or bad year,you had to save enough seed for next year sowing. Not many Baker Creek or High Mowing seed stores laying around a millennium or two ago LOL.

Canning is a recent modern invention and is another way to preserve the harvest. I love to watch all the people busy in September ,October and November canning to their hearts contentment. I see it harkens back to an older time when the preservation of food in preparation for the winter ahead was on peoples minds.

Sustainability and self sufficiency was at the forefront and most people reading this are completely detached from these practices. We have grown up in a world where we can get anything anytime we want it but years ago this was not the case. But these practices are still around today and one doesn't have to look hard to find them. Whether you're in North America Africa Europe or Asia all you have to do is look to the countryside. Self-sufficient folks are still practicing the same endeavors and these practices in whole or part still go on today. Even today some parts of our country are heavily blocked by winter snows making travel almost nonexistent and makes winter stocking that much more important.

So as I live here in south St. Louis I actually look forward to the trick-or-treaters who will come popping up my stairs. Most of them will never know that the costumes they wear and the jack-o'-lanterns they see are directly attached to an ancient Celtic festival where the druids or local priests were fed by the local population. Many of them will never know the divination and fortunetelling practices they see ( like apple bobbing or Barm Brack mmmmmmm ) are directly related to ancient peoples attempting to predict an unknowable future at a most scary time.Many of these divination practices revolved around future love interests
I will look upon the trick or treaters this year and give them a great big BOO as I deposit my offerings in their bags. I will smile upon them as they bounce down my stairs on the way to the next house and think "we've come a long way baby " lol
Here is pictured one of the ancient type of jack-o'-lanterns. Before pumpkins came into favor in recent times, turnips and Swede turnips were the carvers choice.
Yes if the reader hasn't figured it out yet samhain or Halloween is my favorite time of the season. Garlic sowing, food preservation, end of the summer heat and a big new year to come is why I celebrate.Samhain is my Christmas, birthday, New Years, thanksgiving and Valentine's Day all rolled into one !

~ 💔🖤💔 ~

Each year they parade her about, The traditional Halloween witch. Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair, A toothless mouth beneath her disfigured nose. Gnarled knobby fingers twisted into a claw protracting form. A bent and twisted torso that lurches about on wobbly legs.

Most think this is abject image to be the creation of a prejudiced mind or merely a Halloween caricature, I disagree, I believe this to be how witches were really seen.

Consider that most witches were women, were abducted in the night and smuggled into dungeons or prisons under secrecy of darkness and presented by the light of day as a confessed witch.

Few, if any saw a frightened normal looking woman being dragged into a secret room filled with instruments of torture, to be questioned until she confessed to anything that was suggested to her, and to give names or say whatever would stop the questions.

Crowds saw the aberration denounced to the world as a self-proclaimed witch. As the witch was paraded through the town, in route to be burned, hanged, drowned, stoned, or disposed of in various, horrible ways, all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body.

The jeering crowds viewed the result of hours of torture. The face, bruised and broken by countless blows, bore a hue of sickly green. The once warm and loving smile gone, replaced by a grimace of broken teeth, and torn gums that leer beneath a battered disfigured nose.

The disheveled hair conceals bleeding gaps of torn scalp from whence cruel hands had torn away the lovely tresses. Broken, twisted hands clutched the wagon for support. Fractured fingers locked like cropping claws to steady her broken body.

All semblance of humanity gone. This was truly a demon, a bride of Satan, a witch.

I revere this Halloween Witch and hold her sacred. I honor her courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of humanity.

Each year I shed tears of respect.

Author unknown

✨

Honouring the ancient dead at Bryn Celli Ddu on the eve of Hallowe'en. A sacred place where one can be immersed in timelessness. It is a thin place, where the veils between past and present feel particularly diaphanous, but even more so as the wheel turns towards Calan Gaeaf, the calends of Winter.

Within its darkened chamber, the ancestors draw near, their ancient lore whisper from the stones themselves. Time slows to a snails pace within the mound, and eternity is felt deep in the soul.

Bryn Celli Ddu, the hill in the dark grove fills my heart and spirit with wonder and awe and magic.

A blessed eve of all hallows eve to you all.

Kali Fontanilla on Instagram: "#reels"

I do agree.

Kali Fontanilla on Instagram: "#reels" Kali Fontanilla shared a post on Instagram: "". Follow their account to see 1495 posts.

Roots Deeper than Whiteness - White Awake

Roots Deeper than Whiteness - White Awake Remembering who we are for the well-being of all A Romanian piper, a Slovak mother and son, an Italian woman. Photos by Augustus Sherman, chief registry clerk at Ellis Island from 1892 – 1925. David Dean is a contributing writer and trainer for White Awake whose work has formed the core of our upc...

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(¸.•´❈•*¨*•.¸¸..•*๑🧙‍♂๑ An oil painting of an old wizard listening to his friends..•*¨*•**✨

A most interesting story ~ Cecil Porter Illustration

Shugyo Samhain Spooktacular
A pop up event on
Sat October 22, 11am-2pm.
Contact us (916) 820-7056 (text/call)

There are a few vendor spots and lecture slots available!

PRESENTATION SCHEDULE:
11:00 PM - 11:30 AM: Samhain Blessings with Ancestral Pathways
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM: TBD with BodyDynamics
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM: TBD with Hidden Trees Mystery School
1:30 PM – 2:00 PM:

Northern Selkup Indigenous People in traditional clothing ❄️❄️❄️ Yamal Peninsula. Siberia 🦌🦌🦌 The photo has never been published before.

Let me introduce Masha Kargacheva and her dad Vyacheslav Kalin. They are a part of an extended Kargacheff family of Northern Selkup Indigenous People, living in a village of Tol'ka of Yamal Peninsula of Siberia. It's only reachable by a light aircraft for most of the year and by ice road in winter. The total population of the Northern Selkups is only about 1500 people. Kargacheff family is well known among local people as a keeper of traditional Selkup culture and language. They are skillful masters in many traditional crafts - from birch bark carving and making many different things from it, to handmade traditional clothing as well as reindeer bone and antlers carving. I was lucky to meet Masha, Vyacheslav and other members of their wonderful family to learn about Selkup People traditional culture and make several portraits of the Northern Selkup People for The World in Faces photo project of mine.

As a sign of appreciation to all Selkup People whom I photographed, I've sent their photo portraits to the village administration. Every year Selkup community celebrates The Day of Reindeer Herder. For locals it is the biggest event of the year, with many families living far away here and there at the endless Siberian taiga gather together. To celebrate The Reindeer Herder day local administration organizes many activities and competitions, including reindeer race. This year, for the first time ever, local people had a chance to visit my photo exhibition, located in a big tent, that the administration put right in the middle of a reindeer racing ground. Masha and Vyacheslav were among those people who saw themselves in these exhibition portraits. Below is the WhatsApp message that I have received from their village:

"Dear Alexander, Thank you for the photos, they are beautiful. Visitors of the exhibition were impressed by what they saw. Many visitors had a chance to appreciate our traditional Selkup Indigenous culture through your portraits and we think that it changed their attitude to us as a nation. You perfectly convey the beauty of each nation in your works. Thank you very much for what you do".

The World in Faces photo project by Alexander Khimushin. Diversity of traditional cultures of the world through the portraits and stories of Indigenous People 🌎❤️📸🙏

Come on out!

In Norse mythology, Ratatoskr is a squirrel who runs up and down the trunk of the world tree Yggdrasil to conveying insults between the eagle perched atop Yggdrasil, and the serpent Níðhöggr, who dwells beneath one of the three roots of the tree. 🦅🐿🐉

Group Clearing: Holding and Unburdening Your Personal Space , Wed, Oct 5, 2022, 7:00 PM | Meetup

Holding space or holding energy is a term often used in healing but not always fully understood – it has an incredibly profound and crucial meaning. When you hold space for someone you are required to hold an energetic space for another person while you are fully present. By holding space you are providing a safe energetic environment for them whilst they spiritually, physically or mentally journey through their experience. The optimal word here is ‘their’ experience.
Holding space means unconditionally without judgement, without preconceived outcome and without taking over or stealing their experience by.

Join me at Group Clearing: Holding and Unburdening Your Personal Space

Group Clearing: Holding and Unburdening Your Personal Space , Wed, Oct 5, 2022, 7:00 PM | Meetup “Holding space” means being physically, mentally, and emotionally present for someone. It means putting your focus on someone to support them as they feel their feelings. A

Shugyo Samhain Spooktacular
A pop up event on Sat October 22, 11am-2pm. Contact us (916) 820-7056 (text/call).

“Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.
We are at our best when we serve others.”
Credit: Ira Byock

Today is Lammas, it is one of the 8 Pagan festivals throughout the year called a Sabbat. It marks the beginning of the harvest season. Corn and Wheat fields will be ripe and golden now ready for reaping. At this time spring and summer plants will begin to wither and drop their seeds that will be reborn next spring. The earth is going through a transition now where darkness is slowly beginning to take over light, nights will slowly become longer and days shorter. Death is taking over life as flowers begin to die, trees will drop their fruits and leaves will begin to change colour, cold will slowly start taking over warmth as we head into Autumn.

Today is also known as Lughnasadh (pronounced Loonasa) In Celtic times the day was a celebration of the great Sun God Lugh. The word Lughnasadh means 'Praise Lugh'. It was a time of giving thanks to the Sun God for the harvest and giving offerings of bread, corn and wheat to him. A bonfire would be built called a Lughfire where the offerings would be thrown into it.

This is also a celebration of the Triple Goddess (maiden, mother and crone) who after laying with the God at Beltane is now in her Mother Aspect and has given birth to the harvest bounty we see.

Lammas is a time of personal reflection and our own personal harvest of our actions and deeds, events and experiences, our gains and losses throughout this year. A time when we begin the cycle of reflection of that which is our life. At this time we begin to reap what we have sown for all our hard work we have put in throughout the year. Primarily Lammas is a time of thanksgiving, when we appreciate all we have in our lives and give thanks and show gratitude to the Gods and the earth for their life giving gifts.

The word Lammas means 'Loaf Mass' wheat and grains are a big part of the Lammas celebrations, share a loaf of bread with friends and family today, traditionally over a stew of seasonal vegetables. If you are feeling adventurous you can try to bake some bread, there is nothing like the smell of fresh bread on Lammas.

The God of the waxing Sun is the living Spirit of the corn or grain. As the corn is cut so the God (The Green Man) is cut down also. He surrenders his life so that others may be sustained by the grain, so that life can continue. He is both eaten as the bread and is then reborn as the seed returns to the earth. Death and rebirth. Everything dies and everything is reborn. This is our whisper of immortality and the wonderful bittersweet of Lammas.

On our alter we should put harvest grains and ripe fruit to honour the season and as an offering to the God and Goddess. Also add fresh bread, any fallen leaves and nuts are also traditional. Make a corn dolly or a wheat dolly and put it in the central part of your home to bring luck, protection and prosperity for the rest of the year.

Lammas is a time of excitement and magic. The natural world is thriving around us, and yet the knowledge that everything will soon die looms in the background. Now It is a good time to rid yourself of all that is old to allow in the new.

Hoof and horn,
Hoof and horn,
All that dies shall be reborn,
Corn and grain,
Corn and grain,
All that falls shall rise again.

Lammas Blessings, may the God and Goddess watch over you.