Folding Time: October (The Thinning Veil & Ancestor Connection)

Spooky Season AKA the time around Halloween and Samhain, is a time filled with pumpkins, images of antiquity, costumes, scary movies, and ghost stories. If you’re into family history or are even a little bit Witchy, it’s also the perfect time to connect with the ancestors in a more profound way.

It is believed that this liminal time offers up a thinned veil between our living world and the spirit realm, allowing those who have passed to communicate more easily with those of us still living. Depending on your belief system, experience, sensitivities, and comfortability with such things, there are a variety of paths you could take to close the gap between this world and the next.

I originally wrote this post for my family history blog a couple of years ago, but decided to update it and share it here in this space as we approach Halloween/Samhain and I begin transitioning my family history blog.

Here are a few activities and examples, from the simple to the sublime, that I practice regularly.

Spend Time with Your Family Heirlooms & Photos

Spending time in reflection with family heirlooms & photos can bring back wonderful memories, questions, aha moments, or the simple peace of remembering those who came before you. Share them with your family or friends, whether in person, via message, or online via social media to keep their memory alive.

Share Oral Histories with Family Members

Weaving the stories of our ancestors into daily conversation isn’t always the easiest things to do but as spooky season wanders into the holidays we’re offered unique opportunities for sprinkling in little details about family members of the past and present.

If your family dynamics allow for it, you can also use this time to ask family members to share about their own memories or the oral histories they’ carry within they’ve heard.

Begin or Continue to Work on Your Family Tree

Have you or anyone else in your family started a Family Tree? If you’ve ever thought about it and haven’t, there’s not time like the present to get started.

Or maybe you’ve started and stopped but are suddenly interested in looking up a Great Grandma who has been historically challenging to research or a Great Uncle who you’ve struggled to find documentation for. Follow the whispers of that obscure ancestor and you might just get “lucky”.

Meditate or Pray with the Ancestors in Mind

Quiet contemplation and manifestation can open a door to information held beyond our day to day reality. Whether you’re calling on the Creator/God of your heart or your ancestors for strength or guidance, the messages you open yourself up to can more easily come through during this time.

Create an Ancestor Altar

An Ancestor Altar lovely way to connect with the ancestors by inviting them into your space in a tangible way. Whether you use a few photos and/or heirlooms, candles and incense, trinkets or foods, setting your intentions with every placement can offer up a beautiful and profound experience.

There are tons of ideas on the internet these days to inspire your altar space, just remember to keep it simple and relative to your own spiritual and cultural practices. Appropriation is never looked at lightly, whether in this realm or the next.

Visit Cemeteries or Sacred Spaces

This may seem obvious, but walking through a cemetery at this time of year holds a whole different feeling than during the other seasons.

Additionally, if you live in close proximity to where your ancestors did, visiting the lands they lived on, walking the streets they walked, or sitting under their favorite tree might just fill your heart in ways other times and places simply cannot.

Use Divination Tools

If you’re drawn to divination or use it for other aspects of spiritual connection, now is the perfect time to pull out your tools, settle into a quiet ritual, and ask a question that is directly related to your family history or ancestor work.

Listen to the Whispers

Whether it be a dream that includes a known (or not yet known to you) ancestor, an intuitive hit that points you in a specific direction in your research, or the inspiration to randomly call a living relative, follow it.

Now is the time to trust the energies we might not fully understand, but know are there, guiding us in directions we might not otherwise follow.

Other Ways I Personally Connect with the Ancestors

As I thought through this post, I knew I also wanted to share some of the more personal items I use in my rituals to connect with the ancestors and have listed them below.

• I adore and use the Herbs for the Otherworld flower essences by Asia Suller often. Asia lost her shop and all her inventory in Hurricane Helene that rode the top of the mountains in 2024, so I treasure every single drop she created.
• When I really want to tap into my dream space I use just a bit of the Lucid Dream mugwort salve made by Indigo Elixirs and/or drink a cup of mugwort and chamomile tea before bed. I also, occasionally, put a few drops of Blue Indigo tincture into a glass of water to drink before bed.
• A few years ago a trusted Sensitive I became aware of through a mutual friend, Marcella Kroll, made a small batch of Ancestor Oil. It smells divine and adds a special layer of magic to all of my ancestral rituals and meditations. I don’t know if she’ll ever make it again, but if you can find your own special oil made by someone you trust that smells divine and resonates with you to use in ritual, I highly recommend it.
• I was inspired a few years ago by @a.hearth.witch on Instagram to make my very own strand of Ancestor Beads. Similar to prayer beads or meditations beads, I created my own using stone beads from the lands of my ancestors (Scotland, Northwestern Europe, Ireland, and France) in addition to stone beads to represent the lands I was born on. I also added eight silver skull beads to represent my eight great grandparents.
• Last, but certainly not least, is my Heritage Journal, where I dive into the lives of direct ancestors to learn as much about them as possible. I then create a spread in my journal using a variety of materials. I’ve found that this process (like any creative process) cannot be forced, but when I feel the pull to connect, the process is deeply profound.

Your Turn

Do tell, do you have established practices, approaches, or specific rituals you use to connect with your ancestors? Are you sensitive to “the other side” or simply curious? Excited to hang out with your Ancestors every day or only around Halloween? I’d love to hear all about your practices and experiences if you’re open to sharing!

Onward,

Melissa