aNCESTOR AltarS & remembering practiceS
Remembering Our Beloved Dead
Dear Ones,
Altars, ceremonial, and ritual practices help us connect with deeper meaning and reflection. The creation of ancestor shrines is a time honored tradition shared by many cultures around the globe. Pre-colonization, the indigenous cultures of Mexico celebrated their dead over the span of two entire months in July and August. Today, families build altares and make ofrendas during the time leading up to and including Dia De Los Muertos (October-November), maintaining the tradition through adaptation and overlapping it with Catholicism’s All Saints Day. These altares are built to remember our beloved dead and our ancestors; to ceremonially and ritually honor and invite them into our lives and occupy a place of honor in our homes and physical spaces. This is a time of joyful celebration of life and of our continued connection to those we hold in our hearts. This is an invitation to create your own, personal altar, and explore what this remembering practice means for you.
Making a personal shrine or altar can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. A solitary endeavor or shared with friends and family, the important part is that it speaks to you in a meaningful way. Ancestor reverence is highly personal in this context. This is not a tutorial on building a Dia De Los Muertos ofrenda. There are no rules, only suggestions. It is impossible for you to do it wrong.
ALTAR BASICS
Here are some basics to get you started. I encourage you read through what I’ve included below to determine which elements you want to incorporate, what order works best for you, and how you might explore your own cultural traditions, then create something that feels right to you.
Preparation:
LOCATION: Your altar can be inside or out, occupy the corner of a shelf or an entire room. It can be inside a cupboard or out in the open for all to see. Size and scale are immaterial, it is how you feel about and relate to the space that matters.
PREPARE YOURSELF: I invite you to take a few minutes to prepare yourself for what you are about to do. Preparation can mean prayers, meditation, a few centering breaths. It can also mean putting on your favorite music, a piece of jewelry or a crazy hat. It can mean fasting, ceremonially cleansing yourself, or busting out the extra dark chocolate. Do what makes you feel most in touch with yourself and those you are intending to honor with your altar.
PREPARE THE SPACE: Most altar building traditions involve some sort of ritual cleaning or space preparation. What does your chosen space call for? Sweep, wash, clear clutter, ring a bell, beat a drum, rake, dust, burn cleansing herbs, gently move the spiders, speak a blessing, make the space ready as you see fit.
Building:
CONSTRUCTION: Some altars are housed in purpose-built boxes or shrines complete with lids or doors to close and protect the space when not actively in use. Others are laid out on old tree stumps in yards, or directly upon shelves or other cleared off surfaces like a tabletops or desk corners. You may choose to place your altar on a beautiful plate from your’s grandmother’s favorite china set, or slab of stone, or in a steamer trunk you’ve thrifted. An annual community ancestor altar I build and tend has evolved into one made of brightly colored ribbons hung from tree branches in my yard, onto which people are invited to tie special cards, photos, messages and prayers for their dead. My family’s personal annual Dia de los Muertos altar is traditionally multi-tiered, in my living room, complete with a marigold petal path to help lead my beloved departed home to me. Anything goes as long as it suits you.
COLLECT MEANINGFUL ITEMS: Shrine and altar items can be anything that has meaning for you. They may evolve over time (mine do) and generally fall into three categories. Their purposes may overlap:
Representation of the Departed: This category includes anything that embodies your beloved dead. Photographs are a popular choice but it can truly be anything that calls them into your consciousness including toys or items that they loved, used, or that symbolize them in some way. Some of the things I’ve used include photos, clothing items, crafts I learned from my grandmother, items I’ve inherited: jewelry, tea sets, cigarette tray, wedding shoes and veil, baby romper, spurs, a photo of a long-lost painting…
Offering to the Departed: These are things that you are giving as gifts to the spirit of their memory or to feed their soul. Favorite foods and drinks, water, even a poem, piece of art, or prayer dedicated to them are often on altars. Offerings and representations can be transient. My family is highly musical across the generations and music is an important part of all family gatherings. In this case the representation and offering overlap when I play recordings of special “family songs” and music from these gatherings. I have a great grandfather who grew and loved Easter lilies. Whatever works for you is the right thing to use. This process can be a wonderful way to connect with others if you are building an altar as a group or family. What if each individual chose their own representative item to honor the same person and then shared with each other why their choice is personally meaningful? The possibilities are endless.
Decoration: Embellishments to beautify your altar space are completely optional. My personal Dia De Los Muertos ancestor altars have always included traditional marigold flowers (fresh or made of paper [something I learned to make upon my grandmother’s knee as a child] - they help guide the dead), candles, calaveras (traditional decorative skull images made of a variety of materials including papier-mache or sugar) and lovely, vibrantly colored altar-cloths. Perhaps yours is a bare wooden shelf decorated with a single smooth stone, meditative and beautiful in its simplicity. What goes on your altar is deeply personal and entirely up to you.
Tending Your Altar:
TENDING: For some, tending means freshening the water in a vase of flowers or an occasional dusting. For others it means daily interaction with the altar (burning incense, offering prayers and perishable items, speaking to the dead, meditation, etc.). I like to keep things clean and then play-it-by-ear. Sometimes I find myself at the altar multiple times a day, feeling the pull to connect deeply and repeatedly. Some days the knowledge that it is there is all I need to feel close to those I choose to honor and celebrate.
Disassembly:
Eventually, most altars and shrines will be disassembled, whether forever, until next year, or simply for a move to another location. Disassembly, like building, can be complicated or simple. Typically there is some form of each of the following:
COMMUNION: Some sort of moment of communion with the altar and those upon it before it is removed. You might offer a blessing, communicate to your loved ones through prayer or intention, offer gratitude, love, a statement of what is about to occur (disassembly of the altar), an invitation to remain present after the altar is removed, or a boundary set to come again only if or when you build another shrine.
DECONSECRATION: This is the act or intention of returning a sacred space and objects to the mundane world. Dissolving and dismissing the sacred container you’ve created can be as elaborate or simple as feels right for you, it is the intention that matters. Some ways of deconsecrating an altar space can include spoken our silent statements of intention, prayers or blessings, songs, ringing a bell or striking a drum, removal (with intention) of a specific item that anchors the altar-space for you, gestures.
REMOVAL & STORAGE: Items are reverently removed. Some of my Dia de Los Muertos altar items live in my home year round, others are carefully kept in a special basket for the following year, still others are ephemeral and are renewed every year.
DISPOSAL: I choose to dispose of most of the ephemera with a ritual fire and blessings, sending prayers with the smoke of wood and sacred copal resin. In my household fruits and appropriate natural items are composted to feed the earth (typically laid upon the earth until they decompose or buried in the earth). You can bury, recycle or give away anything you wish, so long as it is appropriate to do so (biodegradable items only for the earth, etc.). Any items that can only be disposed of in the garbage are done so with intention that they cause as little harm as possible and that their return to the living earth be as swift and as beneficial as possible.
PURIFICATION: The space is physically (and/or energetically) cleaned and the intention is set that it is now prepared for a new purpose.
OWN YOUR PRACTICE
Ultimately, your altar is your own. Build it, tend it, use it as you are called to. Disassemble it if or when you are ready. If it speaks to you, you are doing it right. Truly, there is no wrong way of creating a personal remembering practice, only the way that is right for you in that moment. I encourage you to explore traditions (particularly those from your own cultural and ancestral lineages), make something up, and give yourself permission to try something new.
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY PRACTICE
If you are interested in learning more about Dia De Los Muertos traditions, specifically, there are many resources available online. If you would like to know more about or participate in the annual, Community Dia De Los Muertos altar in the Rose Garden area of San Jose, CA, or for a list of informational books on Dia de los Muertos recommended by my dear friend, Natasha Bodorff, please visit the Workshops and Sacred Arts section under the Events heading at NataliaChang.com
As I wrote the first edition of this guide in 2020, we were living in a time that none of us anticipated, the SARS CoVid-19 pandemic swept the globe and altered lives forever. Years later, although much has changed, we find ourselves processing our personal and collective experiences. We have lived through a time of great uncertainty and loss. Giving ourselves space and permission to grieve, to acknowledge the balance and cycle of life and death, to celebrate those we’ve loved and lost and, when possible, to share our meaningful experiences with others can be deeply healing; providing an opportunity for processing our innermost lives in a positive, supportive, and gentle way. Ancestor altars can be a conduit for connection across generations and traditions, a thread that runs through us all, stitching together our shared human experiences. When we explore those places and edges we draw ourselves closer to each other and to ourselves. Thank you for following this sacred thread. I am honored to walk this earth and this path with you.