The Brahmanas (compositions about the Vedas, composed in Sanskrit c. 800–600 BCE and containing expository material relating to Vedic sacrificial ritual.) origin speak of a time when heaven and earth were joined together, but later they are separated from one another, and the broad atmospheric realm takes shape in between them. At the time of this separation, the category gods are assigned rulership of the realms: the Aditvas, the heavens, the Rudras, the atmosphere, and the Vasus, earth. Heaven and earth are figuratively declared “rewedded” when, instigated by the gods, rains pour down from heaven and produce food on earth and, in return, that food is offered up to heaven by way of smoke, i.e. sacrificial offerings. ln this way, an uninterrupted cycle of giving and receiving is established between gods and humans. In this way, heaven and earth remain wedded as man and wife. This ancient knowledge, first knowledge, describes Burnings – Feeding the Spirits.
Fire is simultaneously destructive, creative, and transformative. Fire, as a transformative energy process, figures prominently in our metaphysics. It is one of four fundamental forces of the cosmos along with water, wind (air, breath), and earth. Space and Consciousness complete the Six Great Elements. Keep in mind that Consciousness interpenetrates the other five elements. In other words, all elements have consciousness including fire and water.
Fire is conscious as is its smoke. Burning transmits energy through the swirling and curving energy conduits of smoke. During burnings, the action and reaction of the consciousness of the fire communicates knowledge to Sher and me.
As we’ve noted before, burning incense, such as copal incense (tree blood) transmits their life-energies to upper layers of the cosmos. Smoke transmits ordered energy from earth to heavens and hence serves as a means of communicating with “the gods.”
A ceremonial burning, feeding the ancestors, is a timeless and most important ceremony that actually involves cooking food and then burning the food so that the substance and energy of it is taken into the Otherworld. “The funeral custom is almost universal for the mortuary meal to be made to feed the spirits of the departed, and communion with the ancestral spirits was an object of the totemic eucharist. The sacrifices offered to the dead, the burial rites and funerary ceremonies, generally imply the existence of a living consciousness to which the piteous appeal was made.”[i]
Conducting a burning is very stressful to say the least. Since this knowledge was and still is orally transmitted, we can only reveal a few things. Before we open the ceremony by calling in the spirits, I paint (black and red) myself and then my wife with red paint, symbolic of blood. Three plates of food are always required: for the ancient ones; the spirits of the land; and most importantly, the forgotten ones.
In preparation for the burning, you prepare a full meal (favorite food) for each spirit to be honored, either as an individual person that has passed over or as a group. The group may comprise the ancestors, the area and the land. Each meal is referred to as a plate, and is put on paper plates. While Sher cooks the food, I prepare the “table” that the food will be put on to be burnt.
Burnings may be performed for openings and closings including but not limited to weddings, funerals, cleansings of homes and land (the exorcising of spirits that are causing problems), memorials and the beginning of spiritual seasons such as the opening of the smokehouses, also known as longhouses, in the Pacific Northwest for the winter dance season.
Pictures/videos are prohibited during Sacred Ceremonies,
[i] This section on burnings is excerpted from our memoirs: Tequila and Chocolate.