Every year, Southeast Missouri Pagans get together, and choose a graveyard, and Walk it. We offer bread and salt to bind the restless, we offer quartz for protection in travel, and coins for crossings. We cross those who ask, we commune with those who Walk, we Listen to them, and tell them they are not forgotten.

This year, we didn't do our normal graveyard Dead Walk. Instead we chose to Walk at the Fort Davidson memorial site, where the original Fort had been, and where many people lost their lives during the Civil War. We had one Crossing (afterwards, we saw him as a soldier in the sky, gun in hand, a young child clinging to his hip - it was incredibly moving), and the energy was heavy, intense. Many of us got flashes of the war. For me, I got sounds of battle, and kept seeing blood squishing up out of the ground. One of our members actually experienced a death shock from gunshot wound. Others heard, saw, felt many experiences. Our blacksmith felt that it was like watching a movie in a dark theater with the picture strobing.

Afterwards, we went back to my parent's place, and we made our usual yearly Stone Soup. Everyone brought something, and sometimes several somethings, and it all went into the pot. When all the prep was done and the soup was ready to sit and simmer, we gathered to cast a circle of healing for one of our members, who has recently damaged his back and was unable to be with us.

After the healing circle, we all took paper, and pens, and we wrote the names of our beloved dead on strips, with a blessing. We trooped outside to the firepit, and I cast our circle. My father started, by offering his brother to the flames, with both a blessing and a curse - we are, after all, sometimes Scotsmen. Each person spoke their peace, and then offered their beloved dead a blessing in the flames.

After everyone was finished, I offered those names submitted by friends here and elsewhere, who could not be present, and any blessings they asked me to give, along with my own. Everyone offered healing energy to those of our beloved dead who were offered to the flames, and we opened the circle.

After we had all eaten, we trooped back outside to sit by the fire and talk. Many of us discussed the spirit world, talked about our best memories of our beloved dead, we did some fire scrying, conversation roved as it does at these times.

All in all, it was a beautiful Saturday.
Deepest blessings...
Nycto

Thanks for sharing, Nycto. Sounds like you had quite an intense, yet fulfilling day. Amazing that you could capture a pic of the crossing.