The Road Between: Ancestor Reverence in Modern Witchcraft
There’s a place in my home where the air feels different. It isn’t dramatic—no sudden chill, no flickering lights—but if you stand there a while, you’ll notice the weight of it. That’s the seat I’ve kept for my dead, right in the center of my working compass. In the Spiral Castle Tradition, the ancestors aren’t an abstract idea—they are a living part of the circle, as present as the stang itself.
The center is where the worlds touch. Some of us keep a skull there, some keep simpler tokens, but the meaning is the same: this is the hearth of the family that came before. Blood family, yes, but also the Beloved Dead—friends, teachers, and craft kin whose threads are tied to ours. The Red Thread runs here too, binding us to the witches who shaped the ways we walk.
Ancestors, Old and New
One of the things I love about this tradition is that it doesn’t lock you into a single definition of “ancestor.” American folk culture, especially in the Upland South and Ozarks, has long honored the dead as a community, not just as a bloodline. Cemetery “Decoration Days” are still alive in some towns—families gather to clean graves, share food, and speak the names of those buried there. Alan and Karen Jabbour wrote about these gatherings as a blend of memorial, reunion, and feast—one of the most grounded forms of ancestor veneration still practiced in public life.
That wider sense of kinship is something I carry into my own work. My nephew, who gave me the bravery to reach for what I want in life, sits alongside my best friend who taught me the importance of small joys during hardship. Blood or not, both have a seat at my table, and both are part of the conversation when I sit with the dead.
Signs Along the Road
Once you start paying attention, you realize the signs of the dead are everywhere. Blackbirds singing at dawn and dusk—those edge-of-day moments—are said to wake the dead and lull the living. I’ve noticed it in rural cemeteries too: black dogs lingering just outside the gates, guardians on the threshold, keeping the road.
In the Spiral Castle compass, the West Gate is the road of the dead. You’ll find it marked with certain plant allies: Elder, a tree long associated with messages from the otherworld, and Willow, whose branches have been tied to necromancy and mourning. These aren’t just pretty associations—they’re signposts, the kind of markers that let you know you’ve arrived at a place where the worlds meet.
The Kept Door
The road doesn’t open on its own. One of the names we use is Azazel-Qayin, the Gatekeeper of the Paths of the Dead. I think about that a lot—how a kept door is a sign of respect, and how the crossing is meant to be deliberate.
That’s why ancestor reverence, for me, doesn’t stay locked to a single festival night. Sure, the end of October has its place in the wider Pagan world, but the dead don’t keep our calendar. They come close when they need to, and they’re there when we call in the right way. Some of my most meaningful moments have happened on ordinary Friday evenings—alone at work, coffee in hand, talking to passed loved ones while I straighten inventory.
A Living Conversation
Modern witchcraft—especially the folkloric kind—has to live in two worlds. We carry the old signs and symbols, but we also make something that works for us now. That’s why I value the small, ordinary connections just as much as the big ceremonial ones.
It might be a quiet walk through a graveyard, the smell of an old recipe cooking on the stove, or a familiar song playing on the radio when I needed it most. Ancestor reverence in the Spiral Castle Tradition is about keeping the road between in good order—open when it should be, closed when it must be, and always tended with care.
The road between isn’t just for the dead to walk—it’s for us, too. And every time we meet in the middle, it reminds me that we’re part of something much larger than the span of our own lives.
