“The life of the dead is placed in the living.” – The Ninth Oration of M. T. Cicero against Marcus Antonius, Called Also the Ninth Philippic, 10. As the Northern Hemisphere enters the late Summer and early Fall seasons, ancestors and ancestral holidays are on my mind, greatly. In fact, the majority of my observed holidays have some kind of major ancestral component to them. The “season” of such observances, which are commonly concentrated by many Pagans in the fall and winter is really the majority of the year. While I would not say I am particularly “death obsessed”, there is a significant facet of emphasis on my ancestral dead that forms a major part of my cultic practice. I generally refer to August…