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"To you alone it is given to know the truth about the gods and deities of the sky... The innermost groves of far-off forests are your abodes. And it is you who say that the shades of the dead seek not the silent land of Erebus and the pale halls of Pluto; rather, you tell us that the same spirit has a body again elsewhere, and that death, if what you sing is true, is but the mid-point of long life."     —Lucan Pharsalia c.60AD

It was at Samhain, the ancient Celtic New Year, that the mundane world and the Otherworld were most closely connected and it is believed that the souls of our ancestors cross over and offer us guidance.

Lucan, in the above quotation, is addressing Druids generally, but it is an appropriate quotation to open our study of the Ovate Grade, for it was the Ovates who, to the greatest degree, were responsible for understanding the mysteries of death and rebirth, for transcending time - for divining the future, for conversing with the Ancestors - travelling beyond the grave to bring augury and counsel to those still living on earth.

This section of our web site is devoted to exploring, honoring and memoralizing our ancestors.