#ashkeeper

My personal pantheon started with a dream. I was standing in a field, looking towards a round white building. Huge with open arches, like the Colosseum (pic. 8). Inside everything was white marble. The floors and walls made from memorial plaques and tombstones. The only splashes of colour the flowers and candles that were left by some names. This was the Hall of Remembrance. The Hall was not filled with graves. The bodies were not there. These plaques and statues and stones were here for those left behind. A place to visit and remember. It was also not a place of mourning and sadness. Rather one of peace and a serene joy. People were walking around tending the markers, and people were talking to each other, and to the priests, sharing memories and stories of those lost.

This is where I first met the Ashkeeper.

They are the deity of death, who keeps the soul safe before they are ready to move on to whatever afterlife they choose. The Ashkeeper is also the deity of memories and remembrance. The things left behind in our world so people who have passed will not be forgotten.

They live in graveyards and cemeteries (pic. 1, 4, and 9), but also in the box of mementos and albums filled with photos (pic. 7). They live in the spontaneous shrines of flowers and candles which we come together to make after and accident or catastrophe (pic. 3). The in memoriam murals to make sure we never forget (pic. 5). They are with us as we celebrate our various days of Remembrance, to keep the memories alive.

This is “Ashkeeper” by Colm McGuinness as I see it because of synesthesia, a condition which causes me to see music visually. This song was really lovely!