Ancestors (clock-wise from upper right): Kate Austin Cooper, Paul Best, Caleb Rich*, Olive Higgins Prouty

Music:  Bagatelles  Beethoven  (1) E. Dainow, piano
“Beethoven” / Rosemary Brown**
Bagatelle  op.119 no. 11  Beethoven

Encountering our Ancestors XI (scripts by Steven Epperson)

To celebrate the memory of our ancestors: A Samhain Invocation***

Paul Best (1590–1657)  Early English Unitarian    Eric Wyness

Caleb Rich  (1750–1821)      Universalist Preacher    Bennett Mitten

Kate Austin Cooper  (1864–1902) Universalist/Anarchist  Leonie Armstrong

Olive Higgins Prouty  (1882–1974)   Author  Naomi Taylor

*Photo of Richard Eddy, stand in for Caleb Rich.

** Rosemary Brown claimed that the great composers transmitted or dictated their newest compositions to her. So it is appropriate  to play one of these pieces at this time of year when the veil between the living and the dead is said to be the thinnest.   Elliott

*** Modern Pagans view the world as a great Circle, majestically turning through the four Quarters of the Year, from season to season, with each Quarter representing a natural Element, a geographic Direction, and a specific Season, and each presided over by benevolent elemental forces, Guardians of each phase of our human lives, from birth to death, and beyond. 

Previous Ancestors we’ve encountered

Ancestors: Samhain 2004 (clockwise from upper right)

Dorothy Livesay – Writer & Activist

Joseph Chamberlain – Politician

Josephine Shaw Lowell – Consumer Advocate

Girolamo Busale – Theologian

Bela Bartok – Composer

Ancestors: Samhain 2005 (clockwise from upper right)

Beatrix Potter – Children’s Author  

Maria Mitchell – Astronomer

Jacob Paleologus – Theologian/ Martyr

George Boole – Mathematician

Edvard Grieg – Composer

Ancestors: Samhain 2006 (clockwise from upper right)

Adriaan Korbaugh – Theologian/Martyr

Martha and Waitstill Sharp – Refugee Relief Activists

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell – Author

Rod Serling – Science Fiction Writer & TV Producer

Katarina Weiglowa – Martyr

Ancestors: Samhain 2008 (clockwise from upper right)

Margaret Fuller – Journalist & Feminist

Arthur Lismer – Artist

Rachel Carson – Environmentalist

Herman Melville – Author

Bernardo Ochino – Theologian /Martyr

Ancestors: Samhain 2009 (clockwise from upper right)

Ledyard Stebbins – Geneticist

Travers Herford – Unitarian Minister/Judaism Scholar

Anna Laetitia Barbauld – Poet/Feminist

Lotta Hitschmanova – Founder USC Canada

Ancestors: Samhain 2010 (clockwise from upper right)

Simon Budny – Radical Theologian/Biblical Scholar

Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk – First Lady of Czechoslovakia

Mary Wollstonecraft – Feminist/Philosopher/Author

Leonard Marsh – Public Servant

Ancestors: Samhain 2011 (clockwise from upper right)

Joseph Workman – Canadian Mental Health Pioneer

Vilhjamar Stefansson – Explorer/Ethnologist

May Sarton – Poet

Isabella Jagiellon – Unitarian Noblewoman

 (holding her son John Sigismund, 1st Unitarian king)

Ancestors: Samhain 2012 (clockwise from upper right)

Orestes Brownson – Minister/Political Radical

Margaret Laurence – Author

Mary White Ovington – Civil Rights Activist

William Hazlitt – Essayist

Ancestors: Samhain 2013 (clockwise from upper right)

Joseph Johnson – Publisher

Conrad Aiken – Poet

Celia Payne-Gaposchkin – Astronomer

Malvina Reynolds – Song Writer/Activist

Ancestors: Samhain 2014 (clock-wise from upper right)

Margaret Benedictsson – Women’s Rights Activitst

William Carlos Williams – Doctor/Poet

Maria Cook – Universalist Preacher

Lelio Sozzini – Theologian

 

UCV Library Books Related to the Sermon: Several related books are

Unitarians in Canada, by Phillip Hewett, 1995;

Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History, by David E. Bumbaugh, 2000; and

These Live Tomorrow, by Clinton Lee Scott, 1964.

 

 

 

Topics: Ancestors, Earth-centered, Unitarian History