Greetings to all! It’s a pleasure to be given the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas here on this new grand project.
I had often thought long and hard about what experiences or knowledge could be shared about the self realization of being ‘one’ with our ancestral lineage. There are many thought forms and understandings of exactly what it means to have “The Ancestors” as part of our spiritual practices. In this article I’d like to brush along an experience that have helped me weave the Ancestors into an integral part of my working the affairs of spirit.
It was hard at first to understand how I could possible work with long dead individuals who once stood on this earth in my bloodline. The first realization I had was in my early 20’s when my Father and both of my Grandfathers suddenly died within 6 months of each other. It was shortly after this that I began to have an intense dream of swimming in a churning river which flowed endlessly backwards in time.
This river was filled with weapons, artifacts, and clothing all from various time periods. I would have this dream over and over until one night it became lucid and I swam backwards through this river and there around the bend was my father standing tall and grounded in the swirling water. I continued and there were my grandfathers and it continued further and further back with the river widening to accommodate all manner of peoples whom I had never met before yet still I felt an overwhelming feeling of respect for.
I could see their faces and their lives play out before me. What they worked, how they died, who they loved, I saw their children flow forth from their bodies in endless directions forward until I could not bear to look anymore. The song they all seemed to sing was so loud and cacophonous that ground began to shift.
It was then that the river turned red and the world began to slowly spin to the intense beating of a drum which had a deep and primal bass that rung my ears so loudly they could burst at any moment. The red waters flowed and swirled I was washed down stream through twists and bends I thought would never end. Suddenly the dream began to fade to that mighty sound of the drum and I was lifted up out of the river and down below I could see how it twisted and ran for eons in all directions and it was then I realized that this river was my blood, I was witnessing my own ancestral river inside of myself.
Holding this realization I awoke in a haze like state and when I would move my arm I was aware of all of my ancestors moving with me. My heart raced and I could still feel the burning beat of the drum in my ears when a voice spoke in my mind.
“I am my Ancestors.”
This thought will never leave me now and has become an integral part of the way I work with the spirits of this world and the other.
I’ve often been asked “What is the value of working with Ancestors”
For me that answer is easy for they are the only reason I am here. Any gifts that I possess in this world are theirs which they have given to me through their bloodlines. It’s almost as if by looking backwards and acknowledging our roots we allow ourselves to finally drink from an untapped well of spiritual potential that has the ability to make all facets of our lives more in line with our destiny.
I once asked a Christian man if god spoke to him and he replied, “Sometimes”.
The Christian man asked me, “Does God speak to you?”
Without thinking I replied, “My Ancestors speak to me.”
He nodded and continued his meditation and I sat for a long time holding this idea of what the ancestors are when you consider the multitude of individuals who have come before us. If all of them felt, spoke and expressed themselves as one, what would the significance of that be.
I have my own thoughts and feelings on this and welcome any of your own.
Thank you for sharing your story. I found it quite beautiful and profound.
Many thanks…Please come by again.
I’m really excited to read your column.
I’ve wanted to learn more about and incorporate my Ancestors into my spiritual practice for a while now, but I’m stymied as to how to do that. A major stumbling block for me is that my family is very atomized. We’re all spread out across the country and have minimal contact with each other. My family has a big problem with mental illnesses and we’re all very difficult to live with. My mother threw my brother and me in her car and moved us 1500 miles across country in the middle of winter because two of her sisters and her mother literally drove her to a minor break down. And it’s been like this for generations, so there are no stories handed down in my family, no family traditions, and no sense of connection. The men in my family (including my own father) tend to be complete non-entities, usually abandoning their wives and children after a few years of marriage. Like, literally the only thing I know about my maternal grandfather is that his name was Robert and he tried to kill my grandmother twice.
A few weeks ago I signed up for a free trial at Ancestry.com and tried to find out more about my family that way, but I couldn’t find a damn thing. I found my parents’ divorce notice, one of my grandmothers’ obituary, and the location of my eldest aunt’s grave. That’s it.
One of my aunts is a Mormon and her husband is big into genealogy because of that. I’m trying to gather the courage to ask him for whatever he’s found on my side of the family and for advice on where to go from there. He and my aunt give the hard sell for Mormonism even when you *don’t* express any interest in what they’re doing. The slightest bit of curiosity can ramp up the pressure and they can get pretty aggressive and emotionally manipulative. So it’ll be a trial.
I hear this situation often and its usually that the immediate result is that the person turns their back on the spiritual opportunity of ancestral connection because they don’t sync with their immediate relations.
We all carry a profound history with us…Even if our recent relations seem like vile beings of chaos, its important to remember that we are all descended from champions, artisans, leaders, seekers, survivors. In your blood is the spirits of conquerers, lovers, poets and queens.
This is something beyond a mystical revelation that you might have been Cleopatra in a past life. This is a literal fact that in your body is the knowledge, experience and potential to shine like the sun.
A good friend recently told me his story…The great parts, the sad parts and reaching further he found strength, he proclaimed “My family is descended from Rollo!” And for a brief moment, I saw the Duke of Normandy in his eyes. I saw men and women sailing across the oceans in vast boats, armour of iron and leather, hunters of boar and bear.
Its impossible to deny that everyones blood is teeming with ancestral memory.
I work with ancestors on a regular basis, but I have the good fortune to have several lines traced back to the 15th century. I just wanted to add that in addition to our literal/lineal ancestors, we have access to “horizontal” ancestry via the collective unconscious. When we open ourselves up to the collective experience of the human race, we find guardians, guides, inspirations, and daemons galore. No matter what we’re going through, somebody’s experienced it before and can provide guidance in ritual space and even in everyday life.
Ahhh Grant. Your writing is so vivid for me. I really enjoyed reading this. Working with the ancestors is an honor. Having their dna in our blood allows us to BE with them always. The connection continues from the beyond. The journeys we have to meet them, sit so profound in our souls allowing the sparks of remembrance back to the present. It is so beautiful. Glimpses of what we see in our shamanic journeys are just so darned amazing! Yes……..we are our ancestors.
Blessings friend,
Cindy