You are Your Ancestor’s Wildest Dreams
/Once upon a time, your people lived in a world where everything was alive.
Spider web vibrating in the evening breeze, roses sparkling with dew in the dawn light, deer hunted from the dark forest… all connected in an endless tapestry of interbeing. Everything had a place, a purpose and a message worthy of being heard.
The fact that you’re alive today makes you an outlandishly unlikely success story. Your people braved floods, an ice age, starvation, war, slavery, persecution and migration to bring you here.
While our great, great grandmothers couldn’t have dreamed of our technological accomplishments, we are now dreaming of the world of ecological harmony and communal cohesion in which they lived as we seek to reclaim an ancient future ensuring the survival of life on Earth.
Samhain: The Season of the Ancestors
Six months ago, a surge of energy from the Otherworld lit up the northern hemisphere with vibrant color as Spring was pushed through the birth canal at Beltane. Shoots bravely pushing through soil, baby bird cries filling the air, sap dancing just below the surface of the Maple tree - everything awakening from winter’s void, from the watery safety of the womb to discover the oxygen rich earthly plane.
Meanwhile the southern hemisphere was receiving an equally robust infusion of power as the Otherworld portal opened, this time not to birth life, but to an equally miraculous transformation - to accept life’s ultimate and essential offering to the cyclical mystery of creation - the death of the year.
Birth and death - two sides of the same coin.
The Celtic season of Samhain (pronounced Sow-in or sow-hain), as the halfway point between Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice, radiates with the magic of release. Globally, this time of the year has been known to diverse cultures as the season of the ancestors. As leaves fall and the days grow shorter, the ever permeable membrane between this world and the Otherworld is thin and open for connection.
Your People Honored Their Ancestors
Indigenous cultures that live close to the Earth’s cycles understand that everything is alive - this way of knowing is called animism. Once upon a time, your people were indigenous to a land.
For the vast majority of your DNA’s history, in your people’s way of being, ancestor honoring was a central responsibility of communal life, as it kept the tribe united in both the seen and unseen realms.
While we, the living, have the precious and all too short-lived gift of being able to shape the physical world through action, our ancestors, unlimited by time + space, have the stronger advantage of being able to pluck the energetic chords that lay the framework for what’s possible in the 3D.
As colonialism increasingly devours indigenous communities, ancestor tending becomes less and less common but is still alive at Dia De Los Muertos in Mexico, Oban in Japan and the Celtic holiday of Samhain.
This simple practice lives in our blood and bones. As we seek ways of being that support continued survival, more and more of us are remembering this practice and calling on the support, blessings and wisdom of our ancestors.
Which Story Do You Choose?
If we live in a mechanistic, anthropocentric universe where humans are the only beings with consciousness and the rest of the world is simply made for us, ancestor honoring doesn’t make sense. All that matters is what can be seen or quantified.
If we reweave ourselves back into the ancient story, cut from its roots by the double sided coin of technological medicine, electricity, urbanization and the never ending force of destruction know as colonialism and neocolonialism, we see that this world and the Otherworld constantly inform each other.
Reclaiming not only the philosophy of animism, but the embodied experience of animism - that everything is interconnected in a never-ending web of pulsating consciousness - is an essential part of the global awakening occurring en masse on Planet Earth.
So, anthropocentrism or animism - Which story do you choose?
One way to honor the ancestors during Samhain season is to create a simple altar with fresh flowers.
What are Potential Benefits of Ancestor Work?
🎃Be inspired on your journey of healing negative family patterns in your own life
🎃Clear the way for greater health for your descendants
🎃Tap into the collective wisdom of humankind
🎃Receive advice, guidance, support, and blessings
Medicine Words from Amber Magnolia Hill
“You come from a long line of healers, midwives, songstresses, herbalists, dancers, birth-givers, artists, and wise folk.
You are a direct descendent of powerful visionaries and earthwise geniuses, and their ancient knowing resonates today deep in your marrow.
These are not empty platitudes or the wishful thinking of modern spiritual yearners; these statements are genealogical fact.
They lived in a time when everyone was in a state of constant direct communion with the earth and sky, with the animals and herbs, with the water and weather. They couldn’t survive otherwise.
They lived in a time when knowledge of the body- the magic of healing and the holiness of sex and the miracle of birth and the necessity of death- was held by every member of the tribe. They couldn’t thrive otherwise.
They lived in a time when reverence and a sense of the sacred spoke to them in hallowed whispers throughout the mundane tasks of daily life. They couldn’t find meaning in the universe otherwise.
Today many of us ache for these old ways, yearn for the wisdom that seems so inaccessible to us in our denatured, hyper-speed modern life.
The dearth of this once commonplace wisdom has led to a craving in our culture so intense that it leads many to embrace nonsense, sometimes dangerous, teachings in an attempt to feel connected to something, anything, sacred.
This need not be the case. For those of us who hunger for a deeper spirituality, the simplest, realest, most powerful, and most personally meaningful way to find it is to find our ancestors.”
Practices for Deepening Your Connection to Your People
The more we open ourselves to great mystery the more great mystery opens itself to us.
Ancestors need not just include your blood relations but can also include the ancestors of the land on which you live as well as teachers in lineages in which you practice.
Ancestors most commonly communicate through dreams, intuition and synchronicities so be open, receptive and perceptive in the days and weeks after these practices.
Practice #1 Create a Nature Ancestor Altar
A powerful practice to mark Samhain is to create a simple ancestor altar in your home. Ancestors need not just include your blood relations but can also include the ancestors of the land on which you live as well as teachers in lineages in which you practice.
Start by sitting quietly with the intention to honor your ancestors, known and unknown, and to receive their blessings. Breathe into that intention for a few moments. If you feel called, practice any grounding or connection practices that drop you in to a receptive space (a Body-Mind Freedom video, breath work, oracle card draw, holding a crystal, etc.)
Lay down a small cloth or pillow case in your chosen altar spot. Go on a walk outdoors, immersing yourself with curiosity, allow yourself to be drawn to any objects in n nature that call you (flowers, dried leaves, feathers, etc). Ask for permission to take them, especially if they are still alive. Listen to your intuition for when you feel done.
Return and arrange your treasures in any way that your artistic sensibilities invite while remembering and breathing into your original intention. Feel free to add any items from your home that hold ancestor energy for you (family heirlooms, antiques, etc.)
Once finished, bow inward, thanking the ancestors for making connection.
Return daily throughout Samhain season, even if it’s just to smile down and remember your intention or ask for blessing and guidance from those who’ve successfully navigate this maze called a human life
Practice #2 Ancestor Dinner
One thing all of our ancestors did was eat! Do you think they miss food and the sensual pleasures of this rare human life? Either way, it's powerful to acknowledge them with the most human of acts - eating!
Far more than now, our ancestors generally gathered to eat in groups, this is often where traditional wisdom was shared in the form of stories.
Host an entire dinner for your ancestors, either solo or by inviting friends and family. You can honor a particular ancestor by placing their picture at the table or you can create one space at the table that is an offering to all the ancestors - known and unknown. If you're serving an ancestor you knew make sure to make their favorite food or pour them a shot of their favorite whiskey or tea. If you're honoring your lineage, cook foods from your indigenous country - foods your people might recognize. If you aren’t the adventurous chef- just make yourself and/or your friends and family a meal but set an extra plate with an empty chair and plate.
If you do this in the community, each person can invite an ancestor and the chair can symbolize them all. Either serve them a plate or have each person go around and share a story or two about the ancestor they invited then place some food on the plate. Celebrate their lives while you enjoy yours - have fun with it!
After laying out their plate, speak to them aloud with gratitude as you bless your food before eating, letting them know that you appreciate their presence and their blessings and how they contributed to your life. Catch them up on the last year's events. This can be fun when done with family and friends as you all get a chance to summarize what was most meaningful for you this year and share that with each other.
At the end of the meal, offer the plate to the spirits of the land you live on, scooping the food under a tree or somewhere it will nourish the land if you live in a place where that is possible. Otherwise, compost it to acknowledge that this food is the body of the ancestors.
Watch your dreams tonight as often the ancestors repay you with cryptic wisdom!
Practice #3 Talk to Your Ancestors
That’s right. Out loud. Just like you would a friend. Catching them up on their lineage, your life, ask for blessings or healing for your living family line or ask how you can support them - consciously get them on your team.
Our ancestors recognize us doing things they also did, like washing dishes, walking outdoors, cooking, raising children but not so much using modern technology. These simple mundane tasks where we often ‘space out’ are perfect opportunities to speak, aloud if possible, or silently, to an ancestor you’d like to make contact with.
I find walking in nature the best time to talk to my grandma. She doesn’t speak back in worlds but when I ask for help I generally feel a surge of life force in my body or a sense of assured clarity or that’s the moment a gust of wind chooses to blow or a hawk calls and lands nearby on a tree to gaze at me. Even more often I experience a synchronistic event or a dream that day or week that guides me towards my next step.
The feeling of support we can receive from this simple, short practice that lets our people know that they are remembered can be uncanny, filtering into our day as an increased lightened, optimism and presence.
Practice #4: Tea Meditation Ritual
Your ancestors made herbal infusions for healing, as medicine and for pleasure. Next time you make tea for pleasure, do it mindfully as a meditation and allow yourself to move through time as if you have the body of your great grandmothers. Ask that the tea nourish your health and that of your descendents. Sip it slowly and mindfully while sitting outdoors, if you can. Receive the fullness of its medicine knowing that with this act you are transcending linear time and honoring the memory of those who came before and the healing plants that we all use to nourish our health. Release the tea/herbal leaves directly to the Earth as an offering, knowing that, like the bodies of your ancestors, they will now nourish the soil and the whole web of life. Say a simple prayer of gratitude for your life as a gift you've been given through the strength of your people and ask that you might find the same purpose and strength to offer your gifts fully to the world.
Practice #5 Spirit Plate
You can honor your people with food in a less elaborate and more casual ritual by simply bringing a small plate to the table with you when you eat. Take a small bit of each item and place it on the plate as an offering to the spirits. As each person sacrifices a bit of their meal, each can drop in to the feeling of that gratitude to be alive and gratitude for all the love, sacrifices and devotion that brought them to the gift of this life. Just like the ancestor dinner, make sure to offer this food back to the land with gratitude instead of just throwing it away.
Please let us know how your Samhain ancestor rituals went in the comments below!