ANCESTORS
The very word “ancestors” can conjure up so much for so many of us. And what comes up will vary, depending on what you learned along the road of your life. For many of us, the very idea is made completely taboo, which can be very limiting when you think about it, can’t it? And yet, ancestral practice has been a huge part of the human experience for millennia.
Our life experiences have a great deal to do with the stories we were taught – stories about ourselves and about the world, too. I know that growing up in the northeastern part of the United States, we were told that ancestors were either a) those whose graves you visited at the cemetery or b) some sort of voodoo worship done primarily in deepest darkest Africa. This was a bit of an issue for me as I had quite the relationship going with those I called “The Old People”, even at a very young age. I thought that everyone had old people at their disposal and was shocked when I mentioned them one day, when I was maybe eight years old, and was told that “The Old People” didn’t exist, that I should never talk about them again and was rather severely beaten for questioning why. Perhaps The Old People had come to me because my parents weren’t really equipped to be parenting, but it was made clear to me that I must abandon them, post haste. And read my bible every day for a month, to boot.
I did that and would read it from front to back a few more times before I finally gave up trying to reconcile my home life with the values the Bible taught. And then I moved on, meeting The Old People in my dreams and feeling a great deal of shame and guilt about it as I did. In time, I focused on what I was taught at church and then on experimenting with other ways to sooth myself. In early adulthood, I tried the psychological approach, of course, but that led to mismedication, mistreatment of PTSD and finally a suicide attempt. The Old People returned, luckily, while I was in hospital recovering from that particular adventure and this time, I welcomed them without question. I did my research on ancestral practices throughout the world and throughout time and realized what a fundamental loss most Western cultures had sustained in giving up what is really a base human need. A support system, a belonging, a gift.
Decades later, I’m fortunate enough to live in a culture here in South Africa which has never fully lost its connection to its ancestral roots. Like many parts of the world, colonizers here demanded that the indigenous people take Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or lose their livelihoods or even their lives. Which would have been quite enough, I think but no – they were taught that their traditional practices were evil and would lead them straight to hell, that they must cease their ceremonies, their phahla, or prayer, their very ways of being in the world. As happened all around the world, many of them never returned to the old ways and as often also happens, life has never been quite right.
I feel that it’s time, maybe past time, to restore this element of life to humanity. A lot of the work I do with clients centers around connecting with their literal ancestors through mediumship and on tools which allow finding their own path to developing a relationship with spiritual guides as well. Obviously appropriating ceremony and ritual from other cultures isn’t ideal for most yet there are unlimited ways to create this kind of connection in a way that speaks to each individual.
Imagine how the world would change if we all knew we belonged, that we had a beloved safety net with us through all of life’s twists and turns, from the time we were tiny. If we knew that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
If you’re interested in hearing more about this subject and the new self-led program I’m developing around ancestors or in booking a virtual session, just drop me an email via this link. You’ll find me chatting about it, too, on YouTube or on Tiktok and IG - @christacreating in the days to come. I look forward to exploring this with you.