Connecting With Ancestors

Who are Ancestors?

Ancestors can be people from your lineage such as distant relatives and those part of your family tree. These can also be people from your cultural heritage that you share a commonality with. They can be viewed as elders in your cultural background. Ancestors can provide guidance, wisdom and messages to help you in your every day life and your spiritual journey.

In a way, they can be compared to spirit guides/guardian angels in that they can work with you to help you achieve your goals in this life. However, they have a blood connection to you and are more closely connected to this physical world as they have lived in it previously. Some spirit guides have never taken a physical form while others have.Spirit guides have chosen to become guides based on their knowledge and skills in certain areas which they work closely with you for the purpose that aligns with their expertise. While you have a spirit guide family, the ancestors are your lineage and cultural family. They are part of who you are. You share a cultural DNA marker with them passed down through generations. You can choose to work with them in magic and spell crafting, seek guidance from them or understand yourself, your background and discover more about patterns and behaviors that are generational or have been inherited in the family, for better or foe worse. You can also work with your Ancestors/have your ancestors work with you through shadow work, which can in-turn can help break generational curses and heal generational trauma.

Ways to work with your Ancestors

Here are some ways to work and communicate with your ancestors:

• Create an ancestor altar/shrine it is a great place to join forces with your passed loved ones in divination, shadow work, spell work and anything else to help you reach your goals. It’s always nice to have a support system to help you in your spiritual practice and what better people to connect with than your ancestors! Having a shared space with your ancestors helps them to feel welcome to offer guidance and assistance if needed. An ancestor shrine although similar to an altar is different within various traditions and cultures. The shrine is a dedicated area in the home, usually it is set up all year round and is a place to honor loved ones and ancestors through prayers and offerings. Ancestor shrines are meant to be treated as sacred places to worship and prayer to honor those in our bloodline. Whether you choose to have an altar and or shrine, having a special place for you to meet your ancestors will help to open the lines of communication.

  
  

• Spend time at your altar/shrine, light a scented candle and reminisce with them! You can even flip through photo albums too. Talk about your day or goals that you have in mind. Spirit loves to be recognized and acknowledged, it makes them feel included in your life! Leave an offering, show gratitude, be humble.

  
  

• Research your family lineage. There are so many ways to search your family’s ancestry line, drawing is closer to our families history. Taking the time to follow your family lineage is a way to open communication not only with the ancestors that you are familiar with, but even those you didn’t even know existed. Don't worry if you don't know much about your family tree, you can discover a lot using an at home DNA kit to trace your cultural heritage. The more we know about our past, the more insight we will get for our future.

Offerings for your Ancestors

Leaving offerings on your altar or shrine is a great way to show appreciation, love, and dedication. Offerings of fresh fruit, bread, water, tea, wine can usually be sourced from ones own kitchen! Flowers from the garden, finds from a nature walk, freshly fallen leaves from a tree, stones from a river bed all make wonderful altar/shrine adornments to show thanks and appreciation to your loved ones and ancestors.

Dream with your ancestors

As a way to enter our subconscious gently our ancestors will visit us in our dreams. This is a way for them to communicate with us when our minds are less distracted and more receptive. You can ask your ancestors to connect with you through dreams.

Dream Ritual:

Before you go to bed, light an incense, meditate for a few minutes and focus on your ancestors/loved ones. Light a (small) white candle. Talk to your ancestors, ask them for guidance, ask them for protection, ask them to work with you in (whatever you need), ask them to send you signs or come to you in dreams. Start a dream journal if you ask for dreams. Every morning write down anything you remember from your dream (names, places, colors, sounds, people, animals, symbols, numbers, shapes, smells, ANY small detail you remember)

Connect with your ancestors by making a dream pillow

You can include items like lavender, chamomile and crystals like amethyst and selenite, and also add something to connect your energy to theirs.

Photos of your loved ones are helpful to add to your dream pillow, or an item that belonged to them of you have it. Items that they touched regularly while they were alive still hold those energy and can help form a connection.

You can use things like jewelry, movie stubs, keys, hair clips, business cards, clothes or favorite scent or flower. You can get as creative as you want. If you don’t have anything that they touched then choose items they would like.

If you don't know the ancestor but want to connect with your cultural ancestors in general, you can use a picture of the area of origin, the national flag, written words in the native language, flowers native to the region, etc.!

The dream pillow will help you interpret their messages more clearly. You can put the items in a small draw string bag, satchel, or pouch and place in or under your pillow or in your pillowcase while you sleep.

Keep a journal nearby to write down the details of your dreams.

Dedicate a crystal to your ancestors

Choose a crystal or stone, one that you only intend to use only with connecting with your ancestors. The crystal can be programmed to link you to your bloodline either during meditation,ritual or by carrying it on you in times of need. Hold it in the palm of your hand when you’re wanting to call upon ancestors and focus their presence.

Crystals such as Selenite, Lapis Lazuli Black Obsidian, and Sodalite, are especially helpful for connecting to the other side and opening the doors to communication. All you need to do is hold it in the palm on your hands and set the intentions for those crystals. You can say I will use this crystal for clear communication and connecting with my ancestors. Spend a few minutes thinking about how happy you will be using the crystal to connect with your ancestors and that’s it your intention is set, that is your new Ancestor Stone!

Notice The signs

Signs are everywhere, you just have to notice them. They can be as subtle as a cardinal landing on fence in front of you or as obvious as an overwhelming smell you associate with a loved one like a certain perfume, lotion, even food or a cigar. They can send you signs of their presence and also indicators and messages regarding questions you have asked them, lessons you are to learn, events in your life, etc.. The more you work with your ancestors the better you will become at reading and interpreting their messages, signs, and symbols.

Food for thought

2 parents

4 grand parents

8 great-grandparents

16 second great-grandparents

32 third great-grandparents

64 fourth great-grandparents

128 fifth great-grandparents

256 sixth great-grandparents

512 seventh great-grandparents

1,024 eighth great-grandparents

2,048 ninth great-grandparents

'For you to be born today from 12 previous generations you need a total of 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years.

Imagine the stories they could tell and the lives that they lived, and now, you shine-on in the world, a testimony of their survival.

Ancestrial Invocation Spell

You will need: IncenseA candle (any color)

Preform:Light the incense, meditate quietly over the unlit candle.

Try to feel the ancestral connection within you.

Feel for the roots of your spirit.

Light your candle and say:

By water, by earth, by wind, and by fireI call on my Ancestors to hear my desire

I call them forth now, but not by their names

I call them by blood, I summon with flames.

(speak freely, tell them what you want/need help with/would like to learn, etc.!) Thank them for coming and for their assistance. Ask them to please return again when you summon them in the future (by flame for example) and tell them they are not forgotten.

When you're finished, thank them again and release them!

Leave a special offering out on your altar dedicated to your ancestors.(You can leave fruit as an offering and when it starts to turn, toss out for nature to consume!)

Tarot Spreads

Ancestral Tarot Spread

Create a space for a 3 card spread

Card 1: Place/position/symbol of ancestor communicating

Card 2: Their message for you now/present

Card 3: Their message for things/situations to come/future if you maintain current path.

Ancestral Guidance Spread

Card 1: The problem - what is causing the current issue

Card 2: The suggested action - what do I do in this current situation

Card 3: Going forward - what do I need to work on going forward

Ancestral Answers Spread: Yes or No

Ask the question, very specifically, with as much detail as possible while shuffling your deck.

The answer:

Card 1: yes or no - reasoned with interpretation

Card 2: yes or no - reasoned with interpretation

Card 3: yes or no - reasoned with interpretation

If 2/3 cards say yes, then the answer is yes. If 2/3 cards say no, then the answer is no.