Ancestral Medicine

it is critical to know that we have choice and, conversely, that we acknowledge their choice with respect to our own agenda.

The underlying premise, again, is that the ancestors are as real as we are, so we need to respect their reality and space rather than collapsing our identity into theirs. Establishing healthy boundaries can prevent energetic intrusion from the troubled dead, as well as enable you to decline an invitation from the loving ancestors to merge with them

The loving and wise ancestors (also called ancestral guides or elevated ancestors) wish well for their living descendants, and many ancestor rituals emphasize bringing blessings, healing, and guidance from these ancestors into this dimension.

We are bonded with the ancestors as life to death, light to shadow. The choice is not whether or not to be in relationship with them, but whether or not these relationships will be conscious and reciprocal.

our ancestors include both the remembered dead and those ancestors whose names are forgotten. Both our recent and our older, collective ancestors influence our identity and sense of place in the world; ideally we will include both in our practices of ancestor reverence.

Remember: your loving and elevated ancestors have a vested interest in your well-being, and the more you begin to know them in the spirit of forgiveness, the more you can access (or draw upon) their support.

Lineage can be experienced as a kind of collective consciousness composed of the individual ancestral spirits in any given line. Recent family ancestors may take on the quality of lineage, such as a deceased parent who seems connected in spirit with their parents and grandparents. When the spirit of a recent ancestor merges with the greater lineage

unhealed emotional pain from a past relationship can keep a living person from relating to supportive ancestral spirits in the present.

Three key lessons I have learned are: (1) the work is about relationship; (2) everyone has loving ancestors; and (3) relating to our ancestors is entirely normal.