I completed my ancestor work last week.
I started it 7 years ago.
This is some of the most significant shamanic work I have done.
I followed the guidance of Daniel Foor, offered in his book Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. (This work can be approached by visualizing or by journeying.)
My first task was to journey and ask for an image of these 4 lineages:
-My paternal grandfather and the men before him.
-My paternal grandmother and the women before her.
-My maternal grandmother and the women before her.
-My maternal grandfather and the men before him.
In this initial journey I perceived a sense of each group – their level of well-being, their burdens. I rated them with a number from 1-10 that indicated their wellness.
I asked for guidance from my spirit teacher on where to start …and I began with my paternal grandfather’s lineage.
Now my mission was to journey back along the lineage until I perceived a person that was well and loving and willing to work with me – and who had a positive and vibrant relationship with their ancestors back to it’s beginning. I found “Michael of Wales” who taught me about the blessings and burdens of the lineage, about who they were. For example, sacred geometry and astrology were threads in their lives, they are aligned closely with the element of Water and they love to dance. Already I felt “home” because I also love the ocean, to swim and dance.
Michael lived in a hut near a pond and I got to know him, swam in his pond, sat by his campfire for several talks. He and “The Choir” – the name I was given for the men who came before him – assisted me in bringing the ancestral blessings of the lineage forward to the present, to myself, to my cousins and his other living descendants unknown to me. The process occurred through many guided meditations that are provided in the book. The individuals and generations between Michael’s life and my life had lost the ancestral connection. There ware varied levels of balance and wellbeing in the lives I encountered. The healing, for individuals and sometimes groups, occurred in various ways – in connection with the earth, by sitting in council, always completed with a group dance in the nearby water. The circle of wellness and the circle of ancestors in the water grew as the months of my work went on. It took 14 months.
There are times when the work is daily, times when it’s sporadic, and times when it can take a break, although I always sustain my connection to the lineage with a song, visit to my altar, or another reminder during that time of focus.
I proceeded to continue the work, as guided, with the lineage of my German maternal grandmother and the women before her.
This time, after researching the names of those in the lineage, I travelled a long long way back in time to find an ancestral guide who was well and loving, willing to help, and had a positive and vibrant relationship with her ancestors. I connected with a small woman named Paupo who lived in a cave in what felt was near or in current-day India! Surprise! I spent some memorable time there. Early on I found myself by the fire outside the cave, feeding the fire and learning of their sun worship and meeting the dragon that was their protector (and is now my ally as well). The “Ancient Ones” before Paupo were even smaller women in white robes and seemed Japanese to me. They were distant from me in a large circle and I didn’t interact with them. They were present in support of the healing work. Paupo and her people were sun worshippers and at first I was guided to sit in the sun daily in an exercise of connection with the sun and healing for myself and for the lineage. I later journeyed often to the sun and learned a song of love and connection with Fire.
I worked with Paupo intensively for 9 months, but it felt like a very long time. As time went by, we often sat by the nearby river in a healing/teaching circle where family members and close others from my present life were brought for healing. Later the the process I visited the cave and the larger family. When the work of bringing the blessing of the ancestors forward to the present and the healing of the lineage began, I learned that these gentle people were conquered by a Germanic tribe, enslaved, and eventually intermarried – which accounts for my German grandma. The trauma of this time was overwhelming. The healing took many sessions over centuries.
It was deeply impactful to know about this time of my ancestors being enslaved, and I was protected in the journeys. Dragon was always present, and the wounded ancestors were contained inside a sacred stone wall for my protection and for the protection of the ancestors. As the healing took place, the healed ones took their place with the well ancestors before them.
I feel a deep alliance with Paupo as I walk forward, I do not think of her often these days, but when I do, there is a special closeness between us. I feel her beautiful and kind presence. She is a sister.
Now I deeply understood the value of the work I had undertaken, and I had 2 lineages more to work with.
The next lineage was more challenging.
I will continue in another post.
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8 hummingbird way 