SACRED ROOTS

In my opinion, the only mandatory belief would be an acknowledgment that there is at least some part of us that continues after the death of the body. The ancestral healing process I use involves meeting and building a relationship with a wise and well, fully healed, vibrant ancestor guide. Through this guide, we witness the healing of all the ones that are not-yet-well. Given that, we need to at least hold an idea that there is something that continues to exist after physical death.

Beyond that, there aren’t any particular beliefs that I would call required, but I have found a few philosophies to be helpful and enriching:

The Dead Can Change

It really does help the work of ancestral healing when we can allow for the dead to be mutable beings. Just like us, they are capable of transformation. Holding them in a fixed state can create a challenge or obstacle to any healing work.

This means that no matter how awful Uncle Raymond was in life, we do not have think of him as awful for eternity. Likewise, Aunt Sarah isn’t necessarily exalted into an eternal state of flawless perfection upon death. The aspect of the ancestors that we connect with and work with is the part of them that isn’t so different from you and I. In many ways, they are still very much like the living. Embracing their ability to change allows the work to unfold with depth and compassion.

The Self is a Collective

After a lot of studying, pondering, and dialoguing with my guides, here’s how I’ve come to define the self (at least for now):

We are collectives. We are concentrations and configurations of parts. We are collaborations and harmonies. We are not single entities. What appears to be this single being is, in actuality, a container for the relationships among a vast number of entities.

It is no stretch to say: We are relationship itself.

The ancestors and the descendants are part of this collective. Each one of us is the living face—the incarnated one—in a great work of art that every generation’s hands have touched. We are their altar and their hope; their foundation and their remembrance.

Through healing the ancestors, we illuminate this masterpiece, positively impacting the past, present and future.

All is Alive and an Expression of Consciousness

When we grasp that everything is alive and conscious, as in animism or panpsychism, we begin to view life through the lens of connection rather than hierarchy. This perspective enriches our work with the ancestors by dissolving the boundaries between us and them. We come to see ourselves as part of a living, interconnected web that includes living humans, the ancestors, as well as everything that fits the description of “other than living human”. This worldview also reconnects us with the ancient understanding that there is no separation between the spiritual and the material. In other words, we get to restore our relationship with the Earth and all that is around us.

We Can Learn to Hold All That Is Sacred

One of my favorite parts of working with the ancestors is coming to know what their lives were like. A big part of this is learning what was sacred and Divine to them when they were alive. Once we know about these things, it’s natural to want to show reverence for these traditions in our own lives.

Because our ancestors come from myriad backgrounds, these sacred beliefs are often at-odds with one another, even irreconcilable. Yet, in this diversity lies an opportunity for profound integration. We have within us the capacity to be with paradox, to hold seemingly opposing truths. With the guidance of our wise ancestors, we can open ourselves to all the sacred traditions of our lineages, finding ways to reconcile the meaning of each within us.

Perhaps even more importantly, as the living representatives of our lineages, we get to choose our own path to Divinity. We may be drawn to just one of our ancestral traditions, or to a path that our ancestors never even knew, and that’s okay. The healed ancestors rejoice in learning new ways of honoring the Divine through us.

In short, there is no need to conform to a specific religion or spiritual tradition to work with and love our ancestors. They meet us where we are, in all our diversity, with open hearts and a deep desire for connection.

The short answer here is no, not at all. It is our birthright to be in connection with our ancestors. It is not something that is only reserved for those who might consider themselves to be mediums or psychics. We are innately designed to know and access our connection with our ancestors.

In fact, one of my teachers was fond of saying that we have a relationship with our ancestors whether we want it or not; it’s simply a matter of deciding to become aware of it. We can choose to turn towards them and intentionally cultivate a relationship, which, again, takes no special abilities.

We don't have to already know how to talk to the dead, nor do we need to know our family trees to any extent. All of these skills and knowledge will come to us as needed once we begin doing the work.

Practice widens the path

I know it's not anyone's favorite answer, but being able to relate with “the other side” simply comes through practice. It’s a lot like learning a new language. The more we use it, the more fluent we become. It is also through practice that we learn to trust in the ways we connect with the ancestors; we learn to stop questioning what arises or thinking that we just made it up.

Getting this practice is one of the built-in benefits of the Sacred Roots class. As we go through this journey together, we ease into this expanded way of relating. With each step of the process, we get to work our perceiving muscles a little bit more and so by the end of the year it will be second nature to us. Plus, it’s been my experience that doing this sort of practice in a community setting is all the more potent. 

The art of allowing

In addition to practice, I’ve also found that connecting with the ancestors is more fulfilling when I have a mindset of allowing rather than trying. It’s simply a shift towards being receptive to connection versus reaching out for it. The healed, vibrant, wise & well ancestors are already reaching towards us. All we have to do is open up a little bit and allow that connection to come through, knowing that whatever it is, it’s enough.

All kinds of wonderful things start to happen when we allow for these connections in our lives. One of my favorites is when we learn the origins of some of those repeating patterns of struggle we’ve been enduring over and over again. Through allowing, we come to see how these wounds have been passed down from generation to generation, that they are inherited and not of our creating. We can then set down the burden of blaming ourselves for these wounds. Many aspects of healing can come through the simple act of allowing the collective of vibrant ancestors to be integrated into our lives.

This journey is not about needing to become something more, but about returning to who we have always been—beings deeply connected to those who came before us. As we step into this work, we do so not just for ourselves, but for the collective of our lineages and for those who will come after us.

In the end, the invitation is simple: to allow, to connect, to relate. It is through these acts that we honor our ancestors and ourselves. And it is through these acts that we begin to heal the wounds of the past, not through any special skills or knowledge, but by simply being open, curious, and willing to show up.

Most of us have at least some ancestors that weren’t our favorite kind of people. Some ancestors caused harm, sometimes even to us directly. There are also ancestors that we might find a little boring or we feel embarrassed about the way they lived their lives. Others among us may have never had a close relationship with our parents, let alone our grandparents or great-grandparents. Whether due to estrangement or simply not having the opportunity to know them, it’s understandable that we might question the value of forming a connection with those whose presence we never enjoyed while they were alive.

To me, ancestral healing is never about forcing something we don’t want or have no interest in. It’s simply about tending our roots so that they are the most nourishing foundation they can be. And we get to choose what feels nourishing for us.

One thing I’ve found helpful for clarifying how we want to relate with our roots is to expand our idea of what the ancestors are.

What are ancestors anyway?

It’s actually a bigger question than it might at first appear. When we look to the Proto-Indo-European roots of the word, we get something like ant=front and ked=to go. Although we could get into metaphysics and concepts of reincarnation—or animism and our other-than-human kin—for now, let’s go with the simple definition that ancestors are those who came before.

It seems to me that there’s a tendency to think of the ancestors as just the last several generations. Any of the ancestors whose names we might know, however, are but a tiny sliver of those who came before. The vast majority of our ancestors existed long before there were written records or family trees. And these much older dead are the ones we can choose to relate with, the ones who can be our nourishing foundation.

Relating with trusted guides

If relating with certain ancestors doesn’t feel nourishing, then that never needs to be a part of your ancestral healing journey.

In fact, through the ancestral healing process that I use, we never interact directly with any unwell, or yet-to-be-healed dead. Instead, we come to know our trustworthy guides and build a strong relationship with them. It is these guides who relate directly with the unwell dead, directing the healing process, while we witness.

One of the things these guides do is to contain the yet-to-be-healed dead—including the ones who caused harm. Through this, we stop being as impacted by their energy. Many people have experienced great relief from simply having this barrier placed between them and their unwell ancestors.

Once all the people of a particular lineage are healed—are fully well and vibrant in spirit—we can then choose if we want an ongoing relationship with them. Maybe we’ll decide that we still don’t want anything to do with them; or maybe we’ll find that we do want to forge a new relationship with them now that they are well in spirit.

In all cases, the choice is ours.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning

While forgiveness is one of the steps in the healing process, it never means that we have to like, or condone, or get over, any harm that was done to us. For the purposes of this healing work, forgiveness simply means unhooking from the energy of the wound so that it can move. We don't have to confront those who caused the harm, but we do get the opportunity to speak our grievances.

The collective of vibrant, healed ancestors is definitely worth knowing

When we don’t limit our concept of ancestry to only a few individuals from the more recent past, we can give ourselves the gift of coming to know the vast collective of wise and well beings who always have our backs.

Connecting with our vibrant, healed collective of ancestors is like stepping into an ocean of wisdom and love that transcends time. It’s the feeling of being deeply seen and understood by those who came before us, who now stand in their wholeness, free from the wounds they once carried. Their presence is electric, alive with the richness of lived experience, and they offer us an endless well of support, guidance, and protection. When we open ourselves to them, we’re not just tapping into individual lives but accessing the entire, unified tapestry of their knowledge, their joys, their resilience. They remind us that we are never alone, that their strength is our strength, and that the love they pour into us is boundless, empowering us to carry their legacy forward with grace and purpose. It is an intimate, profound relationship, one that heals across generations and awakens within us a deep sense of belonging and interconnectedness with all that is.

Yes, the Divine can heal the dead, and in some cases, the dead can heal themselves. But there's great value in the living playing an active role in this process. One reason is that our ancestors, including the unwell ones, are part of us. When we witness their healing, we also witness our own. The wounds they carry can ripple through generations, affecting us in ways we may not fully realize. By consciously engaging in healing these wounds, we help break cycles of harm and restore balance within ourselves and our family lines.

Another important reason is that, as incarnated beings, we are uniquely positioned to do this work. We embody the timeline that stretches across our lineages, making us closer to the events and experiences that need healing. While the dead can certainly receive healing from Spirit, our presence in the physical world gives us an unparalleled ability to access and transform ancestral wounds. This is a gift we can offer our ancestors.

Through this sacred partnership between the living, the dead, and Spirit, we participate in a more holistic healing that honors our interconnectedness. By doing this work, we help evolve the lineage, ensuring that both we and future generations benefit from the healing we facilitate.