Stories of the Ancestors

The mythology of autumn comes alive. Here, the ancestors walk with us and the land guides us into the quieting night. We are blessed by the web of creation that reminds us we are not alone.

The land quiets, and energy moves back to the roots. Keeping warm and nourished beneath the dark soils of the earth. As the land follows in the footsteps of autumn, so too we are guided back into our own roots. Leaves shed off the green ones and we are taught the lessons of letting go. Oh, how nature perfectly expresses to us what is needed if we slow down enough to listen. That’s it, here we are slowing down. Letting go of what has been held onto for too long, and embracing the night. It is no longer the intensity of summer that is building up. Here we are crumbling down. Turning the wheel to face the hearth. The darkening days remind us to quiet, so we may hear the whispers of all that we belong to. Reminding us we are not alone, even in the darkest hours. We are not strayed and forgotten. We belong to all of creation. As a cord ties a baby to their mother, so too we are tied. Like a spider’s woven web, we are connected.

The spiral that continues to unfold, offers us closer to our relatives, the trees, the foxes, the birds and the wind. As well as all those who have passed on into spirit. Our grandmothers and fathers, our uncles and cousins. It is deeply nourishing to remember our lineage in a way of love and gratitude. Witnessing all the threads that created the tapestry of your life. Through them, we have become all that we are. Our intuition fine-tuned and lined with the experience of our relations. Our blood and bones filled with the food they ate, our feet remembering their steps. You see, it is in these ways we are all connected.

Let that sink into your heart space. Let those words radiate within you and find their roots in something true, that you already know. We are all tied together through the mycelium of our ancestors. They are those that guide us on our path. In these ways, we are not strayed, aimlessly floating in space. We are held within the embrace of creation. It is a web of relations. In the old ways, our ancestors weren’t seen purely as the humans they were, but the spirits of our soul heritage. The threads that direct our path for the higher purpose of our soul's journey on earth. They speak through our intuition, through our inner knowing. As we move they follow, and guide us towards all that is meant for us. As their ancestors before them did. And as we will do to those after. It is the way of things.

The cycles of reciprocity.

I eat you and you eat me.

I help you and you help me.

I am you and you are me.

This shifting time of autumn is one of transitions. And it is here we are linked even closer to the space of the in-between. Not fully here nor there. Not fully summer nor has winter arrived just yet. It is a limbo where time suspends itself in a moment of stillness. The moment between breaths. The sacred space where the day melts into the night. For a moment, there is something else entirely. It is in this time when the sharp edges are softened, and spirit moves more freely. Like a portal, a door is opened into another world. They call it the thinning of the veil. Where the threshold that separates our physicality from that of spirit is stretched and thins. Boundaries become porous. Become more accessible. Allowing a richer communion between worlds as the seasons themselves turn. Mirrored in the quiet night. The more we quiet, the more we hear. This time of year has been celebrated in many different parts of the world in the same way. A celebration of death. A reverence for the ancestors. A singing to the spirit world in gratitude. It is in these traditions we glimpse the wisdom of this season. Rather than severing the inseparable connection between life and death, there is found wholeness in the honour of both and all. 

Connection with this subliminal realm is something innate in us, that is actually happening in every moment, all the time. Yet this season serves as its honoured time. As every turn of the wheel embodies a particular energy of life. It is mythological and mysterious. As fluid as the changing tides. Here we are in connection with the unseen. A feeling that begins to grow within you or a thought that spontaneously floats into your mind can be interpreted as communication between you and spirit. It is imaginal work. It is work that asks you to trust in something that you cannot see. A feeling. A knowing. We could talk in circles asking ourselves again and again whether something “really” happened or we imagined it. The truth is, it is all imagined. Yet that does not make it any less real.

Here we are learning to play with our imagination, and once again claim it as a valid and important tool in our work here on earth, and our communion with all the things beyond. When we listen to our intuition and our imagination in these ways, every feeling, every thought, every coincidence is infused with meaning, is a message from the otherworld and an invitation to look deeper. As we commune and work with our guides and ancestors, it is this frequency that we touch upon. It is subtle. It takes practice to fine tune and develop these gifts of insight, especially when we have gone so long distrusting them. The truth is we all have the ability to tune into this realm, and whenever we want to, not just this time of year. It will look different for everyone. Your practice is your own.

Our ancestors are loving guides that long to help us upon our path, or sometimes even have messages that we are needing to hear or deliver. Yet our communion with them can also be as simple as offering thanks to them. Feeling and acknowledging them around us is already such an enriching way to live in communion with them. Remembering them. Speaking their names and acknowledging their place on this earth, their experiences, their stories. They long to connect with us in the same ways. It is a sweet romance. The stories of the land and the people who walked on it. As we reclaim this wisdom, the earth's knowledge is enriched in turn. A beautiful practice here can be to make a family tree. As far back as you can go. Ask your parents. Your grandparents. The names may be written down and worked with in ceremony as a sacred remembrance of the lineage that you come from. This healing works in so many directions. Remembering, rather than trying to forget, the lineage we chose to have here. 

It is a full circle of taking care and being taken care of. As we tend to our inner world of spirit, we energetically work to transmute the hurts and struggles of our ancestors. As you remember those who have passed, you work to release what is no longer needing to be carried. That is echoing the shedding of this time of autumn. The innate energetic invitation of this season. Through shedding and releasing, we may be birthed anew. That is the medicine of this time, a vital part of the spiral dance. As we release, we open to receive something new. It is full surrender. And how nature is our guide into it. This time of year asks us to look into ourselves, what needs to be let go of now? With our ancestors with us, we may deepen the context through which we look. Letting go and opening into the embrace of winter's inward reflection. 

Our ancestors have given us both gifts and burdens and we may choose what we wish to carry with us onwards. Bringing awareness into these spaces also shines a light on the burdens that are not ours to carry, yet have still been passed down. This is where they are left and given back to the earth. As well as the gifts that we may celebrate and uplift, so they continue to be passed on to those who come after us. This intentionality asks for a heart centred in love and truth. Not moving from a place of wounds, eyes open to see beyond the surface. We work with our lineage to shed what has been carried on bruised shoulders for too long. In these ways, we are the turning point within the legacy of our lineage that offers something even better to our children. Something that maybe we didn't get. It is continuously evolving, rooted in our connection with our heritage, all that we come from. When we carry this awareness, we may consciously choose what we take and what we leave. For a long time, people have been living unconscious of what their parents and lineage passed down to them. A world that has been affected by pain and loss. And so those wounds have been carried as inheritance when they were meant to be soothed and buried back into the earth.

 Is that how we got where we are now? 

This is our work now. As we nourish our own hearts and offer gratitude for the cords that connect us, we radiate this healing through to all those who are tied to us in turn. This stretches back and forward, side to side. In all directions. This is how the world is nourished. The link is restored between us and all that we belong to. Remembering that we do belong to something. To everything.

It is a beautiful time in these ways. Light a candle for your loved ones. Light a candle for those you never met. Light a candle for those who guide and love you. It is a life soaked in ritual and devotion that enriches the soils of the spirit. As we reach out to them, their messages become clearer, and suddenly our life comes alive with communion. The plants really do talk back to you. The trees can be heard singing in the wind. The ancestors can be seen roaming the wild lands. These are the intricate ways of creation that open up for us. When we see it in these ways, we see the full colours of life. Everything comes alive with importance and meaning. And so, during this turn of the wheel, as the veil thins, the portal opens, our ancestors walk to us. They touch our cheeks and kiss our foreheads and remind us that we are loved. That we are held by the embrace of our lineage. In that there is beauty. This is a time to give thanks for these ways that tie us all together. Reminding us of our path of purpose. So, as the nights stretch longer and the darkness grows, learn to see in the dark, through your eye of spirit. It ignites the way for you. Upon this path, you are held. You are loved. You are protected. And so it is.