14 Chapter Fourteen – Blessings of Belonging, Lessons on Sacred Difference, and Connections with the Natural World

Early encounters and finding my way

A few years before finding the work of ancestral lineage healing, I participated in several death doula intensives. On one of these weekends, a facilitator of family constellation work came as a guest speaker and led the group of students through a meditation with our ancestors. I do not remember all the details of the meditation but near the end, I saw a collective group of well ancestors standing in front of me. The encounter had a prescient quality, and the memory of encompassing love I felt in their presence, along with the sense of something important beginning to unfold, stayed with me through the years that followed.

In 2018, a colleague invited me to co-host a spiritual retreat with them in Sedona. On the last night of the retreat, we hosted a community ceremony. During the meditation portion, a whole host of ancestors came to me unprompted, sharing blessings of unconditional love, messages of connection, and promises of belonging. When I woke up the next morning at the end of the retreat, it was clear to me that my current spiritual path was no longer serving my community in the way I first envisioned. I had a long drive home from Sedona that day, and plenty of time to grieve the loss of everything that I had come to identify with as my spiritual life. On the journey back, I kept seeing rune shapes formed by clouds in the sky. They came in a steady supply, and any time I looked up, I saw another rune floating in the shape of a cloud. While I wondered what my next step would be, or if there even should be a next step at all, I remembered something a chaplain friend of mine posted years back, about a teacher who taught some type of ancestral healing. When I arrived home, I searched my friend’s page, but the post was too far back for me to find it on her account. After a few rounds of google searches, I found Daniel Foor and recognized him as the teacher I remembered from the post. I began to engage with ancestral lineage healing sessions and entered the practitioner training shortly after that.

How I experience the work

Everyone experiences ancestral healing work in their own unique way. As someone who often relies on cognitive processing, much of my work with my own ancestors is characterized by them sharing lessons, teachings, and philosophies with me. Many of their lessons relate to coexisting and working alongside other living humans who are oftentimes different than me, sometimes in challenging ways. Through my work with my ancestors, I have come into deeper relationship with and learned valuable lessons from the natural world around me. I have learned about the importance of intentionally moving through the world with a conscious awareness of their presence and backing of the work that I am here to do. Even amid what can sometimes be challenging lessons they share with me, spending time and being in relationship with my ancestors feels like coming home. Spiritually, emotionally, somatically and physically, there is a steadiness of warmth and a sense of safety and belonging. Even when learning intense lessons from some of my healed lineages, there is always an enduring sense of sitting hearthside with my elders, listening to their wisdom, learning from their presence and their words.

Once I began the work of ancestral lineage healing, one notable difference for me was the support and resourcing that I feel, especially when I enter settings that are rife with challenges or cultural harms. I worked in prisons for a time, and experienced a significant difference entering those institutions with the support and backing of my ancestors than I had before the work, when I would feel more isolated and overwhelmed in those spaces. Feeling the support of my ancestors, and asking them to companion me in that work, made me better able to presence the people I was working with. The work I did as a death doula with veterans in a palliative care unit, along with my work as a pet death doula, all benefited from a distinct sense of grounded resourcing in those spaces that I did not experience before I started the work of ancestral lineage healing.

As a practitioner, I experience this work with clients to be unique both to the individual and the lineage they are working with. While there are established steps and a general structure to the work itself, everything from how the client experiences each lineage, to how the guide from the lineage communicates with the client, to the pace of the healing that unfolds, tends to be distinctive and informed by the client and the characteristics of the lineage they are working with at that time. A client’s experience with each lineage may depend on the medicine the lineage carries and the troubles that exist. The way an ancestral guide communicates with a client can be informed both by the characteristics of the lineage along with the way a client best receives information. Some lineages communicate somatically, through sensations and feelings. Some lineages might communicate through images or messages, and others may rely on several methods of communication. As a practitioner, one of the remarkable aspects of the work is to witness the vast difference in characteristics that can exist across the lineages of a single client.

On belonging with ancestors, the living, and the land

I grew up in a rural desert town and went to church and school in the same small building. Most of the time I was surrounded by the same handful of adults and children. It felt like everyone knew their place in the group, except for me. There was a sense of acute loneliness that came from growing up in such a small and intimate setting, yet never feeling like I really belonged. Everyone else seemed to fit into the mold so effortlessly. They each knew which piece of the puzzle they were, where they were supposed to be, and how they fit into the larger whole. This sense of not belonging spanned across multiple decades. Even when I was surrounded by family and friends I cared about, I never felt like I fully belonged anywhere. Not until I began this work and connected with my ancestral lineages did I experience a sense of belonging for the first time in my life. It did not happen all at once; it was a gradual process. I was not even aware of the healing that had happened until I found myself experiencing what felt like belonging while attending a cozy gathering with a few friends. I recognized the sensation and experience as something I had only felt with my ancestors up until that point. I directly credit my ability to experience a sense of belonging with other living humans to the work my ancestors did with me in healing these wounds.

One way I have come to understand and experience feelings of belonging and connection with my ancestry has come from discoveries while doing genealogical research. From lineage-connected trickster spirits associated with my habit of grasping at silver linings, to reminders of inherited resilience descended from grandmothers who survived village massacres, discovering the stories and histories of those who came before has given me a sense of connection to my ancestors that continues to deepen over time. Through tracing these threads of connections and descended gifts and troubles, I have had the blessing of seeing glimpses of myself in the grander stories of those grandmothers and grandfathers. I have also experienced gifts, patterns, propensities, as not only my own, but part of a larger collective whole, bringing home the lesson of belonging in a more intimate sense. This part of my ancestral journey has come with more tangible blessings as well. After learning that one of my paternal grandfathers was a Hicksite Quaker, I joined a local unprogrammed Quaker group and experienced the gift of being part of a community that inspired a kinder approach to living. Having the opportunity to integrate some of the practices of my ancestry has also deepened my sense of belonging and connection with those who came before.

My ancestors continue to teach me lessons related to belonging and land. I spent the first 20 years of my life in Joshua Tree, and always felt a deep connection to that place. The traditional land of the Serrano, Chemehuevi, Mojave, and Cahuilla people, the area now known as Joshua Tree National Park is also home to Roadrunner, Scorpion, Cholla, Tarantula, and countless others. In many ways, I felt co-parented by the flora and fauna of that land, alongside my human parents and grandparents. At times I felt more at home communing with Tortoise, Quail, and Creosote, than many of the other humans in my proximate community. As someone descended from European settlers to this land, my well ancestor guides continue to instruct me on the importance of sustaining good relationships with the land and all the inhabitants there. They continue to teach me that the quality of the relationships I nurture with all beings has the potential to impact the land and contribute to healing.

On cultural healing and the value of sacred difference

One of the most beneficial lessons I continue to learn from the ancestors is the importance of setting down the societal demand for homogeneity and taking up the cultural healing found in valuing sacred difference. My ancestors continue to teach me about the collective blossoming and healing power that is possible when each of us fully expresses and embodies our sacred gifts and our unique ways of being in the world. This lesson carries everyday significance for me. It informs the ways in which I interact with those around me and those with whom I am in relationship, from the companion animals at home to colleagues I work alongside. As my ancestors taught me, a crucial first step in this process is to take the time, space, and effort to build the skill of fully ‘seeing’ someone, and from there, to understand the most supportive ways to presence and appreciate them. One of the first places I took up this practice was with my cherished companion animals at home. I took more time to observe them, sit with them, interact with them, and take in their presence. I also began to work closely with a trusted animal communicator, to learn about their interior lives, their more subtle likes and dislikes, their particular purpose as they understood it, where they each were on their individual journeys in stepping into that purpose, and how I might best support them. As I continued to learn about their inner landscapes, I began to shift how I showed up with them, and worked to be present in supportive ways based on where they are at in the moment. Sometimes this also meant being open to the ways they wanted to support me.

Once I became a bit more adept at working in these ways with my companion animals, I expanded the practice to family and friends, and eventually to colleagues and acquaintances. When I adapted this practice to the professional setting, I focused initially on colleagues who I had a better understanding of, before shifting focus to those who were significantly different from and potentially more challenging for me to understand or interact with. As challenges arose, I kept at it, working with my ancestors to better understand how to hold the differences and skillfully appreciate what each individual brought to the collective. Even for those who struggled with inclusive or empathic approaches in the workplace, I worked to stay committed and find a strength that they did have, a gift that they did carry. The point of the practice was not to excuse bad behavior but rather to better understand the nuanced pieces folks show up with, especially in collective spaces – for instance, an executive with a significant amount of intellectual and institutional power who typically uses that power in unkind ways but can also use those same characteristics for powerful advocacy.

For particularly challenging individuals, one lesson my ancestors taught me as a way to lessen the intensity when the big feelings took up so much space it was difficult to see another’s strengths, was to find an animal or plant whose characteristics had some overlap with the human individual I was trying to better understand and appreciate. For example, I began the practice of conceptualizing that same executive as Grizzly Bear, acknowledging their presence and capacity for both ferocity and protection as one way to remain more neutral in my efforts to better understand them, not take things so personally, and be intentional and strategic in my approach to working with them. Additionally, it has been helpful to understand which elements (air, water, earth, fire, metal, etc.) each person carries and how this may show up in balanced and less than balanced ways, and to purpose that understanding to better appreciate the gifts that they do bring to this time and place. It was this ancestral lesson and practice of looking to the other-than-human world to better understand an individual human’s potential affinities with them and their characteristics that eventually allowed to me better understand, humanize, and more fully see and welcome the unique gifts that each of us carries.

On deepening relationships with the natural world

One of the richest additions to my life through engaging in this work has come in the form of deepened connections with the natural world and the flora and fauna kin who live alongside us. The interspecies companionship I have been able to both extend and experience was made possible in large part by this approach to ancestral healing work and being in ongoing relationship with my ancestors. Before I began to work with my ancestors, I was interested in interspecies communication but never thought that I had access to something like that. I felt that I lacked the ability and skill to connect and communicate with other species around me. The skill that I developed through the practice of communing and relating with my ancestors opened a multitude of doors and opportunities for me to connect with the natural world. Much of the early stages of this happened in tandem with the practice of getting to know and better understand the full complexity and rich tapestries that are the inner landscapes of the companion animals I am fortunate enough to live with and learn from.

Once I started to build that skill, with the ongoing gentle encouragement and kind mentorship of the same animal communicator I mentioned earlier (Kristen Houser of https://www.faunaspeak.com/), I began to explore the practice of communicating with animals that did not live with me and were not in direct proximity to me. This coincided with a two-year apprenticeship that centered around folk herbalism, and I was able to bring the skills I learned in communing with my ancestors and animals into the plant kingdom to develop relationships with and learn from those elder teachers. Through these practices I also learned more about and deepened into relationship with some of the fauna and flora kin who my ancestors had been in close relationship with, nurturing those connections back into being. Some of the most powerful guidance and counsel I have received has come from working collaboratively with ancestor guides and the fauna and flora beings with whom we are both closely aligned.

Opening the doors and strengthening my connection to and relationship with the flora and fauna beings has provided opportunities for me to develop other meaningful connections with other beings as well. These relationships have also extended to other beings who may not be as consistently visible to us, but who also live in the natural world among us. When I was visiting the caverns in Tennessee, I had an experience with the Little People who live in the caves there. As soon as we went inside to explore the caverns, I sensed the presence of the beings who lived there moving around us, between the cave walls and the gullies in the sand next to edge of the rocks. Afterwards, as we were heading out, the person guiding us through the caverns said that it had long been rumored and known that Little People lived in the caves. Folk wisdom held that the Little People were most happy when surrounded by music, and they had a hand in shaping the local caverns that were now a famous concert hall. The ability to sense, appreciate, and continue to learn about and from these beings was yet another benefit of this ancestral approach.

My work with my ancestors has given me a better understanding of how to begin these types of communication and come into these types of relationships with the natural world and those who live within it, and this has afforded me an experience of belonging outside of the primary human realm. This has been and continues to be a powerful healing balm, helping to nourish the pieces of me that struggled so long to feel this sense of belonging.

Illustration

Sketch of a Crow perched on a Linden Tree branch with Linden leaves and flowers blossoming along it. The runes Jera and Uruz are etched into the leaves. Sketch done by artist Jen Shakti (https://www.jenshakti.com/).

Experiential Practice

Sometimes it can be challenging to get any space from our own immediate experience of the world, and this may present additional challenges to dropping in to connect with ancestors. The practice of grounded decentering invites you to identify a being whose experience you are curious about, such as a grasshopper you saw on a walk or a crow sitting in a nearby tree.

The experiential practice of grounded decentering first guides you into a rooted and embodied space and, once there, offers prompts with invitations to wonder and be curious about, and to explore what another being’s experience of the world might feel like. This experiential practice is one way to create space outside of our immediate experience, in order to invite more possibilities for connection with others, including our ancestors.

Begin by thinking about a being whose experience you are curious about. This could be a grasshopper you saw on your patio, a crow you saw perched in a nearby tree, a hummingbird you glimpsed outside, or a dog you passed on a walk. As a starting point, you might want to look up a few biological facts about them before beginning this exercise to learn more about their physical lives and experiences.

Once you decide on the being, find a comfortable physical setting and position. Bring your attention to your breath and the rhythm of your breathing, not attempting to change its natural flow at all, just notice it for a few moments. Let your attention drop down into your belly, hips, and further down into your feet. Notice gravity holding to you to the earth, pausing for several moments to feel that stability and connection. Shift your attention to the ground below you and take several long moments to envision the soil below you and all life sustained there. Pause for a few moments to feel into your gratitude for all this: your breath, your body, gravity, the earth, the soil below you and all the life therein.

Turn your attention toward the being whose experience you are curious about. Reflect on what you know about this being. What are their characteristics? Where do they typically live? Remember any experiences in which you have seen and/or interacted with them. Start to imagine what their life might be like. What it would be like to be them? What would it feel like to have their physical form? How would it be to move through the world in the way that they do? How do you imagine they might experience you? Spend some spacious moments imagining their world, and how they might experience it.

When you are ready to come fully back into your own experience, begin by noticing and slightly moving your fingers and toes. Notice the parts of your body that are in connection with what is underneath you, held there by gravity. Notice your breath flowing in and out of your body. Take note of your physical surroundings and move around in whatever ways feel good, fully inhabiting your own body. If it’s welcome, feel free to write down some reflections about this practice and any of the sensations and experiences that feel supportive to record.

Once you’ve practiced this a few times, try tuning in this way when you are physically out in nature, present with, or near, the one whose existence and life you are curious about. With sustained practice, it may be the start and unfolding of a beautiful relationship between you and them.