10 Chapter Ten – From Today to My Ancestors

The Privilege of a Past

Before you read my story, I invite you to consider that it is a privilege to know the origins of your people, to know your family and their stories, to know your history. At the same time, in this work, I have found that the less one knows or thinks they know about their people can be a benefit, and can actually ease the process of healing the lineages. This chapter is dedicated to those who “don’t know much about their people.”

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On the third shelf of a bookcase in my parent’s house is a green leather bound book decorated with gold foil leaf details. Each handwritten page documents the births and deaths on my family lineages back to 1789. As a child, I was drawn to that book. Several times a year I would settle into our tiny library to flip through the pages, looking for something. I couldn’t tell you what I was looking for — a connection, maybe? Or perhaps I innately knew that the information on those pages was precious and rare for a family like mine. Which begs the question, what exactly is a family like mine? From a blend of family stories and DNA testing, I’ve learned that my ancestors are indigenous peoples of North America (Nansemond and Choctaw), African (primarily Benin, Cameroon, Congo and Southern Bantu), English, and Irish. In America, that all boils down to Black.

I was born in the United States into a middle class, two parent Christian home. My father was an officer in the Air Force and my mother was a teacher. Due to my father’s position, we moved nearly every four years. As we settled into each new country, one of the first tasks my mother would set upon was to find our new church home. This was how my mother quickly built a community for our family everywhere we went. I grew up in the church. My immediate family and our church were my anchors, but I knew they were not my roots.

My father was born in Virginia, the oldest of seven children. My mother was born in Arkansas and has sixteen siblings. My parents spoke fondly of my grandparents, their own aunts and uncles, and their own siblings. However, due to the frequent relocations of military life, I never developed bonds with my extended family. I did enjoy the rare family reunion or home-going (funeral) that brought us all together. But those moments were too few and far between to build meaningful relationships and to know my extended family in an intimate way. Effectively, my grandparents, my twenty-three aunts and uncles, and all of their children are strangers to me.

Despite not knowing my family of blood, I did develop a form of kinship elsewhere. I felt connected and resourced by the natural world around me. Running with creeks and rivers taught me to remain fluid and to remember, regardless of how my path winds and where it leads, that I’m meant to arrive exactly as I am. Listening to trees sing taught me to mind the nature of my thoughts and words, because my thoughts are the seeds of intentions and my words give birth to spells. Watching everything from cottonwood fluff to bumblebees and herons as they floated on a breeze taught me to remain light in my perspectives, to recognize the duality of our experiences, and to view it all with a measure of grace.

My parents did not teach me these lessons nor did they instruct me to pay attention to these messages from Mother Earth. And why would they have? My parents felt rooted and resourced by their relationships with their parents, their siblings, and the church. The ties to the more animist ways of our ancestors had been completely severed by the end of the 17th century. Our traditions, our ways of communicating, and our practices for marking the cycles of life and death were stripped away long before my family began writing names down in that big green book. And yet this book was my personal ‘breadcrumb,’ the morsel that encouraged my deeper investigation into what’s possible to know.

I knew that my family had survived some of the worst of colonialism in North America, from the descent of colonizers upon the land, through slavery, civil rights and beyond. But this only skimmed the surface of what was possible to know. The big green book was a tangible reminder that there was more to our family history. This was enough for me, enough to hear my ancestors’ call. Our story did not begin or end with slavery. With that expansive truth, I understood that a willingness to embrace the full breadth of my ancestors’ experiences would be critical to the healing and repair of my lineages. In other words, I could not limit my focus to the “bad” stuff.

As humans, we are hardwired to be watchful for threats. Our instinct is to focus on what’s wrong, what’s out of place, what might be a potential threat, or what might need fixing. This impulse is not dampened by a desire to heal and repair our lineages. That sense of “something being wrong” is one of the primary reasons a person might be inspired to explore ancestral lineage healing in the first place. This might explain why, regardless how much we may know about our ancestors, we tend to know quite a bit about the harms or injustices that have punctuated our lineages and still impact us today. The stories have been passed down through generations. Though the knowledge of some stories might cause emotional discomfort, I invite you to consider that these stories are also an act of love in the spirit of generational preservation. We may be well versed in tragedy, loss, isolation, and hard work, but we are also still here.

For many, accepting the love, the gifts, the blessings, and the subtle powers that flow from our lineages requires a deeper trust in ourselves and our relationships with our ancestors. I invite you to pause and acknowledge the duality of a human life lived. Then multiply that by the collective of your ancestors. Reflect on the context of the time period in which your ancestors lived and allow your ancestors the grace of having been human. It is possible for your ancestors, during their period of history, to have made choices that you do not agree with today. It is also possible for your ancestors to learn, grow, and change. The ancestral repair process affords the opportunity to bridge the gaps and reconcile the incongruences within your lineages. In truth, colonialism and any resulting harm inflicted on your family lines can be addressed during the lineage repair and healing process.

Bridging the Past, Present, and Future

To be Black and “of the church” in America adds a layer of complexity to ancestral work, but does not make the work impossible. In fact, quite the opposite; the further back you go along your lineages, the more blessings, healing, power, and joy you’re apt to find. The near endless embrace can actually be overwhelming. The key is to safely navigate the dense mass that is the result of colonialism – the loss of land, language, rituals, and belonging. Follow the threads that evoke joy, support curiosity, and invite you to step into this journey with integrity – as opposed to the threads that lead to further isolation or divisiveness.

My siblings and I were raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I’m grateful for the foundation. And yet, even as a child it felt like I was working on a puzzle with missing pieces. I wanted to understand why I felt closer to God on a walk in the woods than in my church. I needed to understand how I knew with every fiber in my bones that a well-in-spirit Grandmother was also with me, guiding me, and tending to my safety. What of my dreams that came through to reality? Why could I feel the pulse of Trees and understand the whispers of Wind?

Within my living family I had no access to teachers who could provide me with these answers. As a child I was connected to Earth as home. I was connected to every living thing as my sibling, parent or elder guide. So long as I remained in good relation with Mother Earth, my ancestors were able to communicate the lessons I needed to hear. As I grew into adulthood, I began to feel alone in my wonderings. Eventually, my curiosity morphed into conformity. It became increasingly easy to distance myself from the nature-based relationships of my childhood. But over time, choosing “the grind” over ‘the ground’ proved to be detrimental in adulthood.

I was 30 years old when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Even though I had no name for my dis-ease early in life, I had struggled with this affliction since high school, right around the time that I began to shift toward conformity and away from my connection with Mother Earth. Only now do I understand the direct correlation between my distancing from those Earth-based connections and my decades-long battle with my health. It was literally against nature for me to attempt to fit into the grind of a colonialist capitalist society.

Generational harms like colonialism can result in patterns of decay such as alcoholism, addiction, abuse, chronic illness, avoidance, anger, rage, depression, isolationism, feelings of inadequacy, and the like. The greater powers that guide my life made it very clear that toxic energies move forward and backward through time. If left unaddressed, that impact has no bounds. Endeavoring to heal and repair my own body from illness put me on a path that reconnected me with nature and, ultimately, also with my ancestors. When I was able to clearly hear Trees sing again, I knew it was time to do the deeper work not just of healing myself, but of healing my ancestral lineages.

Just as toxicity moves forward and backward through time, so too does healing. The impact of healing one’s lineages ripples beyond direct family. It can impact entire communities and shift old paradigms that may have contributed to isolation, distrust, and distancing from one another as a society. When my ancestors made me aware of this bigger picture, I took the leap and began my journey with Ancestral Medicine as guided by Dr. Daniel Foor. I knew it would not be enough to simply communicate with my wise and well ancestors; I needed to build sincere relationships with them.

Without much information about my people, getting started with Ancestral Lineage Healing required me to lean more deeply into my intuition and to re-engage the muscle of self trust. This was absolutely necessary to thread the needle between what is known, what is unknown, and what is desired to be known.

I questioned a lot. I doubted a lot. Given my self doubt, I often set up little tests to help me gauge the validity of the information I was receiving. For example, during one conversation with my Grandmothers on my father’s mother’s line, I asked if they had any advice about how drained of energy I had been feeling. My Grandmothers told me to “eat more dirt.” At the time this felt like an odd suggestion. It was certainly not something I would have suggested for myself. If I were “making this stuff up” or if I were attempting to validate what I wanted to hear, I would probably have recommended rest or something similarly innocuous.

I dove into research about eating dirt. What I discovered was a series of articles about the practice of eating dirt, also known as geophagy, the culture of earth-eating. My research revealed information about women who still partake in this practice in communities throughout the southern United States. Serendipitously, these communities are in areas where my own ancestors had been relocated. These women can identify different types of dirt, particularly which types have the mineral content (iron) that a body needs, and when the best time might be to ingest it. Although geophagy is not unique to these women, their specific practice can be traced ancestrally to West Africa, to a time before slavery. This type of deeper investigation into the guidance from your ancestors can help bridge the gaps between what is known and what can be known.

A Legacy of Grace and Connection

I want to share a perspective on the ripple effect of this ancestral healing work. Family, friends, and community around you might not understand the work you are doing, but they can and will still benefit. This truth was highlighted for me when my great aunt on my mother’s side passed away. Two things happened: one, I acknowledged my responsibility to check on the welfare of my great aunt; and two, I witnessed the profound impact of this work on my own mother.

My great aunt Charlie Mae raised my mother, so her return to the ancestors was especially hard on my mother. After some time had passed, it felt appropriate to check on my great aunt within the ancestral realm. I confirmed with my well ancestors that Aunt Charlie Mae was comfortable and well situated in her own healing space or container, away from the hustle, bustle, and energy of the collective of my Grandmothers on this lineage. I wanted to be sure that my great aunt was afforded ample time and space to rest, heal, and adjust to her new reality. I asked my well ancestors how my great aunt’s transition was going. They assured me that she was well and they shared stories with me about my great aunt’s life. Eventually, my great aunt was ready to be welcomed into the larger collective of well ancestors. When she emerged from her healing container, she had a message for me to share with my mom. I’m doing fine and my legs don’t hurt anymore. My mother, a very Christian woman, was filled with such gratitude. This reminder, that although a family member may no longer be ‘in their body,’ they are still with us (and not in a ghostly, stalker way) brought my mother so much peace. It even helped to calm her own fears around death.

Today, I still might not recognize my Aunt Charlie Mae on the street, but this work has helped me reclaim the inherent gifts of my lineages. My mother’s mother’s lineage has helped me embrace compassion, generosity, faith in our higher powers, the magic of water and the alchemy of herbs. It has anchored me to where I come from and who I am.

If the process of healing your lineages is done with sincerity, integrity, and healthy boundaries in place, the connections with your people will feel more ‘everyday’ normal than anything else. You may experience a greater sense of belonging. You may feel more at home, more grounded, and more at peace. Take your time. Give yourself grace in this work. It is unreasonable to think the cultural harms that have impacted your lineages don’t have teeth. Some of these harms have been flowing within your lineages for centuries. They are not going to simply disappear because you and your people are now paying them good attention. Accept the gifts of love, power, kindness, cunning, and all the goodness that flows from your lineages. Remain humble. Remember, you are building relationships, not magic.

Finally, pay attention to the call of your ancestors. A big green book helped guide me to the practice of ancestral lineage healing and without knowing much about my people, I was able to reclaim and know my roots. Your breadcrumb will be unique to you. It could be a feeling, a dream, or a phone call from a long lost relative. Whatever it may be, when it presents itself, follow it. Let your questions and curiosity embolden your journey.