Working with and Honoring Your Ancestors

Honoring deceased relatives and ancestors, as well as requesting guidance and assistance from them, is a long-standing tradition that has been held by various different cultures for thousands of years.

In this article, we will not be touching on any one specific cultural tradition, but instead exploring ways that anyone, regardless of their spiritual path or cultural identity, can venerate and work with their ancestors.

What is an Ancestor?

By the dictionary definition, an ancestor is anyone preceding your grandparents that you are blood related to. But in my opinion, this is such a limited definition. I believe that an ancestor, in respect to a spiritual context, is anyone that you cared about that has passed on as well as anyone who has passed on that you are related to.

This could include

• Biological relatives

• Non-biological relatives

• Friends

• Beloved pets

• Mentors

• Spiritual ancestors (those who you have no relation to and never met but you feel a kinship with due to similarities in beliefs and ideologies)

Many of us don't know the names of many of our ancestors that preceded our great-grandparents. Some people have a better record of their lineage but even that can only go so far back. However, just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't know you.

You may not know all the names, faces, or even how many there are, but that doesn't mean you can't reach out to them.

Why Work with Ancestors?

Well, you literally owe your existence to them so why not honor them for that if nothing else? If it weren't for your spiritual ancestors, you wouldn't have the knowledge that you have. So why not show gratitude for that?

But of course honoring and working with are two different things.

Ancestors can provide protection and guidance. There is a good chance their presence is already working in your life but in honoring them you are thanking them for their work, and in making requests you are letting them know what you need while building a bond with them.

Once you give them deeper access to your life and permission to assist you, you will be pleasantly surprised in the ways they do so.

Much like the way you may call up a deity during spell work, you can call upon your ancestors for both protection when you open sacred space as well as assistance with your spell and intention.

How Do You Open Communication and Honor Them?

While you never want to be rude and makes demands in any form of Spirit work, your ancestors likely want to help you. You are their legacy! Of course they want to see you succeed and be happy! And as I mentioned, they are likely already active on the peripherals of your life. Making contact isn't very difficult, but I do always recommend that you build a relationship first before going and bossing them around. That's how any loving relationship needs to start, so why would this be any different.

Be patient with them, however. Some will start working for you right away, especially those that you knew in life before they passed on, while others may take longer--weeks or even months--to make their presence known. And some never do.

Don't worry about not knowing a name or a face to those way, way back. The bond is literally in your blood.

I recommend reaching out to those you knew in life first, both because they are easier to contact and because it is always more comfortable to contact someone you know than to strike up a conversation and relationship with a perfect stranger. They also just have a more vested interest in seeing that you are safe, successful, and happy.

Create an Ancestral Altar

Not only is this a sacred space where you will be honoring them, but just like your other altars and sacred spaces for your practice, it helps shift your mindset when you tend to it.

This is where you can place out offerings for them, which we will touch on next.

For those with limited space or the need for a secret altar, I feel that the ancestral altar is the easiest one to hide in plain sight without taking up too much room. The majority of it can simply be family photos hung on the wall, if that's what works for you.

I can't tell you exactly what you should have on it because just like an altar for your practice or for a deity, this is a deeply personal design. But I can offer the following suggestions:

• Pictures of the deceased

• Urns or cremated remains

• Items they owned

• Dirt from their grave or their homeland

• Symbolic items and images of things they liked, things that link to your heritage, or just reminds you of them

• A flag or map of the area they resided in

• Symbols of death - skulls, bones, dried flowers, seashells, fossils

• Symbols of life - symbols of the four elements, a living plant

• Symbols for family, particularly your family, such as a family tree or crest (if you don't have these, regular tree imagery is nice too)

• Genetic ties such as a clipping of your own hair

• Offering plate or bowl

Give Offerings

Just like offerings for any other Spirit or a gift for a friend, making offerings are not only a wonderful way to show gratitude but also help build your bond and make your ancestors happy.

A great place to start is to offer them things you know they liked such as their favorite food and drink. But if you don't know what they liked you can try some of the following:

• Food and drink specific to their culture and time

• Plants native to their region and time

• Items they liked

• A bowl of water

• Light a candle or incense

• Play music for them

Be sure to invite them to come partake in your offering and let them know it is for them. Start with those you knew personally and those whose names you know. Invite them by name. Then make a general call to any other ancestors whose names have been lost to time to come join.

You do not have to invite everyone, and you can exclude some, but I will touch on that in a bit.

Communicate with Them

Opening up a dialogue with your ancestors can be done at your ancestral altar or just about anytime, anywhere. Much like communicating with deity, you can pray to them, call to them in times of need or crisis, set aside sacred time and space to commune, call out during spell work, or just casually make remarks to them throughout your day. You can also meditate or perform divination with the intention of speaking directly to them and asking them questions.

Another option is to invite them to visit in your dreams. They may not show up looking as they did in life but instead send you messages, answers, and advice through symbols you will recognize. Be sure to sit down as soon as you wake up and write down everything in a dream journal. This will not only help you analyze what you dreamt but practicing this regularly will help you improve your dream recall ability and accuracy.

Dine in their Honor

Placing out food or drink as an offering is a great option. However, you can also enjoy a meal yourself with the intention of making the symbolic gesture of sharing the meal with them. This is different from a dumb supper (although that is also a great option), but still invites them to dine and enjoy the food with you.

Visit Places They've Been

If possible, walk where they've walked. This could be your ancestral country, an old house, their favorite vacation destination, or a town they lived in. Take in the scents, sights, wildlife, walking paths, and air that they did. Even if it has been a hundred years and the location is completely different, you may drive by a tree whose shade they once sat in. You might gaze at a beautiful grassy hill that they once hiked.

Do Something They've Done

In a similar vein, share an experience with them. Whether a hobby or a job, try to experience something that they did. Ask them to come and join you to enjoy the experience, to lend their expertise, and it will give you an opportunity to step into their shoes and understand them and their day-to-day life better.

If you have no idea what they may have done, pick something general and invite whoever enjoys that activity to tag along. Certainly someone in your ancestral line enjoyed dancing, singing, or taking evening walks. As for their occupations, you may not be able to fulfill the task exactly but if someone in your line was a farmer, try growing some vegetable in your garden, if someone was a sailor then take a ferry somewhere or go out on a fishing boat.

If you're completely clueless on this front, spend a day out in nature, maybe walking or hiking since we all descended from hunter-gatherers.

Keep Their Memories Alive

Think about them. Talk about them. Tell their stories because that is how we all live on after we have died. Even if you don't know their specific stories, read the history of their region and culture, the gods they may have worshipped, what day-to-day life was like for the average person in their time and place.

If you knew them in your lifetime, find opportunities to tell others interesting stories about them, flip through photo albums and watch old family videos, read letters or birthday cards they wrote, recall funny moments and laugh, follow their advice.

With loved ones who have passed on, this can be a particularly painful experience. Thinking about a dear friend of mine who passed on at only 29 years of age often brings up memories of the day she died. If you're not ready for that, do not pressure yourself. But know that that pain is a part of your story and their story. The emotions you feel about them is a wordless story whether those emotions are good, bad, or both. I feel her presence the strongest when my grief has been prodded again because I know it only hurts because of how much I love her and she loved me.

You Don't Have to Invite Everyone

In whichever ways you choose to venerate your ancestors, know that it is your sacred time, space, and process. If there is anyone you do not want to honor, you can straight up tell them they are not invited or welcome. You are not even obligated to keep living toxic or abusive individuals in your life (regardless of relation, despite what some people may claim), and you certainly do not need to indulge these m'f****rs after they've died. Death does not make a bad person good and it doesn't erase the bad that they did while living.

These situations can be complicated, however. If you are unsure, you can open an invitation now and dismiss them later if you change your mind, or exclude them now and invite them later. But always give yourself room to decide if you want this person's presence in your life or not.

I will be following up on this article with a video and article about what to do about problematic ancestors. Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and/or my emailing list to get an update when it comes out!