#2-010: How to Connect with your Ancestors and Why You Should

Welcome to the world of ancestral healing and spiritual connection! 

Discover answers to key questions: 

• How can I connect with my ancestors spiritually? 
• What is ancestral healing and why is it important? 
• Are there practical rituals or practices for healing generational trauma? 

In the episode, Aminata shares guidance on the spiritual practice of connecting with one's heart and ancestors. She emphasizes the concept of ancestral healing, extending beyond biological lineage to include non-human species, and the impact of colonization on our connection to ancestors. 

Aminata discusses the significance of addressing and healing generational trauma for the well-being of future generations, highlighting the need to heal backward, forward, and in the present moment. 

She also provides practical advice, such as creating physical altars as access points of love and forgiveness rituals as a form of emotional detox. 

The episode culminates in a discussion about the power of imagination as a form of communication with ancestors and the impact of sharing these practices with others. 

Aminata also offers insights into her apprenticeship program focused on reconnecting with ancestors and regenerating with earth through various practices. 

As a supportive resource, Aminata recommends the book "Wisdom Walk to Self Mastery" by Jojopah Nsoroma, which includes forgiveness rituals to aid in ancestral healing. 

We encourage you to listen to the full episode for a profound journey into ancestral healing and connection. 

Whether you're interested in personal transformation, healing ancestral trauma, or seeking guidance from your ancestors, this episode offers valuable insights and practices.

Click on the link below to get a FREE DOWNLOAD: How To Connect with Ancestors for Healing and Liberation--3 SIMPLE STEPS.

 https://www.dramandakemp.com/ancestors-guide

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#ForgivenessRitualsForHealing
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#ForgivenessCeremonies

TRANSCRIPT

So let's talk about first what are what do I mean by ancestors and why I think they're important. So by ancestors, I'm sure you've have probably, you know, if you look it up in a dictionary, it's someone in your biological lineage. Typically, that's what we think a biological person who has died. My definition of ancestors has expanded. We share DNA with a lot of beings who evolved on Earth prior to human beings, evolution, or presence here. We share DNA with beings who are far older as a species than human beings are. And so when I think of ancestors, I am thinking of a lineage beyond the human lineage.

Aminata Desert Rose:
And I think this is important, because one of the challenges with us having been colonized by what is now this dominant so called Western over culture, which has globalized itself, is that it has created this idea of us as individuals, separate, distinct, and honestly, small. You know, like these tiny specks in this world where there's a lot of alienation. Alienation from self, from family, from the natural world, from our divinity, and from our ancestors. So, so why is it important to reclaim this? Well, if you think about why was it important for colonizers to break it? That'll give you a little indication of why it would be important to reclaim it. So, you know, the in this call, many of us are based in North America. But even if we're even if we're based in other parts of the planet, we have been affected by European colonization. We've been affected by you know, some of us maybe have been affected by, colonization from the Arab world. Okay.

Aminata Desert Rose:
So how do you colonize people? How do you get them to give up their land and their bodies and their children in the service of your project? Partly, you do it through violence. It takes a gun, it takes force. But as you know, that is a very expensive way to maintain control. So other forms of colonization to get people to, to get into their heads and into their hearts, to have them shift to your view of the world makes it more efficient. So if you remove people from their sense of connection to all that is to ancestors, to interconnectedness, it is easier to dominate them, it is easier to break them apart and to manipulate them. I think it was Marx who said that the first instance of European colonization was England over Ireland. So colonization isn't just what we think about most recently since, let's say, 15th century. I would look at colonization as happy having happened also within the European continent of peoples against each other.

Aminata Desert Rose:
So when we're stripped of our connectedness, we are left with a sense of ourselves as small as individuals who, are in competition. Right? And I've, and if you look at, you know, Westerners Westerners talking about themselves, there's a lot of discontent unrest amongst Europeans themselves at the modern condition. And of course there's discontent and unrest and pain and trauma of people who were suffering, who were dominated by colonization efforts. So what I'm getting at is our sense of alienation and tendency to numb out tendency toward addiction and distraction is part of, our distant our having lost power, agency, I say the ability to make things happen. When you are numb, distracted, cut off, you are less able to manage, manage your power, intervene in ways that are gonna promote health and harmony. This is also important because there's generational trauma that then we're carrying unconsciously or somewhat consciously, but without an access point to heal. And the thing about generational trauma, of course, is it doesn't just affect you. It affects your grandchildren, your children, your grandchildren's children.

Aminata Desert Rose:
So when we do the work of ancestor healing, we are healing forward and we're hearing healing backwards and we're healing in the present moment. We are remembering it is fundamentally remembering re remembering what has been dismembered psychologically, psychically, and in some case, physically. So one of the people who I've been studying, melodoma somay, he writes that, you cannot experience harmony in your current life if you have unhealed ancestors in your lineage. Because they that energy of of trauma is just gonna keep radiating forward. And this is on an individual level, my individual family, but it's also on a collective level, my collective people and peoples whose DNA I carry. So we have a personal interest in our personal lives to heal this for ourselves and for our children or our sister's children or our aunts' grandkids. And we have a collective benefit a collective reason to do this.

AD #1—SACRED LISTENING

Aminata Desert Rose:
It's like seeds. It is like seeds. And your being here is like putting some soil on those seeds. We're soiling. So I'm gonna add another layer to the soil. And that is how do we establish or reestablish? How do we remember our relationships with our ancestors? How do we remember? And I say this because even if you don't know names or, stories because you didn't have direct contact with people past a certain generation, you can still remember. So how do we do that? So I'm gonna tell you the physical thing first, and then we'll talk more the energetic thing. A very easy way to start to remember is to create an altar.

Aminata Desert Rose:
So an altar, in my case, I first really started feeling more connected with trees. That was my access point. And so I know someone who's in our apprenticeship right now, and her, she feels a connection with, a river. So the point is, where is the access point for you? Start there. Create an altar that includes that as your access point. Maybe you have a beloved, teacher who has passed away, where you have where you know your mother, where you have a sister, start with where you have the access point of love. Physicalize it. If it's, a human person, then you can make an altar to that person.

Aminata Desert Rose:
If it's a tree or a river, then you have a place by the tree or the river where you, you put little, let's just call it offerings or reminders to yourself about what's so great about this river or why you love this. If we talk about an altar, one of my teachers is Jojo Ponce Roma and her book was and was because self mastery, which I have had now for 5 years, and I'm really only now really, really appreciating it. So you can create an altar very simply, put red cloth on an altar, have a red candle. Why? Because in Jojapa's worldview, which is, you know, based in the Dagora tradition in West Africa, Red is a color of of ancestors. So she recommends red. A candle, a cloth, and a picture or something, that represents that ancestor. Maybe they there's a pipe that they had or a favorite flower that, you know, they loved or something from them, something from them or of them. On my altar, I have pictures of ancestors, biological ancestors, who I never met.

Aminata Desert Rose:
I have pictures of nonbiological ancestors who I never met. And for some ancestors who I've recently taken on healing, I actually just have their names. And in my case of my biological father, I don't even know his whole name. I just have his last name, Physicalizing it is important. Having it be a physical location is important. Because as humans, this is my theory. As humans, we need some place specific to put our attention and our intention. If it's just in our head, it's very amorphous, and it comes in and it comes out, and it gets easily clouded.

Aminata Desert Rose:
And, you know, if you spend, like, 5 minutes in my head, you'd be maybe you wouldn't be shocked at, like, the thousands of places I can go in 5 minutes. So I actually do need some place to focus, and an altar helps me to do that. If I keep it very simple, if I stay humble, if I, yeah, simple, humble. This space is a space where I am remembering my ancestors. So that's one thing. Create the physical space, put some objects on it using the color red, if that works for you. How do I spend time? How do I remember beyond that? What do I do when I actually get to my altar? I am a doer. I'm not very good at just sitting still.

Aminata Desert Rose:
You might be perfect at that. So you could just sit and breathe and experience your connection. If you need a little more action, you could sit and sing, ring a bell, light a candle before you breathe and sit. In my case, sometimes I journal, or I will pray out loud. And that little investing of my time and attention, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes. I actually have water on my altar, and I change it every day in part so that I can do something because I'm such a doer. It gives me a way to pay attention, and it's easy for me because I get to do something while I'm doing it. And I have dream on here.

Aminata Desert Rose:
Some people do a lot of profound healing through their dreams. My daughter is an incredible dreamer. She remembers her dreams much less so for me. Although today, the morning of this sharing with you, I had a very powerful dream that I shared with Jojo Pa. So it helped me kind of work with it. And, and I might share you a little with you at the end a little bit of what she said about this moment, what this moment is for us collectively in response to my dream. So that's how you can establish relationship. Be humble, be simple.

Aminata Desert Rose:
Start with something small, physical. I didn't say gratitude. Do approach your altar with gratitude. I mean, some ways, that's what humility is to me. It's not it doesn't mean like hunching over, but it is like, you know, thank you. I recognize that I'm not here by myself. Thank you. Thank you.

Aminata Desert Rose:
I recognize that many have come before me. Thank you. Thank you. So let me pause there. What questions are arising for you? Hesitations, concerns, or excitement.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

Aminata Desert Rose:
One thing I I did not say earlier that I feel like needs to be said out loud here. We think about ancestors, and and we might be thinking, is this ancestor worship? Is this replacing God or divinity, you know, with my ancestors? You know, am I putting my ancestors to as God for me? And what I want you to know is that, no. Unless of course, you wanna make it that way. If your worldview, if you don't have a divinity kind of situation going on and how you move to the world And, you know, then you might use this practice as a replacement or as your, yeah, for that. But if you have a god or, you know, religious tradition that you are that works for you, that you feel committed to and grateful for and all that this is not to be in competition with that. And the way that Jodhapa and we were talking about ancestors, So for example, you could say Buddha is an ancestor because Buddha was a human being at one time on this planet. Jesus, historical Jesus of Nazareth, was an ancestor because he was walking physically on this planet at one time. Mary Magdalene, I mean, they're historic they're fit, human beings who you could claim as an ancestor who might not be in your biological heritage.

Aminata Desert Rose:
And there's maybe God, as you know, as God is all that is, or God, as you know, infinite or however you'd Allah. This practice is asking for those beings who experience materiality, who experience an incarnation into this three-dimensional reality, and who know how hard it is, how hard it is, how we deal with duality, how we deal with exploitation, extraction, you know, sexism, white supremacy goes. They what's so useful and powerful about ancestors is not that they know everything the way that God divinity knows everything, but that they do know more than what you currently remember on this plane, and they remember when they were here. So their specific guidance, their accessibility can be very useful to you, more easily accessible by you. But it is not to replace if you have a worldview that says that there is God or there are, you know, many gods, etcetera. So you can, so you don't have to choose 1 or the other. Unfortunately, the way most of us got introduced to Christianity was through empire. We didn't get introduced to Christianity through a deck a direct relationship, or experience of the historical Jesus.

Aminata Desert Rose:
We got it through when it came in association with domination. And you might have a personal and very beautiful relationship with Jesus. But the institution of Christianity when it came along with colonization, what it was intent on doing was removing us from our ancestral relationships and removing our, as you mentioned, Marion, our languages and our culture. So I want to say that out loud because that has come up and other conversations.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

now we gotta get to the difficult ancestors. So like I said, trees were easy. I went there. More difficult was right inside of my biological lineage because I grew up in foster care. So there was a breakdown in my biological family, and, and it didn't start with me because breakdowns rarely start with you. We're talking historical repeated family trauma.

Aminata Desert Rose:
So, when we're dealing with difficult ancestors, starting with the beloved and the easy on the altar is definitely my recommendation. 2nd, we go to forgiveness, honestly, because there there has to be some kind of forgiveness, process. It could be a ritual before we can, accept those more difficult ancestors. There's a lot of ways to practice forgiveness. I'm not going to go into those here unless at the end, if you wanna have a more of a discussion, we can. But I will tell you that in my forgiveness process, I was surprised to find out I had to forgive myself first before I could forgive these other difficult ancestors. Yep. Yeah.

Aminata Desert Rose:
I, you know, in my case with my mom, I had to forgive the fact that, I was so angry and judgmental of her when she was still alive. And then when she died, I felt so guilty because she died unexpectedly. I felt so guilty. So then I had to forgive myself for all those feelings I had and how I expressed myself and didn't express myself with her. In the case of my stepfather and my biological father, let me see with my stepfather, someone who I experienced as extremely abusive and who I was scared of for even as an adult, after having not seen him for, I haven't I hadn't had not seen him since I was 6. But when I would think about it, I would still feel scared in my thirties. And one of the things that has been fundamental to me with forgiveness is remembering that hurt people hurt people, and that generational trauma just expresses itself again and again, if it is not healed. Jojo pot talks about it as what you don't trans pain that you don't transform, you transfer.

Aminata Desert Rose:
And so part of that working with difficult ancestors is a process of forgiveness, starting with yourself for whatever you did or you didn't do in relationship to those people. And then ritual. Again, I don't know. I was part of a faith community where we really looked down on ritual, a Christian faith community where we look down on ritual, as if it was fake, if it was a ritual, that mean it isn't real. But I've come to understand that ritual has a lot of power to detox emotions, and a ritual can be as simple as burning something. During this eclipse, I did a fire ritual where I, I wrote down the stories of resentment and judgment I had against myself and other people in my present tense life, and I burned it. And then I sprinkled the ashes in some water, moving water. And then I also put some ashes on my ancestor altar to ask them to help me transmute it.

Aminata Desert Rose:
So if you notice a lot of things, what I'm noticing about ritual is that it gives me something to do. It gives me a place to focus my attention. It gives me something tangible to touch, you know, as a way to symbolize or to help me shift from one state of being to another. Because my state of being, like I said, is so all over the place. A ritual helps to give it a little more oomph and to hold it. The final thing I'll say about working with difficult ancestors for me has been communication. So an imagination. So I allow myself to imagine what my mother is saying to me.

Aminata Desert Rose:
I was working with someone recently and she allowed herself to imagine what her grandfather. No, I think it was her great, great grandfather would say to her, imagination as a form of communication is really powerful. And in a lot of indigenous world views, the, the, the distinction between, you know, what is real and what is imaginary between what is real and thought imagined is not that, it's not a big distance because if you can imagine it, then there's a possibility for it to materialize. This is said a lot of different ways. You know, consciousness gives rise to being might be one way if you've heard that phrase before. So communicating with a difficult ancestor, how you feel, you know, your side of the story. You know, all of that is valid and imagining their response to you. Imagine their response and, considering it, not just disregarding it.

Aminata Desert Rose:
Just just considering it.

It helps if you have a a third party present. For me, I'm just gonna be honest. Different things work for different people. Like, I it has helped me. Journaling is a very powerful form of communication for me because I write very easily. So my husband is very auditory because he's a musician.

Aminata Desert Rose:
And so for him to be journaling, it's just gonna take him out of communication. It would be like a block. So he finds listening and playing what he hears, what he feels to his ancestors and then playing what he feels they're saying to him. That works for him, but but it's in the world of imagination. He's imagining it. I'm just making it this point to you that imagination doesn't necessarily mean false, Doesn't mean it's a lie.

Aminata Desert Rose:
And I want you to know that it is helpful to have someone, another human being who is like your, who you share about this with, whether that's, you know, someone in your biological family, or if it's someone who you're friends with, or if you have a, a teacher or a guide, appear, I just encourage you to part of what makes it real or more powerful is you doing a practice and sharing it with someone who's gonna be supportive of you in the practice? I wanna recommend a couple of resources to you as we complete this hour. So one is this book by Jojipan Saroma.

Aminata Desert Rose:
It's called wisdom walk to self mastery.

And as I said, I also wanted to share with you about the apprenticeship. I'm not gonna say a lot about it here. What I really wanna do is invite you to join me on a sacred listening call so we can just listen if it's the right thing for you for right now. But what I will say here is that it's been such a blessing.

Aminata Desert Rose:
If it's the right thing for you, it is it is soil for your seeds. It is a space where we are slowing down to regenerate with the earth, but we're experiencing how good it is to remember our connection. You know? Those behind and those forward, those this way and those this way to come back into that interconnectedness with all that is. And we do it through practices, through practices like journaling or making music with our ancestors, by sitting under a tree and letting ourselves breathe and opening our hearts to feel the love from, you know, a part of creation, like a tree or plant. So the kinds of practices we're doing are like that. It's not a lot of theoretical, read a lot of books. It's an apprenticeship, so it's a doing in your life. So I'm going to I'm gonna share the link for a sacred listening session, and there's there's it's free.

Aminata Desert Rose:
It's complimentary. And what we're really listening for is what's your next evolution. What's the next right way for you to water your seeds? And it may include the apprenticeship, and it may not. It's not for everybody, but it's a beautiful opportunity to slow down and listen. Okay. So I'm gonna formally close us here.