Ancestral work is, at its very root, incredibly personal. No two practices will be exactly the same. It’s a journey, one that never truly ends. You’ll be shifting within your practice, finding what feels right and comfortable at that point in time and growing within that space; until it’s time to expand the space and broaden the practice. Then you shift and dabble and explore some more, incorporating new ideas and new methods, getting comfortable there before again growing, moving, changing. All the while, strengthening the connections and bonds with your ancestors, deepening your understanding of the self, and building a magical and spiritual craft that is entirely your own.

WHO ARE OUR ANCESTORS?

There are different sides of ancestral work, the two main sides being rooted in genealogical ancestry and spiritual ancestry. What is the difference between the two?

A genealogical ancestor is someone from whom you are genetically descended, someone who is a member of your flesh and blood family. This can be a relative as recent as a parent, aunt, uncle, or grandparent or as far back as your 13th great-grandfather, your 22nd great-aunt, and so on.

A spiritual ancestor is someone connected to you, your practice, or your religion, faith, or spiritual path in some way who is not necessarily connected to you in a genetic sense. This can be a deity or spirit that you worship or have a link to. It can be a practitioner whose work inspired or impacted your own craft. It can be a spirit, notable person, or folkloric figure that is tied to your culture or to the land on which you live or the land of your ancestors. It can be someone to whom you’ve always felt a strong connection or who personally inspires you in some way.

Sometimes your spiritual ancestors are also genealogical ancestors. Some practitioners only work with genealogical ancestors, some only with spiritual ancestors, and some work with both. As I said before, your ancestral work can be whatever it needs to be for you.

WHAT IS ANCESTRAL WORK?

Ancestral work is:

Honoring and preserving the legacies and work of those who have come before you.

Communicating with those ancestors, sharing in their wisdom, and making room for the ancestors in your life and practice, sometimes creating a mutually beneficial arrangement of you helping or honoring them in exchange for their help and guidance.

Engaging with, honoring, and preserving ancestral familial and cultural practices and traditions.

Healing ancestral wounds and repairing ancestral trauma.

At its core, ancestral work is all of this in one. This is the root of the practice. So, where does one begin?

FIRST STEPS & FOUNDATIONAL WORK:

Research:

When it comes to genealogical ancestral work, your first place to start is with learning about your background. Some of you may already have access to your genealogical information and that makes this a little bit easier for you, but there are many who don’t yet (and may never) have access to that information. Still yet, there are those who may know names of ancestors but nothing more than that. My advice is to start with what you have and build from there.

You might have living members of your family that can assist you and answer questions, or you may have no knowledge of specific ancestors but at least a general idea of where they were from. For those who were adopted and may have little to no link to their genetic heritage or family, I have friends in this same situation who work with ancestors of their adoptive family and within the culture of their adoptive family because that’s the culture they were raised in and the family they feel most connected to, or they work exclusively with spiritual ancestors within their practice and faith or connected to the land on which they’re from.

If you do have family you can speak to about your ancestry, that’s a great starting place.

Take notes on names and whatever information is given you and start hunting down what information you can online.

There are a number of websites that provide assistance with these sorts of quests.

There are also government and historical archives through which you can access birth, death, and marriage certificates, census records, military records, and the like. Historical archives have been a great help to me in tracing the dots of some of my ancestors’ lives. You may think that this limits your work to only recent ancestors, but in my personal research I’ve been able to find useful documents from as far back as the 11th century detailing records of events and persons throughout the 9th and 10th centuries (thank you, museum and library archives that grant public access).

If you don’t have any way of accessing information about your familial ancestors or are not comfortable doing so through family, all is not lost. Remember, start with what you do have. You have spiritual ancestors regardless, ancestors and elders that are tied to the land you’re from or the religion you practice, ancestors whose work shaped your practice, and so on. In many cases these ancestors can be even more present in ancestral work than a genealogical ancestor might be because you may simply be more deeply connected to this side of your life than you are to any genetic link.

Exploring Your Culture:

Once you come to know (at least a bit) about your cultural heritage, it’s time to explore that deeper. Doing so is a fantastic way to start working on or strengthening the foundation needed to build our ancestral connections. Practicing your cultural traditions and keeping them alive is an extremely important task in general, but it’s also an act of living remembrance or active remembrance. By participating in traditional cultural practices, by celebrating your culture(s) and the culture(s) of your ancestors every day, you are performing a sacred act. This is a part of ancestral work in and of itself. It not only keeps traditions alive, but it also brings you closer to your ancestors who practiced these traditions themselves.

Exploring your culture may sound intimidating, but it can be so simple. Listening to folk music, learning traditional recipes and incorporating them into your diet, researching history and folklore and mythology from your ancestral homelands, and learning the languages which your ancestors spoke – these are all great for connecting with your culture, for learning more about the worlds that your ancestors came from, and for starting to build that bridge between you in this modern existence and those who came before you.

I am of mixed race and mixed cultural background, but I was raised more within one culture than the others. I’ve made it a point to expand my understanding of my heritage and to learn more about all the cultures that make me… well, me. In actively learning about and immersing myself in those cultures, I came to feel more rooted, more balanced, more connected to myself and the world around me. I came to understand who I am better than I ever had before, and that understanding was fundamental in my journey with my ancestors.

But some practitioners of mixed race and heritage prefer to work within one culture exclusively, and that’s completely fine as well. Remember, this journey is entirely personal and the ancestral practice you’re building is exclusively for you, so do whatever feels right to you.

Establishing Intent:

Determining the purpose of why you’re taking up ancestral work is important. You may have done this before you ever started the research portion of your work. In some practices, religions, and cultures, ancestral work is a sacred duty, a respect we owe to those who came before us. It’s about honoring those ancestors, not about getting anything in return (though I believe that there is a sense of fulfillment that comes with simply paying our respects and keeping those memories alive, and that sense of fulfillment is a blessing and a reward in and of itself.)

If you intend to seek guidance, aid in your craft, or a connection that assists you in divinatory practices, you might go about making your connections a little differently than someone whose sole intent is to preserve practice and tradition. When it’s time to go about reaching out to those ancestors, your intention in doing so should be clear and stated because, honestly, they’re probably going to know anyway, whether you’re straightforward with them or not. It’s always best to start things off with an honest, sincere approach.

It’s also important to remember that, as you grow within your ancestral practice, your intention for maintaining this practice may change. That’s completely normal.

REACHING OUT & MAKING CONNECTIONS:

With your research started (this is a process that is ongoing and will probably never be completely concluded), your intention clear to you, and a better understanding of your cultural heritage under your belt, it’s time to start reaching out to ancestors. There are countless ways to do this, and how you choose to do it is entirely up to you. There may be a specific method for doing so within your religion or practice, or beliefs within your culture that would influence how you might go about this. Here are a few general recommendations for where to start that you can easily alter and expand upon to fit your personal needs.

Building an Ancestral Altar or Shrine

Building a shrine or altar is a great place to start with stepping into your ancestral work. What’s the difference between an altar and a shrine? Generally, a shrine is for remembrance and making offerings. An altar can be used in the same way as a shrine but also includes the act of worship or veneration (be that worship of the ancestors aside from or as your religion) and/or working magical craft. Your altar or shrine can be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be. Some elements that are generally a good idea to have on this altar are:

Candles – You can light candles in memory of your ancestors (both symbolically and physically kindling the flames of ancestral traditions), and you can light them in invocation of your ancestors in ritual or in communication with them. Candles also make great offerings to our ancestors.

Photographs of your ancestors / artwork, items, or symbols representing your ancestors – These serve as a physical representation of those ancestors and as a physical link between where they are now and our realm. If you have photographs of family members you’d like to use, either as symbols of the family in general or to reach out to that particular person, include these on, around, or above your altar. You can also use artwork, items, or symbols important to the culture of your ancestors to serve as representation and reminders of them.

Significant or sacred plants – In your research into your cultural heritage, were there any plants of significance to the land or practice of your ancestors or the cultures from which they came? If you have access to those plants where you are now, it’s a great idea to keep some on your altar or shrine as a link between you and those ancestors. You can keep them freshly cut and replace them whenever they wilt or dry, or you can place dried ones instead. You can also grow them in pots either on or nearby your altar or shrine. These plants can also be used as tools within your craft.

Incense or oils – Incense and/or oils derived from those plants sacred to the culture of your ancestors make a great offering and can also be useful in your ancestral practice. Some practitioners burn incense during ceremonies, rituals, holidays, or when reaching out to commune with their ancestors. Some use oils as a part of that work. Both can be used as invocational tools. When it comes to incense it’s also incredibly useful if communication and/or divination via smoke is part of your practice.

Offering bowls, trays, or plates & offerings – Making offerings to the ancestors when we’re able is a great way of showing them that we are keeping their memory alive, that they are still a part of us, and that they can still have a place with us and through our practice in this realm. Many make offerings of food and drink, of jewelry, of crystals and stones, and of items found in nature (flowers, leaves, nuts, etc.). You can make offerings exclusively of items that would have been valuable or significant to those ancestors, or you can make offerings of anything that you feel moved or called to offer, be that even a portion of the juice you’re drinking or a slice of the cake you made. A few traditional offerings across many cultures include alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and sacred herbs or flowers.

Once you’ve started your altar or shrine (this is, again, generally a constantly changing and growing piece of ancestral practice), you’ve already shown that you’re making an effort to establish connection and opening yourself to communication from those represented within the space you’ve created.

What Next?

Now that you have a space – be that space big or small – dedicated specifically to your ancestors, you can use it as a place of meditation, a space for remembrance, and a space for communication. Know that you can communicate with your ancestors anywhere at any time, but many people who have never done so before and who aren’t sure where to start find it easier to utilize the altar or shrine they’ve crafted as a means of directing their focus.

The next step going forward is as simple as this – just ask. If you’re not sure what to do or how to better honor and connect with your ancestors, ask them. Many practitioners do this by lighting their shrine/altar candle(s) and taking a moment before this space to speak to those the shrine/altar was built for. You can do this by prayer or just by speaking to them. You can ask/speak to them about anything at all. I speak to my ancestors all the time, sometimes just catching them up on the recent family goings on. The act of communicating in and of itself is seen as an offering by many, as that act alone can mean so much.

Maybe you’re stuck here and you’re wondering, how do I go about asking? Some examples:

“How would you like to be remembered by me?”

“Is there anything you’d like as an offering?”

“If you feel comfortable doing so, would you walk with me and guide me through this practice?”

“If there is anything you would like me to do for you, can you give me a sign or speak to me?”

Taking a moment to directly speak to them and invite them into your life and practice further displays your commitment to connecting with your ancestors. I would like to mention now that it’s perfectly fine to establish boundaries with your ancestors as well. You may not feel comfortable doing something they’ve asked of you. Tell them so and make that clear and establish that boundary moving forward. Establishing and maintaining boundaries is necessary for some, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

What happens after you’ve reached out or asked for communication? Chances are, there have already been times in your life when those gone before you have presented you with signs and messages. Maybe you never noticed them. Maybe you shrugged them off because you weren’t sure what to make of them or because you weren’t yet open to the idea of communicating with ancestors, elders, and spirits. Now that you’ve opened that door and reached out to them, you can expect them to reply.

Seeing Signs from ‘the Other Side’

Sometimes our ancestors can’t communicate with us with direct words. This can be the case because they simply aren’t capable of that form of communication, because they choose to use another form of communication, or because you’re not yet bonded enough with them to communicate in such a way. There are many ways that our ancestors can communicate with us, and no method is any less valid than another.

Dreams – It’s common for the ancestors to speak to us in our dreams, especially genealogical ancestors. This can be in a very direct way (seeing that person in your dream, hearing that person’s voice, reliving a significant memory with that person, that person clearly and directly speaking to you) or it can be more indirect (speaking through signs and symbols, delivering a dream that presents a feeling more than it does actual words or actions, etc.). As a general rule, we should never disregard our dreams anyway, but we especially shouldn’t once we’ve taken up ancestral work and ancestral communication.

Tarot & oracle cards - Tarot and oracle cards can be a method of communication with your ancestors. In fact, many diviners (myself included) have spirits and ancestors that aid them in divinatory practices and that reach out to give them answers through these methods. If you’re already a reader of tarot and cards, you may notice a change when you sit down to perform your reading now. It might be a new feeling or a shift in ambience. You may feel a presence. You might hear or sense a voice in the back of your mind. Pay close attention to these changes. Feel them out. You may notice over time that your readings have since become more accurate or better detailed, more direct. This is but one of the many advantages of ancestral work and of welcoming their guidance in our lives.

Seeing signs – Many times, spirits and ancestors will communicate through signs. This can be through animals, weather, plants, acts of nature, or even through manipulating items within your home, such as moving items or hiding them. Sometimes, I’ll have dreams about my great-grandmother, or she’ll just pop into my mind when I’m falling asleep. The next day, there will be fresh, open blooms on the rosebushes outside. Roses were her favorite flower. I know that those roses are a sign from her that she’s reaching out and letting me know that she’s with us.

The signs that the ancestors deliver us can be something like that – flowers blooming in our yard – or it can be something like a particular animal or insect crossing our path. Usually, the signs come in the form of something that has particular significance or meaning within your culture or family, so pay close attention for anything like that or for anything the just feels like it was something more than a mere animal encounter, bird sighting, or whatever it may have been.

Recording our dreams, our tarot and card readings, or anything we may feel was a sign or communication from the ancestors can be a great way to help you recognize the patterns of communication. Perhaps you look back through those notes and find that you’ve seen a certain bird in your yard on the same day you’ve lit candles or made offerings on your altar/shrine consistently over the last month. Now you know that there may be more to that bird, and that it may be a sign from the ancestors themselves, if not a borrowed body they’re using to pay your home a visit. When it comes to learning how to understand these methods of communication with the ancestors, the most helpful things we can do are keep our eyes peeled and our minds open, take notes, and be patient.

Remember, ancestral work is a long journey. You’ll be constantly growing within this practice, evolving, and exploring new aspects of the work. At the start, it can seem incredibly daunting. You’re very much standing at the edge of a whole new world, a whole new self. The unknown that lies before you can be overwhelming or intimidating but remember that you’re not alone in that feeling. Many a practitioner before you, possibly even the ancestors you seek to connect with, have stood exactly where you stand now and felt as you feel. Lean into the unknown, embrace the free fall into this essential and incredibly rewarding practice, and prepare to understand yourself in a way that you never have before, because connecting with our ancestors and performing ancestral work is, in part, connecting more deeply with ourselves. We are, after all, the living and breathing embodiment of those who have come before us. Without them, we would not live. And without us, they would not live on.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING: