Ethical ancestral reconnection is an essential aspect of ancestral healing. Ancestral healing is a radical act in many ways due to the nature of how we as folk have thought about healing in modern times. What makes ancestral healing different is the integrative ethnographic approach between system, person, and culture when we look at healing. Looking at healing through an ethnographic lens focuses on systems that are culturally and ethnically centered around the person seeking healing.

RECONNECTING WITH ANCESTORS IN AN ETHICAL WAY

When beginning to reconnect to ancestors one may ask "but what if I don’t have good memories or relationships with the people of that lineage? What if I don’t know where my people have come from?" Basic ancestral research will allow one to begin to embark on a path of understanding the cultures of where they come from. A combination of ancestral research and DNA will give us a bigger picture of the DNA that runs within our blood and the migratory path that they may have followed. With more information, we can begin to put the puzzle pieces back together. We can begin to understand where our families came from—where the stories originated that they came from. The ancestral path is a deep path and takes a great deal of time and energy. However, it is a beautiful path a path that will often reveal great beauty and darkness within the lineages. When wanting to reconnect with ancestors, but not feeling confident in the reconnection due to family, trauma, or abuse is totally understandable. It is completely reasonable to feel hesitant, but just because someone from that line hurt you does not mean that you should throw that line out altogether. One of the best ways to connect with the ancestors is to call upon the healed ancestors from any lineage or general ancestors from lineages you may be unsure of.

ETHICALLY HEALING WITH MIXED LINEAGES

Let’s look at modern America. For instance, the United States has many cultures that have intermingled for hundreds of years now— leaving many modern Americans with a deeply mixed lineage that can feel very daunting, shameful, or confusing in terms of reconnection. If we take an ancestral lens to this with one person coming from four, maybe five different lineages there are a lot of cultures at hand that have influenced the ancestors of said modern person. There may have been a lot of stories and a lot of traumas that have been passed down to this person, however, all of their lineages encompass magic and shadows that lie beneath the stories and yet all those stories have come into play when crafting this modern person. So, what is a modern person to do when they discover how deep deeply mixed their lineage are? The depth of multicultural significance can be overwhelming. At first glance this process is deeply complex and deeply personal, so in order to start in the most ethical way one may:

1. Choose the lineage and culture that intuitively stands out to you

2. Begin to learn about that culture and get familiar with the ways of the folk

3. Go deeper begin to learn the origin stories start, the language learn the foods learn the plants that grow in those regions

OPENING UP A LINE OF COMMUNICATION WITH THE ANCESTORS

1. Sit in intentional prayer to those ancestors —send them your love your gratitude asking for the healed and healing ancestors to come through. You want to nurture a reciprocal respectful relationship. Master you’re offerings of love, appreciation and gratitude before you ask or petition for something

2.  After you have mastered giving back to the ancestors ask for their support, their guidance, etc. ask for the healed ancestors and healing folk to guide you to their cultures to the healing cultures that reside within your lines

In time things will be revealed—stories will reveal themselves, lineages will reveal themselves, but the ancestors can only support you so much. There is a level of action that is required on your behalf to learn of their people to learn where you come from. The ancestors can give us many things, but they cannot gift us the whole entire path. As you begin to deepen your research and honor the ways of the folk, more will open up more information will be revealed to you. However, you must always lead with love and gratitude. You must always give before you take for if we lead with a taking mentality then we become a part of the trauma. We become a part of the cycle that is broke— therefore, it is necessary to lead with the highest of love and gratitude so that you may walk the path in the right way.

WE ARE WOVEN TOGETHER THROUGH OUR ANCESTORS

Ancestral healing is radical because we are taking back what was taken from us. We are embracing the ways that had shame thrown upon them. We are honoring the stories that are complex. We are embracing the duality that lives within the lineages. We are creating healing self acceptance and self love through the gray space that lives between the black-and-white dualities that often get the most attention—this act becomes radical when we decide there is not one thread that let us here, but instead hundred and thousands of threads that were woven through time to create our stories. Ancestral healing is not a one-size-fits-all—this healing path is woven in many languages many colors many stories many songs and many rituals. The ancestral healing path is foundational radical due to the expansive nature of the process— the coming of home that occurs when we embrace all of the ancestors that let us right here to this moment in time.