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4 Simple Steps to Commune with Your Ancestors, by Mallorie Vaudoise

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Honoring your ancestors, like any practice that deals with spirits, is a lot like cooking. Anyone can do it, not just people with special training. (That's a big part of the reason why I wanted to write a book about it!) But whether you're an amateur or a trained professional, you still need to stay in the moment and use your senses—or you might end up burning something.

When you cook, you don't just put your food on the stove for ten minutes and trust that it's been cooked perfectly. Even if you're following a recipe and the recipe says, "cook for ten minutes," you need to watch the food change color, smell it as it becomes more fragrant, and maybe even taste it to know for sure.

Likewise, when you do something to honor your ancestors, you'll need to be able to sense whether that thing feels right—even if you’re following a ritual script. For example, you'll ask yourself, "Does this feel right?" when you place a new photo of an ancestor on your altar. If the answer is yes, you'll proceed. If the answer is no, you'll adjust. I call these quick check-ins, "discernment."

If you don't already know what "right" feels like, discernment probably won't be easy at first. Thankfully, once you do know what "right" feels like, it becomes so natural that it's almost effortless. But, before we can get there, we need to talk about feelings.

Feelings and Spirits
Do you like talking about feelings? For most of my life, I sure didn't. I didn't even like feeling my feelings. So, when it came to my spiritual practice, I did almost anything I could to avoid them. I immersed myself in a world of intellectualism and consumerism. I thought that if I read the right books or bought the right supplies, then magic would happen automatically. I wanted to think and buy my way out of feeling.

Then, I started to meet mediums from different cultural backgrounds, all of whom told me the same thing: that they felt the spirits with which they communicated. Felt them as emotions, as physical sensations, and as things that started as physical sensations but transformed synesthetically into words or images. This gave me new context for the unusual physical and emotional sensations I had experienced throughout my life. I wasn't weird. I was just processing spiritual information the way a medium does.

That realization raised the question: How would I know the difference between my own feelings, the physical and emotional sensations I experienced as part of "normal" reality, and feelings caused by spirits?

In practice, there doesn't seem to be a clear distinction between the two, maybe because they are both categories of subjective experiences. Or, maybe because we are spirits with a physical form. In any case, when it comes to discernment in your ancestor veneration practice, it doesn't actually matter whether the feeling originates from your own spirit or an ancestor's spirit because ancestor veneration is a two-way street. It needs to work for both sides to serve as an effective bridge between the two.

Step 1: Establishing a Baseline
To perform discernment, you first train yourself to observe your feelings throughout the day. This practice will help you establish your perceptual baseline, which will make it easier to detect when something has shifted within or around you.

There's no fancy trick to this. Just pause from whatever you're doing, take a breath, and scan your body. Do you notice tension or energy anywhere? Try to give that a name and a description, like: "I feel anger. It feels like my stomach is clenching." But, don't try to change it. Just observe.

Here's the catch: thinking is not feeling. The mind loves to convince itself that it can do the heart's job. It can't. So, if you catch yourself describing your thoughts instead of your feelings, or if you start describing what you "should" feel instead of what you actually feel, then shift your focus back to your body.

Step 2: Discernment
Now that you have established your baseline and know how to identify feelings instead of thoughts, you can start performing discernment. This is a litmus test you can use whenever you engage with your ancestors: when you're working your ancestor altar, or making offerings to your ancestors, or performing divination to seek their advice.

To discern on something, perform your body scan twice. If you're discerning on something simple, like making an offering, do your body scan before and immediately after you do the thing and observe the difference. If it feels right, keep it; if it doesn't feel right, undo it.

You can also discern on something more complex that requires advanced planning, like a ritual or a pilgrimage. First do the body scan once. Then, imagine yourself doing the thing in as much detail as you can. Then, do the body scan again. Observe the difference. If it feels right, go ahead with your plan; if it doesn't feel right, come up with a new one.

Step 3: How Does Right Feel in the Moment?
Your "right" will feel different from my "right." Your "right" in one moment will even feel different from your "right" in another moment. But, there are some general things to look for when determining whether or not something feels right.

First, ask yourself: Do I want to avoid my feelings by turning to one of the following common distractions?

• Alcohol
• Coffee
• Drugs
• Food (especially sugar)
• Social media

We compulsively turn to distractions as a self-defense mechanism when we feel something uncomfortable, so whatever it is you're feeling, it probably doesn't feel right.

Next, ask yourself: Am I experiencing one of the following inhibitory emotions?

• Shame
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Numbness

Like distractions, inhibitory emotions occur when we feel something uncomfortable. They are our body's way of shielding us from that discomfort. So, whatever you're feeling, it probably doesn't feel right.

Then, ask yourself: Do I feel any of the following things that are associated with having an open heart?

• Calmness
• Curiosity
• Connectedness
• Compassion
• Confidence
• Courage
• Clarity

If your heart is open, it's probably because you are in communion with strong, supportive ancestors who are sharing their affirmation with you. This is what we mean when we talk about something, "feeling right!"

Finally, ask yourself: What is my outlook on life right now? Do I see my present life circumstances, whether easy or challenging, as a lesson for me to learn from? Do I have faith that things will work out in the end, even if I don't know how they will work out today? A growth-oriented outlook, neither overly pessimistic nor optimistic, is a sign that things feel right.

Step 4: How Does Right Feel After the Moment Has Passed?
The most important part of discernment is how you feel in the moment. But, to confirm that feeling, look at what happens after the moment has passed.

Ask yourself: Am I inspired to do any of the following things?

• To connect with other people
• To help other people
• To seek help from other people
• To create art
• To enjoy art that has already been created
• To clean my home
• To nourish my body and the bodies of other people with good food
• To move my body in a way that feels good
• To volunteer or give to charities
• To go out into nature

All of these are signs that the connection forged between your ancestors and your own spirit has moved you in the direction of growth and healing. And that's definitely what feels right.

For even more ways to commune with your ancestors, check out my book, Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration. The book shares techniques to help you connect to your ancestors. You'll learn how to develop your own personal style for honoring them through altars and offerings, seeking their guidance through mediumship, and invoking their power through ritual.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2019. All rights reserved.

Every night I see the same person in my dreams. The dreams are all different, but this person is in every one of them. Why would this happen? Who might this be?
- Red

Dreamchaser:

When I first started studying dream interpretation, there were a few things I had trouble wrapping my head around, for they didn't make logical sense to me at all.

One of those things was the idea that every single being in our dreams is a part of ourselves. I couldn't figure out how I was both the murderous ax-carrying psycho chasing me in my dream, and also the one being chased by the ax-carrying me!

You keep seeing the same being over and over. The fact that this being looks the same every time is very significant. I feel this is a side of yourself that is trying very hard to get you a message via your dreams.

What is this person doing in your dreams? What colors are they wearing, and what colors surround this person? What do those colors mean to you?

What is this person's facial expression? What sort of energy or vibe do they give off? What does this person make you feel when you make visual contact in your dream?

These are just a few questions to get you started as you try to figure out what the recurring presence of this being in your dreams may mean.

By the way, I don't believe that anyone else can give you a definite interpretation of your dreams. This is something you need to uncover for yourself. It's one of those situations where the journey to understanding is as important as reaching the actual destination, for this is something you and your soul have to work out on your own.

As you lay in your bed right before you go to sleep, however, you can ask your spirit guides to help you make contact with this being so you can figure out why it's always in your dreams. This being is a part of you, so I am basically telling you to go have a talk with that part of yourself.

Your guides will assist you in this endeavor if you just ask them to before you go to sleep. I also suggest that you keep a notebook/ dream journal by your bed so you can write down your dreams' key elements as soon as you wake up.

It may take a while, but if you stick with it and review the dreams you've recorded, you'll start to see patterns and answers in your journal. Most likely, you won't get clarity on the first night, so don't be disappointed if this takes a while.

This part of you has been with you for your whole life, so I imagine it has a lot to say! Give it some time.

I wish you a wonderful, meaningful dream life!

*****

Astrea:

Dreams have puzzled humankind for ages. People have all sorts of dreams that recur in their lives, and many involve the same person over and over again.

In the old-fashioned dream books, these dreams mean that you're either going to hear news from afar or receive financial help from friends. Though these old interpretations are sometimes useful, most counselors today lean toward newer psychological explanations for recurring dreams.

It's difficult to know if the person you're dreaming about is someone you know or don't know, because in dreams, people are often symbolic representations of abstract issues.

To find out if this is a real person you know in physical life, or what they symbolize, just run the dreams over in your head. The answer should come to you on the third try.

When we dream of the same person over and over again, it often means that we have some big unresolved issue in our lives, and this person is the personification of those issues.

It might help to review the dreams and see what else is recurring in them. Are you in the same place every time with this person? Do you travel together? Is there someone that you both recognize and speak to in these dreams? If so, who is it?

Another psychological reason we may dream of the same stranger night after night is there are things we're not satisfied with in our handling of our waking lives. The person in the dream then represents what we want to change about ourselves.

Usually, this has something to do with relationships and how we interact with other people when we're awake. If you've been letting people run all over you at work, for instance, this part of yourself could manifest as that stranger in the dream.

If there is some aspect of your personality that you have trouble accepting, you might also have that part of yourself show up night after night in the form of this other person.

Figure out what needs to change, and once you make that change, this stranger will no longer show up in your dreams.

Of course, there is an obvious metaphysical explanation here. This person could be a Spirit Guide, an Angel, or a deceased relative you've never met who is trying to tell you something. If that's the case, going over what happens in the dreams will bring that information to light.

Usually Guides or Angels will appear in our dreams as tall, slender, larger than life sorts of people who chat with us about our daily lives.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.