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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.

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    • Double Vision: Do Spirit Guides Influence Us All the Time?
      spiritguide2

      I have developed the ability to meditate and tune in to access Spirit’s guidance, and sometimes I will ask for signs from Spirit and then follow them. What I’m wondering is if our guides influence us all the time, or only when we ask them to. Are they constantly guiding us at an unconscious level, or can they only do so if they are asked? – Cindy

      Dreamchaser:

      Every once in a while, I’m asked a question here that makes me really stop and think. This is one of them.

      We know that angels can’t act unless called upon by us. God help me or another phrase like that is all it takes to get an angel moving. There are occasions when a guardian type spirit will jump in and save our lives even if we don’t ask for help, but this only happens in extreme circumstances.

      I remember when it happened to me. I had fallen asleep at the wheel with my daughter, who was only a few weeks old at the time. A car horn jolted me awake, and I looked over and saw these big brown eyes looking at me from another vehicle. When I gathered myself together, I looked back to thank him, but there was no other car anywhere on the road.

      Spirit guides, on the other hand, are always there, giving us signs and trying to guide us along our paths. Whether or not we choose to listen to them is up to us. I always flash back to the movie Bruce Almighty when I am asked something about signs from spirit guides.

      In the film, Bruce is driving along, yelling at God to give him a sign, and all the while, he is following a work truck LOADED with signs. Quite often, just like poor Bruce, we don’t see Spirit’s signs even though they are quite clear and right in front of us.

      Of course, when you ASK your guides to go to work for you, they really kick it into gear. That is when you will get inundated with signs and messages. You will see nature signs, hear quips of conversations, hear songs on the radio, see something on television, etc. You just have to be open to hearing and seeing whatever signs the guides might use to get the message to you.

      I always make sure to ask for signs in SIMPLE, very easy to understand terms. When I am looking for an answer, I don’t like to have to do the whole interpretation thing – I like it to be clear-cut. I pretty much always get an irrefutable sign.

      For those of you who are not familiar with how to communicate with guides, here is a crash course: It is very much like speaking to air. Your guides communicate with you via your own thoughts. It sounds like your thoughts, but you know you did not think those thoughts. THOSE are your guides speaking.

      Light a candle in a dark room and use the flame as a focal point, then listen to your thoughts. You will notice some that you did not think. The hardest part of all of this is convincing yourself you are not making it up.

      I wish you clear awareness of ALL your signs.

      *****

      Astrea:

      I believe that our guides are constantly in tune with us and trying to help us, but not everyone has the ability to consciously access their guides. That is a great skill that you’ve developed. You should use it all the time if you can.

      If I could access my guides any time I wanted, I probably would ask them EVERYTHING from the color of the day for a hair ribbon to some big real estate deals. That’s probably why I can’t!

      People are wise to ask the big questions when access is given. Asking about phone calls and emails and little things like that seem to tire our guides out, as they are meant for bigger concerns. They like to prevent car wrecks and broken hearts, and don’t seem to care about the little things.

      Although they are trying all the time to get through to us, we don’t always see them. Of course, most people don’t WANT to see them when they are behaving badly or even marginally about something. Even though a person might try to fool himself that he’s not seeing signs, the signs are always there. Desire for Enlightenment has to be constant for us to have total access to Spirit and the Divine.

      Seeing signs is common whether they come from our guides or from our own imaginations. Many times when we want a sign, we create one. There is nothing wrong with that, or even attributing that to one of our guides or to God. Humans have been given the ability to reason and create, and finding signs is one way we communicate with our own inner knowing.

      Whether they come from Spirit or from us, signs tell us that we’re on the right path, that we’re taking the correct approach to something that requires a decision. I believe that people can tell when signs come from Spirit versus when they are creating signs themselves, but either way, signs bring much-needed confirmation.

      Sometimes we will fabricate a false sign so that we feel better about getting away with something. That’s the time to beware. If a person follows the signs they see and things keep going wrong, that’s a good indication those aren’t real signs from a higher source.

      While we are all not in the same kind of contact that you’re in with your guides, the influence of our Spirit People is vast and pervasive. Those of us fortunate enough to be able to contact them at will are lucky indeed.

      To expand your ability, you might want to try contacting other people’s Guides. It’s noble work and takes great energy, but the rewards are vast, and most people welcome that sort of knowledge.

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