After reading a post of Japes in the "Death" thread I was left wondering about ancestor worship and my personal interpretation of it.

I had on the whole seen it as remembering our relatives long since gone, those of our family, clan tribe or whatever you want to refer to them as, and asking them for guidance that kind of thing. I'd not really thought about it from the point of view of our ancestors actually being ourselves... as in our previous incarnations, however this actually seems to make a great deal more sense to me in some respects than for the ancestors to be others of my family... I'm not totally sure why though.

I'm certainly not saying there is anything wrong with looking to those of our families who have gone before, I do it, and will continue to do so, but there is now the other angle to consider, the idea of connecting with the self on a much deeper level than I have ever done really. to connect with my own "personal" ancestors. Is that the true purpose of "Tapping the Bone"? am I finally waking up and become more aware of something? or am I just rambling?

not sure what I am asking here really, just thought it would be interesting to see others' interpretations of this.

This is an area where I have much to learn. I have disowned my immediate family over the years and feel no connection with them whatsoever, spiritual or otherwise. I know little of my ancestors on my father's side, and a bit more about my mother's family. I have not revisited North Yorkshire, where I grew up, since I left at 18 and feel more spiritual connection with the land of the West Country round Bristol where I subsequently lived than with the place of my birth. I have a hard time identifying any ancestors or connecting with them.

I sometimes feel really rootless and alone; a sensation which is healed by nature, or maybe a Rune meditation. I also feel that my tattoos have addressed a lack of constance or permanence in my life. I like to feel that I have something I cannot lose or throw away. Any advice on how to go about finding spiritual ancestors would be helpful to me. I've always shied away from it as being somewhat of an impossibility but I feel it's something lacking in my path.

I'm a great beleiver in ancestral, or genetic memory or whatever you like to call it, so myhaps your not talking to the "ghosts" of your ancestors, but maybe just accessing that part of them within you.........

After all, all we are is product of them, in a sense, we are our ancestors, all chopped up and stitched back together, kinda.




And snap, though not for the same reasons. I've moved around alot, and I feel cut adrift sometimes so to speak, and yes I feel like I don't have any roots either. Recently when I was living with some friends for a few months that I hadn't seen in years, I thought I would be returning to my roots, but I wasn't.

Finding spiritual ancestors is best done with very deep meditation and visulisation I find. Again, it's wether you are amore comfortable looking for them within yourself, or outside of yourself.

Hope it helps.

My family are Aspies - sufferers from Aspergers Syndrome. High-functioning Autistic, if you prefer, although there are people who claim that these are two different conditions. We tend to be late starters. Or, as I tell people "I was the fruit of exhausted loins".
So I never knew my grandparents, who were gone before I arrived. One of my treasured photographs is of my Father (gingerly) holding my son.

I know very little about my Paternal Grandfather. He lived in Belfast. He was a baker. I *think* that means that he worked in Ormeau Bakery - a big bread factory - rather than have his own bakery. His wife was a domineering matriarch and he died of drink.

And that's it.

Oddly enough, I feel as though I'm reliving his life. I'm not a baker, but I do enjoy making my own bread at the weekend.
My wife and kids are Aspies too. Female Aspies tend to be perfectionists - so over the years I've been side-lined and excluded from many of the decision-making processes in the family. Male Aspies tend to be bad at oral communication, which doesn't help. If we wrote each other letters I daresay we'd be fine.
My retreat is to play pennywhistle and willowflute in the park. My grandfather used to play fiddle. I imagine he would have played it in the pub. That would have been his retreat.
He died in his fifties. Apparently from the drink.
Aspies tend to have high blood pressure, because of the (extreme) pickiness about food. We like the salty stuff.
I'm in my fifties and have high blood pressure. I feel that if I make it to my sixties I will have succeeded, to some extent, where he failed. But I'm not confident.

Yes - thanks. It does make a lot of sense. I doubt I'll have the personal time or space to devote to this for a few years though. Busy becoming an ancestor myself Becoming a parent does make you question everything about yourself though. Perhaps it's all part of the process !

Its through a connection with the environment and those living spirit thingies that I don't feel disconnected and alone (cos otherwise I would do). I guess its the aliveness of it all that does it for me.

fizz

Good point, but sometimes what your hankering after is nothing more than the close bonds of friendship with other people, rather than an intense spiritual connection with the world around you. I really don't feel alone in that respect.

A man is the sum of his memories, including the ancestral memories buried deep in the subconscious. By meditating I think we can rummage around these forgotten memories. But that isn't the same as going and meeting those ancestors. When I meet them I don't use meditation but go on a trance journey to their hall. They are not recent ancestors but ones who lived a millennia or more ago. They are also awkward buggers.

One's ancestors are part and parcel of the land one walks, and of its memories.

By holding caring communion with them, we reinforce our own role and destiny, and also our understanding of guardianship/stewardship.

And so the wheel turns.

Our ancestors are a part of our very bone marrow. Without them we would not be here. I have a lot of respect for them.

I respect my ancestors and have learnt a lot from them, but I save worship for the gods.

Dunno about ancestral "worship", but tapping the bone refers to the acquiring the ancestral memories within oneself, namely genetic memory. Been on that path all my life, also benefited by travel to some of these places of origin. Indeed, really broadens one's perspectives of existence and interconnectedness. This in itself gives all due respect through understanding the struggles of our ancestors, that we should not take for granted.

This is what I always thought of Ancestor worship to be (combined with those of my family who have passed be it years before I was born or recent dead)



Thanks for the reply Tas makes sense



Thanks for the brief explanation of "Tapping the Bone" from the way you just described it I would say that it is indeed a way to gain a connection with out own personal ancestors (by personal I mean our past incarnations) the ancestral memory or genetic memory.

For me my blood relatives don't mean a lot, I never knew most of my grand parents and the one I did I'm more than happy to disown. For me my family are my friends for they are closer and been truer than my blood relatives.

There is one who has departed who are venerated by us as a Disir (a female ancestor who is was exceptional enough in life to be deified) we call upon her and honour her with offerings as we do the other gods in rituals.

Our ancestors help to define who we are and often made sacrifices for us, in my experience the majority of Heathens take Rememberance Sunday and Ancestors Night very seriously as occasions to remember and honour our ancestors and what they have done for us.

Storm Raven

I honour my ancestors-both fairly recently deceased family members and more remote.

Genetic memory is important and it's an area that has interested me for along time. I've done research into the family history on my father's side which gave a few surprises. I'd love to do more with my mum's side but as they are from Belgium it's quite difficult from this side of the channel.

I did have an ancestral dna test which was bought for me as a christmas gift a couple of years ago. It analysed my mitochondrial dna and traced my ancestry back through the female line. I'd love to do the same with the paternal side but this is not possible as my father died some years ago and I have no brothers so it will remain a mystery.

I also connect through trance journeys to gain guidance and advice.

I don't worship my ancestors as such, but I do honour them, both the family members I knew or was told about with whom I have a genetic link, and the spiritual ancestors who followed the same path before me.

We are bound to our ancestors in many ways and not just genetically. Their actions, whether it is 50 years ago or 1500 years ago, can still effect us today - cause and effect is not limited by space and time but can resonate through the ages, just as our actions will effect our descendants (if we have any!). The past is not so far away as we think it is.

I've started to feel like this only since I turned my back on my immediate family (who really did fuck with my mind ). I know of two other females in family history, one on my mother's side and one on my father's who have done this before; abandoned their relatives and struck out on their own. So I guess that precedent helped me make the break. I sought out and met one of these great aunts just before she died and had much in common with her. So I feel a kind of connection there, and that her past life and brave decision were a help to me.

I think any visit to somewhere like Newgrange, Or West Kennet brings home how close the past is. I watched the "Mummies" series on Channel 5 this week and saw the tattoos and ornaments on the 4800 year old bodies and marvelled at how similar to us they were. It did make it all the more hideous seeing them exposed (but that's another thread).

When I visit those sort of places I can feel the weight of history and time itself seems more transparent. I tend to feel it with the less visited sites though, they have been left undisturbed and the energies of the ancestors and what they did seems stronger somehow.

Another reason the past is closer to us than we realise is because we tend to look at history in a linear fashion - one event after another - but time is not linear and it maybe that an event that happened a 1000 years ago is but next to us, in a manner of speaking. We almost see the separation of time in the same way as we see the separation of space. Think of time as a row of houses - the Battle of Hastings is, in linear terms, ten houses away from us but in the quantum reality it may actually be next door. It's rather difficult to explain!

I do respect my deceased ancestors, especially the more recent ones. I have traced my family tree back, it was interesting to see how far some of them had strayed from their welsh roots... if we are talking Ancestors (capital A notice) I have done some very interesting work with them too, but them part of that was covered in the trad I was trained in. On a personal level, I was interested to find that I followed the trad of the women from my mothers side of being interested in herbal cures - it was a strong part of the family. Also my mothers side had unbeknown to me, a strong link with the sea, which explains why I live where I do!

I think there's a world of a difference between "worship" and "veneration"...

It's interesting how people interprete the word "ancestors" - many talk about recent relatives. To me, and this is only my interpretation mind you, ancestors implies those who lived way back - okay, we didn't know them or meet them but they still effect us today. We see these things in different ways.

I kind of look at the word ancestors meaning "All" who have gone before, be they hundreds of years ago or more recent. However what triggered my posting this was a slight shift in thinking I guess would be the term to use, and this shift was to thinking about ancestors to include our own prior incarnations...

Funny Wulfric, that's exactly how I interpret it too.

We are not just the sum of our ancestral blood-line, we are the product of the societies our ancestors lived in - it is these which shape us now as much as our blood.

But it's all, in my view, circular, how "past" is past? We're thinking linear, and I've never been convinced that that's how things really work. There're too many things that make me believe that it's all intertwined, past, present, future, and we are our own ancestors and our own children. Somehow.

Indeed there are three things that effect evolution- heredity, environment and circumstance.

Yup. Its funny.. when I think of my ancestors I think of people I have never met, never even shared the same way of life as... I think of my ancestors as being those people who are beyond family history. Great great granparents and beyond. People running about with fur and clubs at the extreme

Indeed, I touched on this in post #19. Common sense doesn't work when trying to understand the nature of time and spacetime. Time is certainy not linear and it may not even be circular in nature - it's far more complex than that!

I am not putting down any path or interpretation of 'ancestry', all is relevant at times and all empowers us when we accept and learn from it, but for me the only ancestors I wish to contact, connect to are those of like mind and understanding. I choose that line in my work not just to boost my sense of self but to expand my knowledge by learning. I find that the acknowledgement of myself as 'one of the company', rewards me far more than in an ego sense, it is confirmation and affirmation and a sense of belonging. Sometimes I also find I have absorbed something intuitively, much like the sense of the muse in poetry, as if I am being given or realising the next step. It is like a rite of passage each time, and this bit is for HOS continuing from the other thread, the ancestral connection to self is particularly effective in this.

Aha ! Now I have definitely felt something akin to this but never made the connection. This thread is really interesting and encouraging to me. Great posts

But if time is non-linear then it doesn't matter how recent or how far back, does it?

No it doesn't matter in reality. However, it is very difficult to shake off the "common-sense" Newtonian view of time as an absolute linear phenomena.

yes I worship my ancestors! Well...in a sense. It's my UPG that our Gods were originally people way back when in a time when the words 'once upon a time' wouldn't even cover it.

I had this belief before I started looking into the Snorri thing(Prologue to the Prose Edda) and Snorri's euhemerism did have me rather excited for a while as having lorical 'proof' that that was how people saw the origins of the Gods but no....that wasn't to be. Still....my gut still goes with that and as I haven't seen any proof to the contrary, I'm pretty happy to keep along those lines.

Oh well....

For me, as a non-dualist, the ancestors are very important. They're more likely to take an interest in my daily affairs than the Gods and for less of a price. Just as I will when I pass for my descendants.

As for being able to access the memories of our ancestors, I can kind of see that. That's something that may be called 'Aftrborinn'. For example, I never learned how to do cross stitch however my grandmother who died before I was born was very very adept at it and I just happened to pick up a needle one day and go from there. I think the same can happen with memories. We are all the product of our ancestors and so it's not such a big leap.

Agree with you 100 % there, elswith. I feel that the Gods were 'our' (speaking collectively) Ancestors from waaaaay back.

I personally feel that the long passed and recently passed can advise and influence in even the subtlest of ways, whether we 'hear' them or not.

I also feel that (in my experience of talking with friends & their parents, also my own relatives) that too many people are likened by their family, for example, to those who have long gone, either because of their manner or personality, life choices, etc. for it to be co-incidental.

Maybe it is genetic memory, maybe we are our own ancestors/descendants... maybe I'm talking nonsense but thats my thoughts on the subject, lol.

Love this thread, its really got me thinking.

xdgx

An interesting subject this one, hence me reading it. Ok so this is a bit of a long one!

Going back to my roots so to speak taught me alot, whilst in Siberia, part of my teaching was to visit with the Ancerstors. Literally!

I was taken into some caves and into the burial area. There neatly on ledge's were the physical remains of my Ancestors. Due to the permafrost and the dry cold these were preserved amazingly well. No I didn't go rummageing around amongst them that was not the reason that I was taken there and would have been majorly disrespectful. But the tattooes on exposed skin etc that I saw were very clear and detailed, and the Caribou pelts that covered them still had the fur one etc.

The reason that I was taken to see them was to teach me to pick up on their past memories or experiences and to know that I hold all of this within myself. What ever happend to those remains in a physical sense didn't really mater, What did mater was that I had to learn to access them through myself.

It wasn't a morbid experience at all it was actually a rather enlightening and intrigueing one. Out of respect we left an offering and burt some ceder. I was then given a handful of stone beads that were on the floor in that cave. I still have them and wouldn't part with them for anything. From the eyes of a living person today yes it was a great archilogical find. But to us they are our ansetors and must be treated with the respect that they justly deserve.

It did conect me and bought it home in a very real way that I am very much part of those people, they still live in me in variouse ways, and i now know that if i need there help I can look with in.

Do I worship them? No not really, but I have total and utter respect for them. We celebrate there lives once a year on the shortest day and throw a big feast for them. I still do this every year.

During my stay I visited those caves a few more times, but each time a part of what I was being taught. I learn't that I could meet there spirit forms if you wish to call them this in a specific place in meditation, some were and are great spirits, others I wouldn't really want to be around to much. Most were warrios of variouse kinds, or healers or numerose other things. But all are part of my gentic make up, they still survive to this day with in my bones and blood. So they are part of me very much.

I was also taught her that our Ancestors are not only from our genetic past, but they are our gentic future as well, these can also be conected to in variouse ways, if the need should ever arrive. But I have never really had the need yet to do this work, I'm to preoccupied with a million other things. Besides my childern are my genteic future.

Saying this though it was a very useful experience going there and visiting with them , at the end of my last visit due to variouse outside reasons we sealed off those caves so that all the generations that lay within them can do so in peace. I hope that I was one of the last people to ever look in there and see what I did and it was an honour to have been able to do so. But to me here and now, I use the skill that I was taught to work with them and I look within for there help.

Somethings will always out in the blood though, one of the most odviouse is my diet, before I went out there as well as after, my natural choice in diet follow's very closely that of there own, yet my current family have been raised here in the EU for several generations.

Yet I still crave the traditional diets of both sides of my heritage, and pretty much stick to them. Of my 2 children, one follows her father's genetics more than mine and he's very much of Celtic blood,the other follows mine, again this is most easily shown in our food choices.

Now I have not forced these choices on either child, because my preference is to a more game based diet with alot of smoked or salted foods and fish. Very few veggies, but looking at my ancestors diets this is what they ate. I wouldn't give these kinds of foods to a child in any large amount . But one deffinatly go's and raids the fridge and pantry and this is what she choses herself. I just keep it to a minimum. This is also the child that has my rare blood group.

The other is following much more a vegetable and grain based diet, she also has her father Blood group. The blood and DNA results are due to some archilogical research that i'm involved in. Which is thowing up for me some very interesting information about ancestors and the past. But that's anther story.

All in all I am what my ansestors were, their genetic make up and their memories, I only have to head back within me to find these answers to these questuion's. I can physically never return to that village , it is no longer there, as for my relitive's and people on this side of my heritage very few are left, I am one of the last. The few that are have scattered themselves to the four winds.

My pearent's were never together, and I seldom see either of them. If I have my wish I will only remain in contact with one of them. My grandpearents have moved on the their next circle of existance and stepped away form this one. This leaves me one contact from my family on this side, my Aunt who though we are close has her own path in life so we don't meet much.

I can and do visit Canada periodically when I have the means to do so and will do so. But this is way in the future, I have been here and love the place, if anythng it feels more of my home than anywhere else.

But I am not alone or unconected with either sides of my heritage, becuase I carry it within me where ever I go. We all do, we just each have to find our own ways to gain access to this.

Siksika

Siksika I really am finding your posts to be fascinating thanks you for sharing your experiences with us

Thanks Herneoaksheild,

I'm just answering as I see or feel is right, if it helps others along the way or raises questions that they then seek answers to which ultinately helps them, then i'm happy to share some of these experiences.

I was lucky and honoured to get the help I needed when I did, even if it was in some unusual ways. But comeing back to the west as it was then known or the EU as it is now, bought it home to me just how much variouse races had lost of there past teachings. If I can just help a few in finding some of these things then I have helped and honoured my teachers in there request to me that I must not let the knowledge they past on to me die.

Siksika