I asked my ancestors for aid and they gave me more dreams

Reflection on developing an ancestor practice

During a rough patch, I turned to my ancestors. I asked for aid. I asked for guidance. It was new for me. I wasn’t sure how supportive they would be to a queer person seeking help on a memoir that’s pro-sex work and a dream to build a spiritual retreat center for queer activists and providers who need a place where their whole selves are accepted.

I imagined that many/most/all of my ancestors would’ve rejected me if they’d known all of me in this life. Even on the ancestral plane, I wondered, what were the limits of their support? Their love?

I listened to podcasts weighing the choice of asking for support from all ancestors versus only those who have themselves healed. I contemplated the unfinished dreams my bloodline might carry and the reparations they might be looking for. And I was afraid to ask what it would take to honor them, afraid they’d add more to my overloaded plate than I could handle. But I was equally afraid that I was asking for support for free — an unbalanced relationship.

It was a random chat with Julia Boone, a.k.a The Growing Intuitive that got me started when Julia mentioned getting into ancestral tarot spreads. It had never occurred to me to specifically try to connect with my ancestors using the cards.

I found a tarot spread that I liked and opened a conversation, and what I got in response was a message of love.

The Lovers was the first “message from the ancestors” card I pulled. The King of Swords and Page of Wands constantly show up in my ancestral spreads. Cards from the 5th Spirit tarot deck.

Soon after, Lenny Duncan mentioned ancestors in our podcast chat. They offered a new perspective when they told me I was assuming time and space worked on the same frequency in both planes. “I want to invite your listeners to the miracle that the person who died maybe a year ago who was a homophobic monster has had much more think about their actions in that life than you’ve had when you approach them at the altar,” they said. They encouraged white listeners in particular to maintain an ancestral altar.

If you’re like me, coming out has been an exhaustive, never ending process. As soon as I’m open about one thing, I have a new aspect of myself that I’m hiding from someone, but especially family. First it was queerness, then polyamory, then the important place of kink in my life, then sex work. I constantly worry that I’ll lose the support of loved ones for something about who I am or how I choose to connect with others.

So what does it mean to have the support of generations of family? What does it mean to have access to centuries of wisdom?

It means everything.

I didn’t grow up in a religious or cultural tradition that honored our ancestors or gave me rituals to connect with them. But I’ve come to believe that any loving presence honors good intentions. And so I lit a candle and talked to them. And I drove my truck and talked to them. And I journaled and wrote to them. I treated them as a presence I could tap into.

I asked for their help and they added to my dreams.

I’d hoped for a door to be opened: a better-paying job; a book deal. Something tactile that could make these dreams a reality. And maybe, even now, they’re working on that too.

But right away, I was gifted with support through a shared vision. A chorus of ideas. An ancestral brainstorm co-inventing my dream with me.

For days, I went to bed with new ideas about my retreat. I ate breakfast and imagined what would be possible on five acres of land. I have new confidence that when it happens, they’ll be alongside me and those who visit.

In Rest is Resistance, Tricia Hersey asks, “What healing and ideas are our Ancestors waiting to transmit to us via our dreams?”

What healing and ideas are our Ancestors waiting to transmit to us via our dreams?

Tricia Hersey

We won’t know until we ask and keep asking and keep listening.

I’ve just started to nurture my connection to my ancestors. I’ve just started my journey about learning who they are and what spiritual traditions I can claim through my bloodline. There’s so much I don’t know. But what I have learned is that all I have to do is start the conversation, and I won’t be alone.

Featured image Dream, dream … by Marta Shmatava.

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