You're Not Making This Up
Honing intuitive perception
A very common conversation I have with clients and friends when we are talking about relating with the ancestors, or receiving information or communications with subtle senses is: am I making this up? My response is always: no, you are not making this up. To which they usually respond: but everything I’m being shown is what I already know, so I feel like I’m just filling in the blanks.
This is the thing: we don’t know what we don’t know. Or said another way— awareness travels though channels which are already open.
It’s not the case that when I’m relating with my French ancestors that I start spontaneously speaking French because I’ve never learned French. However, I have seen it in clients who spoke a second or third language in childhood, yet have mostly lost speaking fluency as they got older, be able to pick it right back up when in ritual space.
Let’s say you drop in with your ancestors, and they are showing you a lot about numbers and mathematics. It just happens you’re in finance or an accountant, so you shrug it off. Quite the opposite! Of course they are communicating this way with you, it’s a shared language. The feedback loop is a signal that communication is actually happening. For me, I was in the fashion industry for 15 years, so a lot of visual information comes in, and specifically what folks are wearing (or aren’t wearing) because I have a lot of prior knowledge in this category.
We all have a deep well of knowledge about something. If you are being shown a vision, or experiencing a sensation that isn’t quite clicking, you can always ask your ancestors to show you another way. You can always ask for clarification, but just like you would if you were speaking to a living human who was saying something that you didn’t quite understand. Can you say that another way? Can you say more? I’m not understanding what you are showing me, can you try again. It’s not that you’re dumb, or unable to use your intuitive perception, it’s that the signal needs to be tuned, like an AM/FM radio. Ask to be shown via movement, the body, music, food, art, plants, animals, clothing, linguistics, numbers, patterns, geography or whatever subject you have a wealth of knowledge about.
The channels that are well worn for me are plants, clothing/fashion, Goddesses, and local animist practices. These are what come though the most in mediumship sessions. As someone who holds space for ancestral work and as a medium, world history, anthropology, and religion are what I am always trying to deepen my knowledge of.
If you have a block in this, it can be a very real modern condition that a lot of a brain space is currently holding a lot of fairly useless information, namely about pop culture. It’s something to explore with yourself: if you are feeling the call to deepen with your ancestors, but are having trouble connecting, I recommend what we in the Ancestral Medicine community call “Guided Googling.” This is a wonderful practice for anyone, the more you know, the more that will come though.
Sit at your computer (or go to a library or book store) and be guided to what is trying to come through just by following whatever is coming up for you. Whatever is “popping into your head”, follow those bread crumbs. When I was working my Father’s Father’s line, a line that was from Canada and France, I kept seeing a particular image of a face of a man, as if it were a painting. I knew that this man wasn’t an ancestor, but that he was very important in the lives of my ancestors. I got on my computer to learn more about French history, which led me to Canadian history, which led me to the founding of Quebec, which led me to Samuel de Champlain — the man whose image I had been seeing in my ritual visions! It was a bittersweet discovery as I had thought the line came to Canada much, much later, but they were actually deeply involved in the colonization of the region.
I was in a mediumship session for a client one time and a specific medical textbook came though — they had a lot to tell her about the body, and it needed to be specific so they asked her to seek out this book. Sometimes it’s a place, perhaps a place you know isn’t particularly ancestral, then learn that it was a trade route with an ancestral place. Or perhaps, as far as you know, everyone in your family is very Christian, but something much older and stranger is coming though, and realize you are being shown some Celtic practices or festivals. Sometimes though this process names, dates of births or deaths, or similar genealogical information can be uncovered.
It can come up sometimes, especially in European-ancestored folks without extensive knowledge of Euro-indigenous cultures, something Native American will be showing up. It’s a beautiful time to really slow down and understand if what they are being shown are Native North American Indigenous cultures that are indeed ancestors of blood, or is that simply what is easiest to reach for when what is trying to communicated when their own people were still living in a tribal, Earth-honoring way.
There is not problem in whatever the vision or intuitive perception is, but it is our responsibility to get as clear as possible lest we continue down some very unaligned colonial/appropriative behavior. Again, we don’t know what we don’t know, which means it’s our duty as folks with world-shaped hearts to know as much as possible about the past— it informs how we navigate the present, and the future.
Shelby and I would love to invite you, if you are a survivor of sexual trauma or abuse, to our first event for survivors. This work cannot be done alone. It is relational trauma and therefore must be healed in community.
Join us for a free 2 hour gentle somatic journey + confidential women's circle on the Full Moon, Tuesday, April 23rd at 7pm ET.
Ancestral Lineage Healing is a type of spiritual repair work that addresses deep attachment and cultural wounds through contact and meditative time with your ancestral lineages.
I guide you as you cultivate your capacity for deep connection with blood-lineage ancestors that are well in spirit to invoke their support for healing generational trauma and cultural wounding through your ancestral lines.
Ancestral Mediumship is a form of connection and communication with the human dead. By allowing a connection with these Beings images, feelings, and messages can be transmitted to the living via the medium (me.)
Ancestral mediumship is a form of mediumship that focuses on asking questions and receiving answers from the field of consciousness from a clients ancestors of blood and bone.
A session can offer views and solutions in a way that is nurturing, loving, and with your specific destiny in mind. Other times, it can be a tender and powerful moment of reconnection with a loved one who has passed.