Ancestral Healing (and Healing Ourselves)

Christina Pratt is holding a class on Healing the Ancestors which is something that most humans have neglected to do for millennia. Some of us practitioners have been noticing an awesomely looming backlog of owed ritual and general care-for-the-dead that we keep trying to scoop through with our proverbial teaspoons in private sessions. As a culture, we don't collectively build the kind of ritual backhoes we need to effectively help greater numbers of people because most folks don't even know how to heal their own lineages (practitioners included). We have this insidious notion that we can outrun our pasts--especially if it wasn't our own but those of family long dead and gone. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants and self-made people.

But as you get older and perhaps have the luxury to get reflective, you might realize that you're starting to manifest symptoms of an old disease that "runs in the family." Or perhaps you find yourself thinking about how you're "just like Dad," or "Mom," or "Grandma," or "Crazy Aunt Edna." Or you wonder why is it that no one in your family seems to have luck with (fill in the blank): money, love, marriage, children, friendships, career. With some or many of these patterns, perhaps you think, "I really don't want to be like that" and yet haven't made much headway in fulfilling your wish.

Psychologically excising family members doesn't usually solve the problem, you may have noticed. Doggedly reframing your life in a radically different style/class/religion/subculture may work for a while but what happens when your kids/grandkids start "reverting," or you notice that you're somehow missing a piece of your life (and not feeling the kind of happiness you'd expect from having 'escaped').

If we're to stop pouring energy into our coping mechanisms and use it more fruitfully on resolution, then more people are going to have to take responsibility for the dead in their families who have not properly crossed over and therefore have not been properly honored. Whatever is true for our ancestors, will also be true for us when our time comes unless we start educating ourselves and others on these responsibilities.

Our Ancestors can be some of our greatest spiritual allies:  tending to the souls of ourselves and family, assisting in fulfilling our destinies, helping raise the next generation, giving us answers to "unanswerable" questions, or protecting our interests in a way that benefits everyone and everything. Yet, they cannot tend or even relate to us in a good and right way unless they have first been crossed to the other side and allowed the process that helps them achieve Compassionate Spirit status. While some die well and make it to the other side, many others (in their confusion about death and its nature) do not, ending up as "hungry ghosts" who end up depleting or wreaking havoc on the living.

While this may cause many a worried brow, we don't have to fret about death. We fear that we cannot remediate a situation with the spirits of the dead. But all remediation begins with taking responsibility. For practitioners who are ready to take up this inevitable and necessary step of healing their ancestors, then this workshop is a good starting point to begin their education regarding the dead.