Ancestral Remembrance Ritual Ceremony

My Ancestral Tree by T. Ellis.

In this ritual ceremony you are invited to create an Ancestral Altar with photographs and symbolic representations of your ancestors and lineage.  It can be anything, a simple or more elaborate altar. You may gather objects that belonged to them or had meaning to them, or to you. 

​Place around this altar colorful creations and sweet offerings of gratitude and love for their spirits. You may continue to build and work with this ancestral altar as the days unfold or choose to menstruate when you feel called. 

An altar is a place of focus, power, and communication with Spirit. An altar can be as simple or as elaborate as you are guided by your beliefs, current feeling, intuition, spiritual guidance or conscious self-inquiry and community work.  If you have never worked with an altar before, below is a list of suggestions you may be inspired to choose from or which may spark other ideas.

Elements of fire, earth, water, air, metal. This may be represented symbolically or literally by candles, bowl of water, incense, feathers, singing bowls, rocks, crystals, shells, herbs, smudges, flowers, seeds, coins.

When your altar and sacred space are prepared and you are ready for ceremony, play the guided audio provided:

Nourishing our Roots and recognizing that behind us there are thousands of ancestors, celebrating every win and holding us at every loss, is a powerful 'tool' in this journey of Remembering and Embodying our Divinity. 

​"For you to be born has taken. 2 parents 
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 second great-grandparents
32 third great-grandparents
64 fourth great-grandparents
128 fifth great-grandparents
256 sixth great-grandparents
512 seventh great-grandparents
1,024 eighth great-grandparents
2,048 ninth great-grandparents

For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total sum of 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years.

Think for a moment – How many struggles? How many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many love stories? How many expressions of hope for the future?
– did your ancestors have to undergo for you to exist in this present moment.”

- Author unknown 

Art: by Caitlin Connolly 

“Walking. I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.  
-Linda Hogan, Native American Author