Relating With Spirits is a Two-Way Street

For the longest time, my relationship with those “on the other side” was pretty one-sided. I thought of those in spirit as elevated somehow, while those of us who are incarnated as a bit inferior. I’m not sure where it came from, nor was I even consciously aware of it, but I held a belief that once a person died, they were automatically imbued with all the wisdom of the universe and no longer needed anything from the world of the living.

My relationship with them was like the flow of a river. Support and guidance would come from them and flow downstream to me in a single direction. It simply never occurred to me that they could need anything from me. Or that I had anything to give. I mean, sure, I gave offerings and expressed love and gratitude because I believe wholeheartedly in reciprocity. That’s just the polite thing to do.

Then one day, a long-dead great-grandfather came to me and began a process of setting me straight. He gave me a rather lengthy lecture about metaphysical concepts like “timeline proximity” and “wounds as fragments”. I will spare you the details of the lecture (in part because I don’t fully understand it all myself), but I do think an overview is important. Please stick with me, because one of the best things to ever happen in my life is coming up.

Let’s get (briefly) meta-physical

The gist of my grandfather’s teaching is that we are incarnated on a specific timeline, which includes the space we recognize as reality that stretches backwards and forwards in time to eternity. When we are alive—incarnated—we are each a microcosm of this timeline. Our physical selves, in essence, are the timeline. Here’s why this is important:

Because we are in bodies that, on an energetic level, contain every moment of the timeline, we are closer to the events of the timeline than the dead could ever be (no matter how long ago they occurred). This means that we, as the living, are in the best position to find and witness the wounds that the dead still need to have healed. Our ability to help them this way is profound.

Once I learned this and began focusing my work this way, I began to see myself (and all of us) as truly interconnected beings. I think I’ve written this before, but I want to say it again: We are each the incarnated one on a team of beings.

Below is one of my most cherished memories of this.

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A Gift In A Candle

When I was new to working with the ancestors, I kept feeling a deep sadness about the rift—the wounds and harms—between Christians and Pagans that lived in my ancestry (on both sides). Remembering that I could have an impact on those in spirit, I decided to try doing a ritual to heal this rift.

To be frank, I had no idea what I was doing. I made it up as I went along, and it may have even been ritually unsafe.

But my heart was filled with good intentions.

I created a cauldron space and invited the ancestors on both sides of the rift to pour their grief from this particular issue into it.

Looking back, I can see there must have been some part of me that instinctually knew that my role was simply to witness. I provided and held this space for them to put their grief, and I would witness all of it, but I would leave any actual healing activities to the greater powers that knew exactly what to do.

I sat in silence and witnessed. I saw many ancestors come. They lined up and one-by-one went to the cauldron and spoke their grief into it. I could see that the cauldron was actually filling up with a substance, an inky liquid that I guess was the manifestation of this grief.

After a while, I was surprised and blessed to see that others had arrived. Now it was not just my blood ancestors, but those of the land where I was sitting. Tiwa people and Spaniards came. This was entirely unexpected and I welcomed it with my whole heart.

I sat and witnessed this for some time. Then, when it felt complete, and the cauldron was filled to the rim with this grief liquid, I simply asked Divinity to do whatever needed doing next.

Then I ended the ritual and began the process of closing my sacred space. When I picked up the central candle to extinguish it, this is what I saw:

I have burned A LOT of candles in my life and I had never before (nor since!) seen a perfect, glowing heart in the wick like that. I believe to my core that it was an offering of gratitude back to me for having helped the dead, even in some small way.

To this day, that photo is one of the most precious things I have.

I have had other experiences since then and know without a doubt that what my great-grandfather told me is true.

We are the living face of our spirit teams. We are the incarnated altar of the ancestors. We matter to them and our actions matter to them. Our wisdom, guidance, and actions impact them as much as their’s impact us. It really is a two-way street, an interactive relationship.

I want to encourage you to give this a try. It doesn’t have to be a big production with any particular result in mind.

• Get into a meditative state, open your sacred space, whatever you normally do when you pray or commune with Spirit.

• Invite in your primary helping spirits, or Divine power(s), and ask them to keep you resourced and protected through this process. This trusted spirit ally is who you will be communicating with in this exercise.

• When you feel ready, simply ask them to show you something that needs to be witnessed, and that is within your capacity to witness safely.

• Then just see what happens. Just allow it. You might get a visual, you might feel a sensation or hear a sound. A thought might pop up or a general sense of knowing.

Whatever it is, in whatever way it shows up, know that you are witnessing something that Spirit needs witnessed. You are having a positive impact and you are relating well.

Let’s keep the discussion going! Please comment below with your thoughts, experiences and questions. Talking about this is my favorite thing!

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