In the past I have worked well with the idea of ancestors, but come up short when I tried to approach my own ancestors. Like many of us, my ancestors fall into 2 categories: those I know nothing about, and those of whom I am none too fond. The second group is naturally much smaller than the first, but because I know something of them, they ring louder in my thoughts of my ancestors. To get around this, I worked instead with the idea of the long dead ancestors. I can’t have anything against them – I have no idea who they even were. This is a cop out.

In the recent weeks, through work with my guides, I came to understand some really critical things about ancestors. Without ancestors, we do not exist. Yes, this is true in a genetic “who begat who” way, but also in a deeper energetic way. We stand as intersections in streams of ancestry. Without those streams, no intersection exists. From a spiritual perspective, we are those intersections. This brings up a harder (for some of us) truth. We carry our ancestors within us both through genetics/biology and as spiritual connections within the stream of ancestry, therefore, to hate our ancestors is to hate ourselves. No, we are not the sum of our ancestry. But, self-hatred in any form, against any part of self, is inherently dangerous, not only to ourselves, but to the world.

Today, I embrace my ancestors, those I do not know, and those I do not like. Today, I will to honor my ancestors and see them with compassion. Those whose deeds were cruel I will try to see within a bigger story. They did not become what they were with no context. Whatever occurred in the life of any single ancestor occurred within the stream of ancestry. Today I will accept that like anything else, my ancestral streams hold moments of absolute grace and moments of human frailty, that they hold love and kindness in at least equal measure with cruelty and hopelessness. Today I honor my ancestors, for whatever else they did or did not do, they intersected to bring me into being and for that, I thank them.