The Muse Mandala
Muse 31: Ancestor
by Shannon Bronson
edited by Elise Lorimer
Ancestor
Latin: Antecedre; “Gone Before”
Palimpsest
A manuscript, map, or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been erased to make room for later writing, but of which traces remain.
“I am my Ancestor’s wildest dreams.”
Brandan Odums
Who is Ancestor?
Our lives are living palimpsests. Our society and physical bodies bear ancestral traces that influence the present moment. These traces draw from Ancestors. They left their mark with unique ways of surviving; shaping culture, and rituals to commune with their environment. They had ways of understanding and influencing the world the through science, language, art, technology, philosophy, religion, and community.
Until colonial times, and still today, humans gave reverence to and sought counsel from the guidance of Ancestors-and so can we.
We can remember our Ancestor Muse to receive spiritual support in living today.
Remembering is like retracing our roots through our palimpsest to reveal an underlying image of connection with the past and of belonging to deep time.
With each layer we bring to the surface we create a image of ourselves made of textures more exquisite than ever before, because they are informed by what has come and gone before.
Consciousness of our palimpsest lets us choose which ancestral legacies we carry forward to the future. It becomes possible to amplify joy & resolve unfinished business from the past.
Why is the world the way it is?
How did your life come to be?
In retracing your Ancestral palimpsest
you make it visible.
What is theirs?
What is yours?
Once you can see, then you can decide,
which lines do you want to continue
and which do you want let go of,
heal,
or transform?
Each human life contains an enormity of experiences - some are incredibly challenging, and yet here you are.
You are here today because of resilience in your ancestral lines.
Today is a chance to shift unconsciously harmful behaviors our kin have passed to us and choose to put our energy into their life affirming qualities.
Who is your Far Ancestor?
Where do you come from? What are the deepest of your being? What layers of richness can you reinvigorate today?
Investigating Far Ancestors is like fertilizing the deep layers of our palimpsest with beauty that our roots can draw from. Many incredible human journeys and masterful works of art are generated by people who explore and celebrate their cultural connection to their Far Ancestors.
Try beginning with curiosity to construct their image.
Grab your journal and write freely what you know:
What was their relationship to the land?
How did they dwell, hunt, gather and farm?
How, where, and what did they worship?
What was the value of community?
What cultural rituals celebrated the passage of time, the seasons, and the years?
What spiritual rituals marked milestones of life, like birth, coming of age, elderhood, death and transcendence?
How did they labor? What did they make?
How was power structured? What were gender roles?
How did they cook and eat?
What were family structures like?
What were rules, taboos, & punishments?
How were they in peace? How were they in war?
How did they take leisure and play?
What music did they compose?
Theater? Dance? Art? Crafts? Literature? Stories? Technologies?
What were the built forms of their homes, villages, towns, and cities like?
What were the dominant myths?
What was considered virtuous and heroic?
How were they wounded?
Were they oppressed or oppressors? Both?
How did this hurt them? How did it create resilience?
What were sacred places in the landscape for them? Sacred buildings or structures?
What was their relationship to the afterlife?
Which parts of them continue to today, and which parts have been lost?
Can you visualize your Far Ancestor?
What is it like to live in their bodies?
What world did they see through their eyes?
Which parts of your Far Ancestor
do you want to continue?
What’s ready to change?
Who is your Near Ancestor?
What did they eat? How did they pray? Who did they love?
Near Ancestors are personal, we knew them directly or their stories live on in our families. They give clues on how our family came to be.
Imagine a benevolent Near Ancestor’s presence in your current life. What happens? With your pen, slow down and draw or write:
Say their name.
What’s that feel like in your body?
Do you have pictures, stories, or know about their formative moments?
What world were they born into?
What are their beliefs, beauty and fears. What are your beliefs, beauty and fears?
What happens when you recall their gifts and triumphs?
How about their resilience?
Visualize amplifying their life affirming qualities.
Imagine what it would have been like if your Near Ancestor having everything they needed to thrive?
How would they be with self-esteem, trust, security, love, caring human touch, comfort, and joy?
What if you could say to their memory,
“I see you and am in awe of what you are going through.”
Who do you see? What would they say? What do you feel?
Imagine passing their supported state
through the family lines…
What message lies in this picture for you today?
How is your palimpsest redrawn?
What does that feel like in your body?
Can you imagine knowing what’s theirs, and what’s yours?
What do you want to reclaim and
what do you want to transform?
Can you imagine them standing with you now.
Can you feel their support?
Reconciliation with Ancestors
For all of us the past holds power as well as pain.
If you feel ready to reconcile with the memory of Ancestors that harmed and ruptured, an honest accounting of how they have impacted you can be a start.
You can see your truth coupled with intention to reconcile their legacy with compassion,
for your sake and the sake of future generations.
What’s the compassionate truth of your experience of them? What do you need to say?
What if you can imagine challenging Ancestors having
the kindness and support they they needed?
How might they have treated themselves & the world differently?
What’s it like to imagine as the Dagara people do,
that in death Ancestors atone for their transgressions
through spiritually supporting your life?
Check in with your present experience?
What happens as you imagine this
We are modern creatures,
and also the product our our heritage. We are the palimpsest of accumulations of adaptations unique to the time, geography and socio-economic conditions that were present for our Ancestors.
Activating Ancestor Muses connects our humanity to ancient power.
How does our experience of ourself change when we belonging to the palimpsest of humanity?
How does the world shift when we can see each of us as a palimpsest?
Perhaps even sitting in these questions creates an energy inside you-can you draw that energy on your Cosmic Rainbow Heart?
Meditate
Make: a Cosmic Rainbow Heart
Activate your Ancestor Muse
Make a heart for your Far Ancestor.
Make a heart for your Near Ancestor.
Call in an Ancestor to support you right now, what do they see when they look at you? What would they say? How can they help? What might you offer them to honor them?
Make a heart in the style of your Ancestral art.