There are a myriad of different
meditations you can use to connect with your ancestral energy flow. The only
limitation is in your imagination. There’s one meditation in particular that I
use often that involves the use of a labyrinth. My favorite labyrinth is the
Cretan, seven circuit labyrinth. It’s a visible representation for me of the
Yoruban belief that if you do not know seven generations of your family line you
cannot know who you are. It was that thought that prompted the start of my
personal ancestor work more than a decade ago.
I like layers to magic and
meditation. So when I walk the labyrinth, I am physically moving in spiraling
patterns on a horizontal landscape. And at the same time as I walk, I pull my
kundalini energy upward through my body on the vertical axis of the seven
chakras. When I do this, I become the meeting point of these two planes. And
where they meet in me, a doorway to my ancestors opens within my heart center,
the mid-point of the chakras.
When I step into the labyrinth,
taking my first turn into the track, my energy sits as the base of my spine, in
my root chakra, the home of instinct. I think about my parents, both of whom
are still living. They are the bridge between me and those who came before them.
As I walk this first track, I fill my heart with gratitude for them, for
breath, for body and bone.
I turn sharply onto the second
track, aligning my sacral chakra of emotion, the house of intuition, with the
memories of my grandparents. I acknowledge, first, those four who gave who gave
me life. My next breath is for all those who married into the family after
death or divorce, who were part of my life. As I walk this second longest
track, I think about who they were to me, both good and bad. I accept their
flaws and I leave behind what I don’t need.
On the third and longest track,
riding the outer edge of the labyrinth, I open my solar plexus chakra, where
energy and ego live. I open to my eight great-grandparents, one of whom I was
fortunate to know in life. One step in front of another, I contemplate my mortality
and the truth that my path will someday be ghost footprints across the earth. Just
as most of my great-grandparents were unknown by me, someday I will be unknown
to others. There is a breaking and a humbling in this track. One step in front
of another, walking the edge of the labyrinth.
At the end of the track, I cross
the short bridge that joins the solar and heart paths and turn, opening the
compassion of my heart. I accept what it means to be alive. I accept what it
means to live. I call forth to my sixteen 2x great-grandparents, who saw the
effects of the Civil War and lived the turning into the 20th
century. I am grateful for how many of their stories I know. They were people
like me, with families of their own, wondering what the future held. Wondering
what their ancestors were like.
The shortest path rides the edge of
the center. This is the track of the throat chakra, an energy center which sees
a lot of action in our everyday lives. I slow my steps and open to my 32 3x
great-grandparents, ones who braved wild territory to start anew. I can feel
the slip stream of time as ghost steps crowd the path behind me.
Together, we turn onto the sixth
track. I pull my energy and breath up into the third eye chakra, just above and
behind the eyes, where empathy lives. I invite my sixty-four 4x
great-grandparents to join me, and I feel my thoughts sinking deeper into my
bloodstream. The fact that I only exist because those sixty-four people lived
and loved is overwhelming.
I walk the final turn of the
labyrinth with my one hundred and twenty-five 5x great-grandparents. One
hundred and twenty-five! I think about all of those people, and the children
they had who were not my direct ancestors, and the children their children had…
how many cousins might their be that I will never know or meet? For a moment, I
imagine I can understand what eternity means, and what it means that we are all
part of the same well of energy. I open the top of my crown chakra, prepared to
meet them face to face.
When I enter the center of my
meditation, I am standing in the center of the labyrinth with two hundred and
fifty-four spirits. They are the collective spirits of the first seven
generations of my family tree. I am two hundred and fifty-five. I am a pillar
of energy. I am walking in ancestral fire. I sit in the center and open to
whatever visitations might occur.
When I am ready, I return the way I
came. There is only one path to the labyrinth and the ways in and out are the
same. As I leave, I pull my energy back down through my body, pulling my
awareness back until I am me, in my body, feet on the earth. I thank each
generation for journeying with me, for their part in giving me life. I return humbled,
deeply connected, and surprisingly sure-footed.
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