There are so many expressions in our culture to exemplify the power that our ancestors have in our lives, “The apple does not fall far from the tree” or “The sins of the Father are passed on to the children” that is taken from a biblical book. He passed.
What does this mean to us? Can we expect to make the same mistakes our family member made? Not necessarily. We can make different decisions. We take our ancestors with us in a profound way. Chinese medicine talks about something called our ancestral chi (energy).
My friend and acupuncturist Lisa Gibilie offered this information:
In the area of the crown chakra is the acupuncture point known as Bai Hui, “one hundred meetings.” This is a physically and mentally uplifting point, a meeting place for the body’s Yang meridians. It is also the place where we meet our ancestors, the place where the soul leaves the body when we die, the place where we connect with the Universe.
We have an inherited essence, which is known as our ancestral chi (Yuan Qi), also called source or congenital chi. This includes specific physical traits such as eye and hair color, cellular memories of past lives, as well as our connection to the Divine. Overwork, stress, poor lifestyle choices, environmental toxins, aging, and unresolved desires and emotions are funded by our inherited essence. We cannot alter our pre-heaven Qi (prenatal constitution), but we can save it and protect it with proper lifestyle and treatment to solve the problems that deplete it.
Our ancestors are accessible to us through our constitutions, our gifts, and even our challenges and problems. These influences can be friends or foes depending on our awareness, our flexibility and our willingness to work with these aspects.
The subject of ancestors and their power and influence is something very personal to me. My beloved stepfather passed away in 2003 and that was a wonderful opportunity for me to be at his service and also to do shamanic “psychopompage” work, which consists of helping a dying person to cross safely to the other side. As a shamanic practitioner, I work with spirit guides or helper spirits who can take the form of power animals or totems. My dad loved owls when he was here and I inherited part of his collection of ceramic owls. He has appeared to me in the shaman world several times now in the form of a beautiful brown owl!
In my healing practice, I often see a client’s family around them spiritually offering guidance, protection, and support.
A weak constitution and stress can make a person more prone to negative birth problems. We can positively influence our energy through diet, self-care, healing treatments, and a positive attitude.
An example of this is a healing treatment with a client named Jenny. She was a cigarette smoker and wanted to quit smoking. Jenny had tried many methods, all of which had been ineffective for her. In our session he told me that his grandfather was a smoker and died of lung cancer. Her death greatly traumatized her family and they were all quite upset that she had taken up the habit of smoking.
As I was looking at his energy clairvoyantly, I could see an intrusion in the area of his solar plexus. I strongly felt that this was connected to his grandfather and was some kind of thought form regarding addiction and smoking. I felt that she had grasped this as a child because she was helpless to resist it, also that she wanted to take some of this from her grandfather to help him. We worked together to free him, which was quite easy and painless for her. He called me a week later to tell me that he had not smoked a cigarette and had no desire to!
Our ancestors are part of our personal legacy, our path, and our promise. In shamanic terms, we are all part of the “web of life” that connects each of us and the universe. I have found that overcoming ancestral or genetic limitations in my own life has given me a strong sense of personal power and achievement. A spiritual master once explained to me that what we clean and heal for ourselves, we also heal for our ancestral lineage through our positive intentions to do so. What a bless!