Vodou Shaman by Ross Heaven

Author:Ross Heaven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Company
Published: 2011-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

MEETING THE ANCESTORS FOR GRATITUDE AND FORGIVENESS

As Gilly discovered, we are so much more than the sum of our parts, what our parents have made of us, or what generations of history have led us to. It remains true, however, that our ancestors do play a significant part in our lives, both practically and spiritually.

On a very immediate level, the fact that you live in this country and not another; that you were raised to the standards of a certain lifestyle (as the son or daughter of a farm owner or farm laborer, pornographer or priest, cop or robber); that red hair, artistic talent, big hips, or athletic prowess runs in your family; that your grandfather was a multimillionaire but disinherited your mother for marrying your father—all of these things are part of the mythology of your life and make a difference to who you have become and the privileges that have given you a start in the world.

Of course, none of these things need be essential to who you are now and how you choose to live, and you can accept or reject them as you wish. Red hair can be dyed, and you can make your own fortune, after all. But they still affect you at some deep inner level.

Perhaps you are still carrying the shame of a family scandal, for example, whether you know it or not. Or maybe you are benefiting from the inheritance of a famous uncle who was a big shot in the film business and gave you your first break on the road to stardom, even though you hardly ever think about him now. Whoever you are, you are always someone else too.

In workshops and in my healing practice I often see the influence of the ancestors—the gifts and burdens we are given by them—written in the lives of participants and clients. Often there is a generational cycle involved as well, which is like a wave of reflection and attachment across the ages.

Let me give you an example from my own family. My parents were working-class; my father, the eldest in a family of thirteen, pretty much had to raise the others single-handedly. My father and mother wanted to make more of themselves than this, and given the hardships and sacrifices of their backgrounds, couldn’t wait to leave their class roots behind. They worked hard, made money, and found professional careers for themselves. From the slums of Birmingham, they eventually moved to a nice little cottage in the middle of the countryside, changed their car every second year, and took holidays abroad every once in a while. The typical middle-class dream.

Because they had worked hard to get where they were, they naturally wanted to give me every advantage in life and encouraged me in my education so I could get a good professional job, as a doctor or a lawyer, without having to struggle as they had.

And naturally enough, I rejected all of it and identified far more with their working-class origins and the values of my grandparents rather than the material lifestyle I had been brought up in.

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