Taxus Baccata Roots. PD/CC Image by Marco Schmidt via Wikimedia.
There are clues that spiral around again and again to validate, remind, or spark new (or renewed) awareness and dedication.
These clues can make up the shiny breadcrumb clue trail we follow, if we know how to look.
When I came across the following musing, in a book I came across quite serendipitously, it spoke to me very deeply.
I know that it’ll speak to some of you, too, as keepers of the ancestral lineage and healers of the family tree (as Malidoma Somé writes).
With all that’s going on and stirring up what divides us, there are times when renewing our sense of our own and our inherited ancestral strengths and gifts may be very helpful.
For many, though, in family dynamics or how they play out in repeating patterns, as well as in our cultural and ‘news headlines’, the familial-ancestral traumas and wounds that get passed along are potently evident, too … clues to the ancestral call for transformation and healing of the lineage, the mending and reweaving of the inherited ancestral tapestry.
Glengesh Pass in Ireland, by Jon Sullivan. Photo courtesy Mr. Sullivan and Public Domain Images.
See if this wisdom-musing from Malidoma Patrice Somé stirs remembrance in you, too …
“In my experience there is always one person in every family who has the sensitivity to be aware of, and respond to, the deeper spiritual needs of the family across generations.”
“They are the healers of the family tree and are hailed by departed ancestors who need the healing to take place. It is a reciprocal thing: once we remember the ancestors and approach them with an open mind, they are able to help us, give us the direction we need and remind us of our purpose in coming here in the first place.”
“Our birth story is the latest evolution of our family tree and each of us comes into the world carrying a unique gift that is needed by the community. Yet through the process of being born and the trials of growing up, we often forget what it is that we have come here to do.”
“But the ancestors will keep trying to remind us. They find ways to get our attention: dead-end jobs, health scares, redundancy and accidents are all obstacles designed to jog our memory, to take us out of the trance of consumerism and force us to look deeper into our lives and rediscover what really matters to us.”
Malidoma Patrice Somé
~ Malidoma Patrice Somé, in the introduction to The Ancestral Continuum by Natalia O’Sullivan and Nicola Graydon
One caveat, or clarification:
A Tree Grows From Rock, Wittenoom Gorge, Australia. Image courtesy of Public Domain Images.
This doesn’t mean that we aim to ‘fix’ anyone else in the immediate family (or otherwise). Most of us know by now that that’s a futile and rather exhausting effort.
But we can become familiar with the patterns in play; choose healthier, more skillful approaches ourselves, including skillful communication, discerning engagement or interactions, and disengaging when that makes sense.
Then we can use our spiritual and energy practices to ‘ripple outward’ along the ancestral lines and into the shared field. That’s really one of the things that being a ‘healer of the family tree‘ and “Being the ‘Medicine'” mean.
How about you?
Do you feel like you’re one of the healers of the family/ancestral tree, and/or a follower of the shiny breadcrumb-clue trails?
Step through ‘stress (or ‘initiation’) passages’ and into your full, blazing Healer Mojo with an ally …
I have a couple of Current Featured Offerings to empower your ‘Being Who You (Truly) Be’:
p.s. Thanks, g-g- and g-g-g-grandparents and a few other ancestral-peeps, for the flurry of recent clue-messages. I hear you! The conversation continues. Lots of love, Jamie.
Jamie is an inspiration partner and lantern-holder for her fellow transformation leaders, change catalysts, and creative nonconformists who are living, inspiring, and (intentionally or not) leading the way in these chaotic times.
When she's not tending and stirring the Sophia's Children cauldron, she's following research trails, and serving as the Director of a Repro-Justice-oriented women's health center in her community, emphasizing in-person compassionate care.
Jamie is a long-time servant of the Muse, a writer and author, an intrepid walker and feline-tender, and is passionate about the current power and relevance of reclaiming ancestral-wisdom and tending to genea-line-healing. She has great appreciation for dark chocolate and cooking other nourishing, delicious meals -- often plant-based -- to nourish her partner and her peeps.
Thanks for visiting! Wishing you well. Learn More: http://sophias-children.com
It resonates deeply within me. Thank you for this. I am currently living with a partner that is very ill, he probably won’t live another 2 years. I watch him day in and day out giving energy to his illness rather than looking for ways to get better. I am a healer, but he rejected my offer to help years ago. He said the therapy was too painful. Now, after years of drugs and more drugs and a very deteriorating condition, he is asking me for help. I am doing the best I can, but I also feel it’s too late. It’s too late to teach a 67 year old man to think differently, but I will give it my best, I only wish he would have asked for help long ago. Thanks for all the work that you do.
Thank you, Ines, I’m glad it resonated with you. And I’m so sorry to hear that your partner has been ill.
I’m guessing several (or quite a few) of us will very much understand that notion of not being able to be a healer (etc) ‘in our own home’ (or hometown), as comes from one of the Jesus stories. That’s frustrating, for sure, and likely where our ‘still presence’ and prayers and silent blessings are the medicine we’re able to offer, as it seems you’re doing beautifully!
Blessings to you, Ines, in this challenging work of ‘being presence’. xoxo Love, Jamie
I believe it’s part of my lesson here, unconditional love. I was an abused child and never learned to trust or love, my partner is actually the first man that ever loved me unconditionally and through his illness I am learning to love him unconditionally even if that means he’s chosen a road often travelled. We love yet we often don’t know what love really means, with him I am free to be who I am without judgement and his lesson is to be with a partner that will love him regardless. It’s all we can do, love each other from the heart and know that each of us chose when to arrive and when we need to leave. Your blog is very warm and filled with serenity energy.
That’s an amazing thing, Ines … loving unconditionally and being loved unconditionally and ‘as you are’. It seems a rare gem, though I’d wish for all of us that it was something we experience as both giver of it and recipient of it with a partner. And I do understand, too, how it’s not something we might have experienced, at all, as children.
Thank you for the lovely words about the blog and the ‘atmosphere’ here at Sophia’s Children. I’m so glad that’s how you experience it.
Travel well, and may blessings rise up to meet you on this Way of ours. xoxo Love, Jamie
Thank you. The first person that came to mind . . . . my grandmother of course. The dynamics of my whole immediate family changed upon her passing. Her mere presence radiated something that I cannot put into words to this day. And, yes, I must admit that I am a follower of the shiny bread-crumb – clue trails. It tends come in phases and sometimes more predominate than others.
That’s so beautiful, Marcie, that you shared how your grandmother’s “mere presence radiated something that I cannot put into words to this day.” That’s beautiful medicine, to be sure, and beautiful, too, that it continues to be a living example for you, in you, and likely through you, too. Here’s to following those shiny breadcrumb clue trails. 🙂 Lots of Love, Jamie
Excellent that it was Divinely Timed, NadineMarie! Big surprise there, eh? 🙂 I’m sure you *can* relate to this one, being of our Healers of the Family/Ancestral Tree tribe, strewn about this beautiful planet as we so often seem to be.
This is beautiful Jamie, and I have seen this not only in my own family but in those that I counsel as well. It does not feel like a gift when we first discover that we are the ones to practice this healing, but over time, I have been honored to practice this gift and continue to thank those who have gone before me and continue to guide me.
Thank you, Karen. You share an apt insight — that it doesn’t always feel like much of a gift at times to be a ‘healer of the family/ancestral line’, since it’s not often recognized and thus not really appreciated (see my post from today, 11/22/15, for more on that!).
And yet that bit of wisdom from Clarissa Pinkola-Estes writings comes to mind: “We were born for these times …” … and perhaps born to ‘bring it’ to the ancestral healing as well as whatever we’re doing more obviously ‘in the world’.
So beautiful that you note, too, that it can become a deep sense of honoring to practice the gift and thank those who’ve gone before. Beautiful.
I’ve been working on ancestral issues for a few years (well, probably in one sense for the whole 30 years of this journey..) and I’ve been feeling very much like the healer of the family tree. This is a good reminder for me to think of them as resources; I’ve spent so much time busting patterns I must admit I’ve sometimes felt more resentful than grateful about my ancestors…
I loved Malidoma’s Of Water and the Spirit and i love this quote.
Hey there, Leigh. I’m glad it resonated with you. And I did laugh — the way we do when we recognize the kindred journey — when I read your comment about the years and significant effort of ‘pattern-busting’ and sometimes feeling more resentful than grateful. I’ve had a few of those “You have GOT to be kidding me … seriously?” moments. 🙂
And yet our ancestral lines are myriad and run deep, like the many roots of the great Tree, so our efforts are healing alchemy and some ancestral lines, I think, help to heal their own and other lines, too. Pretty wild, and meaningful, too.
Thanks for being a pattern-buster, Leigh — I feel pretty strongly that it ripples out into the shared field as ‘medicine’.
I love this post Jamie and came back again to comment. Interestingly enough, Leigh mentioned the book on our reading list for my online course on Spiritual Awakening ~ Of Water and Spirit, which I was going to mention after first reading your post.
I see that a few of us in my family are the sensitive ones and have absorbed much of the generational toxicity and angst, while the majority live their lives quite superficially, seemingly oblivious to what is real.
Once I am able to uncover more of my genealogy,hopefully many more of the puzzle pieces will begin to fall into place. I am still at the beginning though, and am grateful for what you have shared with us. Very rich and evocative material!
Thank you, Linda. I’m really glad this post and its theme resonated with you (I thought it might!). It’s true, as you say, that the more sensitive-empathic of us tend to likely be the ‘healers of the family/ancestral tree’ and many others seem to skim the surface, etc. (maybe a similar percentage as exists between introverts and extroverts, it seems).
I’ve definitely found interweavings between my genealogy (family tree sleuthing) and my spiritual/ancestral trainings and practice. It’s an ongoing and sometimes meandering ‘conversation’ to be sure. 🙂 And yet it really does feel like a very, very rich one.
Thanks for including Malidoma Some in your post. I remember reading a book of his back in the early 1990s. I interviewed his wife for a spiritual newspaper once.
I’m the healer in my family lineage so I know what you’re talking about and you give sound advice for those folks playing the role of family healer–which as you say, is really community healer.
You’re welcome, Patricia. I’m glad the post and Malidoma excerpt spoke to you, too. I’ve really found the work of Sobonfu Some very moving and inspiring as well. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂 xoxo Jamie
Reblogged this on Jude's Threshold and commented:
Brilliant insights here. Wonder where genealogy research fits in…at the root I imagine! And fascinating how family dynamics and unfinished business can be seen in astrology charts of family members through the generations:
Thank you, Jude. Mmmm, excellent musing about where genealogy research might fit in; I’ve done a fair bit of it myself over the years (along with other Ancestral attentions and sleuthings!). You mentioned the Root … the IC or taproot? That’s a likely source. I’m also thinking certain Pluto and Capricorn placements perhaps?
Another possibility: My own Part of Fortune syncs with Virgo 14, whose Sabian Symbol is “AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY TREE” and a notation of “A deep reliance upon the ancestral roots of individual character.” (The language of that Sabian differs here and there, but the gist focuses on Family Tree and Ancestral).
So perhaps placements there, or in similarly oriented points of the chart?
Sort of like Urania, etc. for those of us inclined towards astrology and the patterns of guidance reflected in the starry heavens? 🙂
Thanks for visiting. I’m glad to come across your writings as well … really enjoyed reading some of the existing posts and look forward to forthcoming musings!
November 13, 2015 at 7:41 pm
It resonates deeply within me. Thank you for this. I am currently living with a partner that is very ill, he probably won’t live another 2 years. I watch him day in and day out giving energy to his illness rather than looking for ways to get better. I am a healer, but he rejected my offer to help years ago. He said the therapy was too painful. Now, after years of drugs and more drugs and a very deteriorating condition, he is asking me for help. I am doing the best I can, but I also feel it’s too late. It’s too late to teach a 67 year old man to think differently, but I will give it my best, I only wish he would have asked for help long ago. Thanks for all the work that you do.
November 22, 2015 at 6:44 pm
Thank you, Ines, I’m glad it resonated with you. And I’m so sorry to hear that your partner has been ill.
I’m guessing several (or quite a few) of us will very much understand that notion of not being able to be a healer (etc) ‘in our own home’ (or hometown), as comes from one of the Jesus stories. That’s frustrating, for sure, and likely where our ‘still presence’ and prayers and silent blessings are the medicine we’re able to offer, as it seems you’re doing beautifully!
Blessings to you, Ines, in this challenging work of ‘being presence’. xoxo Love, Jamie
November 22, 2015 at 7:00 pm
I believe it’s part of my lesson here, unconditional love. I was an abused child and never learned to trust or love, my partner is actually the first man that ever loved me unconditionally and through his illness I am learning to love him unconditionally even if that means he’s chosen a road often travelled. We love yet we often don’t know what love really means, with him I am free to be who I am without judgement and his lesson is to be with a partner that will love him regardless. It’s all we can do, love each other from the heart and know that each of us chose when to arrive and when we need to leave. Your blog is very warm and filled with serenity energy.
November 22, 2015 at 7:20 pm
That’s an amazing thing, Ines … loving unconditionally and being loved unconditionally and ‘as you are’. It seems a rare gem, though I’d wish for all of us that it was something we experience as both giver of it and recipient of it with a partner. And I do understand, too, how it’s not something we might have experienced, at all, as children.
Thank you for the lovely words about the blog and the ‘atmosphere’ here at Sophia’s Children. I’m so glad that’s how you experience it.
Travel well, and may blessings rise up to meet you on this Way of ours. xoxo Love, Jamie
November 13, 2015 at 7:57 pm
Thank you. The first person that came to mind . . . . my grandmother of course. The dynamics of my whole immediate family changed upon her passing. Her mere presence radiated something that I cannot put into words to this day. And, yes, I must admit that I am a follower of the shiny bread-crumb – clue trails. It tends come in phases and sometimes more predominate than others.
November 22, 2015 at 6:40 pm
That’s so beautiful, Marcie, that you shared how your grandmother’s “mere presence radiated something that I cannot put into words to this day.” That’s beautiful medicine, to be sure, and beautiful, too, that it continues to be a living example for you, in you, and likely through you, too. Here’s to following those shiny breadcrumb clue trails. 🙂 Lots of Love, Jamie
November 14, 2015 at 2:38 am
Oh, I most certainly can relate — totally! 😀 Thanks for sharing this Jamie! As always, much needed, Divinely timed and aptly articulated!
Blessed be….NadineMarie 😀 :star: <3 :star: 😀
November 22, 2015 at 6:38 pm
Excellent that it was Divinely Timed, NadineMarie! Big surprise there, eh? 🙂 I’m sure you *can* relate to this one, being of our Healers of the Family/Ancestral Tree tribe, strewn about this beautiful planet as we so often seem to be.
Blessings to you, too. xoxo Love, Jamie
November 14, 2015 at 3:41 am
This is beautiful Jamie, and I have seen this not only in my own family but in those that I counsel as well. It does not feel like a gift when we first discover that we are the ones to practice this healing, but over time, I have been honored to practice this gift and continue to thank those who have gone before me and continue to guide me.
November 22, 2015 at 6:37 pm
Thank you, Karen. You share an apt insight — that it doesn’t always feel like much of a gift at times to be a ‘healer of the family/ancestral line’, since it’s not often recognized and thus not really appreciated (see my post from today, 11/22/15, for more on that!).
And yet that bit of wisdom from Clarissa Pinkola-Estes writings comes to mind: “We were born for these times …” … and perhaps born to ‘bring it’ to the ancestral healing as well as whatever we’re doing more obviously ‘in the world’.
So beautiful that you note, too, that it can become a deep sense of honoring to practice the gift and thank those who’ve gone before. Beautiful.
Thanks for stopping by. xoxo Love, Jamie
November 14, 2015 at 3:42 am
I’ve been working on ancestral issues for a few years (well, probably in one sense for the whole 30 years of this journey..) and I’ve been feeling very much like the healer of the family tree. This is a good reminder for me to think of them as resources; I’ve spent so much time busting patterns I must admit I’ve sometimes felt more resentful than grateful about my ancestors…
I loved Malidoma’s Of Water and the Spirit and i love this quote.
November 22, 2015 at 6:34 pm
Hey there, Leigh. I’m glad it resonated with you. And I did laugh — the way we do when we recognize the kindred journey — when I read your comment about the years and significant effort of ‘pattern-busting’ and sometimes feeling more resentful than grateful. I’ve had a few of those “You have GOT to be kidding me … seriously?” moments. 🙂
And yet our ancestral lines are myriad and run deep, like the many roots of the great Tree, so our efforts are healing alchemy and some ancestral lines, I think, help to heal their own and other lines, too. Pretty wild, and meaningful, too.
Thanks for being a pattern-buster, Leigh — I feel pretty strongly that it ripples out into the shared field as ‘medicine’.
xoxo and Big Love, Jamie
November 17, 2015 at 4:28 am
I love this post Jamie and came back again to comment. Interestingly enough, Leigh mentioned the book on our reading list for my online course on Spiritual Awakening ~ Of Water and Spirit, which I was going to mention after first reading your post.
I see that a few of us in my family are the sensitive ones and have absorbed much of the generational toxicity and angst, while the majority live their lives quite superficially, seemingly oblivious to what is real.
Once I am able to uncover more of my genealogy,hopefully many more of the puzzle pieces will begin to fall into place. I am still at the beginning though, and am grateful for what you have shared with us. Very rich and evocative material!
xo Linda
November 22, 2015 at 6:30 pm
Thank you, Linda. I’m really glad this post and its theme resonated with you (I thought it might!). It’s true, as you say, that the more sensitive-empathic of us tend to likely be the ‘healers of the family/ancestral tree’ and many others seem to skim the surface, etc. (maybe a similar percentage as exists between introverts and extroverts, it seems).
I’ve definitely found interweavings between my genealogy (family tree sleuthing) and my spiritual/ancestral trainings and practice. It’s an ongoing and sometimes meandering ‘conversation’ to be sure. 🙂 And yet it really does feel like a very, very rich one.
xoxo, Love, Jamie
November 17, 2015 at 6:10 pm
Thanks for including Malidoma Some in your post. I remember reading a book of his back in the early 1990s. I interviewed his wife for a spiritual newspaper once.
I’m the healer in my family lineage so I know what you’re talking about and you give sound advice for those folks playing the role of family healer–which as you say, is really community healer.
November 22, 2015 at 5:38 pm
You’re welcome, Patricia. I’m glad the post and Malidoma excerpt spoke to you, too. I’ve really found the work of Sobonfu Some very moving and inspiring as well. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂 xoxo Jamie
November 27, 2015 at 9:57 pm
Reblogged this on Jude's Threshold and commented:
Brilliant insights here. Wonder where genealogy research fits in…at the root I imagine! And fascinating how family dynamics and unfinished business can be seen in astrology charts of family members through the generations:
November 30, 2015 at 4:35 pm
Thank you, Jude. Mmmm, excellent musing about where genealogy research might fit in; I’ve done a fair bit of it myself over the years (along with other Ancestral attentions and sleuthings!). You mentioned the Root … the IC or taproot? That’s a likely source. I’m also thinking certain Pluto and Capricorn placements perhaps?
Another possibility: My own Part of Fortune syncs with Virgo 14, whose Sabian Symbol is “AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY TREE” and a notation of “A deep reliance upon the ancestral roots of individual character.” (The language of that Sabian differs here and there, but the gist focuses on Family Tree and Ancestral).
So perhaps placements there, or in similarly oriented points of the chart?
Sort of like Urania, etc. for those of us inclined towards astrology and the patterns of guidance reflected in the starry heavens? 🙂
Thanks for visiting. I’m glad to come across your writings as well … really enjoyed reading some of the existing posts and look forward to forthcoming musings!
Blessings,
Jamie
November 30, 2015 at 4:35 pm
p.s. Really interesting, Jude, to note the patterns continuing as ancestral legacies in the charts of family members over generations!
December 16, 2016 at 6:13 pm
Reblogged this on Sophia's Children and commented:
With the Season of Lights holidays — holiDAZE for many people — this musing on Healers of the Family Tree came spiraling back up into my awareness.
If we’re blessed with stress-free family relations, get togethers, holiday times, and New year, then it’s a HUGE blessing, indeed.
For many, even with the joys, there are often nerve-frazzling stresses at this time of year.
Some of those — many of those, maybe — are very much connected to the cultural, familial, and ancestral ‘legacies’ that play out again and again.
Until they’re seen, soothed, shifted … and, just maybe, healed.
When there’s a heart-centered purpose, even the potentially nerve-frazzling stresses and family dramas can be experienced differently.
In that Spirit …
Here’s a refreshed Healers of the Family Tree.
Big Love & a healing season!
Jamie