I am a Quantum Communicator. This means I have the ability to communicate with anything or anyone in the universe that has an essence or energy: spirit beings, loved ones who have passed on, alternate timelines, future Selves/relationships, animals, trees, rocks, water, you name it. In this Spotlight Talk I share insight on what it means to communicate with our ancestors, and the different communication styles we might explore. Plus, I’ll talk about what comedy writing and ancestral communication have in common!
Please note that everyone will have their unique beliefs, certainties, and traditions when it comes to understanding ancestors and our relationship to them. What I have to say is not the be-all, end-all, definitive “answer” on how things work in the spirit realm. What I share is based on my own experience and the teachings I’ve received from my spiritual teachers and community. You may have completely different beliefs or approaches and that is perfectly beautiful, welcome, and necessary.
There are many ways we communicate with our ancestors. I believe that everybody has the ability to do so, it’s just about building practise and mastery with your unique intuitive communication style.
For instance, what kind of “claire” are you?
clairvoyant: the ability receive messages via images, pictures, visions
clairaudient: the ability to receive messages via sounds and voices
clairsentient: the ability to receive messages via feeling and emotions
claircognizant: the ability to just know things – for these folks they can receive and process downloads at lightning speed
Or maybe Claire Dunphy? Claire Fisher? Claire Standish?
My main intuitive style is a combination of clairvoyant and claircognizant. When I sit down to channel, I’ll usually see the vision(s) first, and then something will click and I’ll just know the meaning, the interpretation, and the complexity of the message.
I am first and foremost a storyteller, so my claircognizance involves receiving and understanding at lighting speed the complete evolution of the story behind the visions I see. The nuances, the character arcs, the protagonist/antagonist conflict, the overarching theme, the complexity of interpretation.
This is why I am a very good tarot reader. A tarot spread tells a story.
Ancestors communicate with us through our dreams, through animals, through our relationships. Through elements in nature, the weather, the clouds, trees, water.
Your intuitive and ancestral communication style will be specific to you.
Your unique technology, medicine and magic. Your style of communing with the spirit realm will reflect the complexity of how you function, what makes sense to you, and it will amplify who you are when you’re at your best.
Some people communicate with their ancestors through music or poetry. Some people do it through cooking. Through fashion. Through working with the land, plants or relationships with animals. Swimming, parenting, meditating. The list goes on.
Perhaps the most important thing to say about ancestral communication is this:
Your ancestors are inherently accessible to you.
They are inherently available to you.
This is significant to note because so many of us have been conditioned with the false belief that we are not lucky enough, gifted enough, privileged enough, important enough, or worthy enough to have a relationship with our ancestors.
Healing is our birth right. “Healing” has been co-opted, exploited and stolen by white supremacy, funnelled and twisted into wellness industries that are only available to a few.
But the truth is, your ancestors love you and are there for you unconditionally. They are willing and able to meet you wherever you’re at. Whatever obstacles stand between you and your healing do not prevent your ancestors from being close to you. Your ancestors do not just tolerate your circumstances, your ancestors joyfully and purposefully co-create with you and your circumstances.
Your ancestors are HERE for your neurodivergence. They are HERE for your learning disabilities. They are HERE for the weird ass way your mind works.
However easeful or loaded your relationship to communication is, your ancestors get it. They get it when you can’t find the words, when you go non-verbal. They get it when you can’t figure out how to communicate your needs in a relationship. They get it when you keep repeating the same thing again and again and again.
Your ancestors are energized by your unique communication style and motivated to speak to you in a language that you understand.
Now! Does this mean that every single individual ancestor will always be available whenever you want them, however you want them? Or that every ancestor will speak to you in a language you expect them to?
Absolutely Not.
Ancestors are sovereign beings. They each have their own journey, their own continuing evolution and unfolding that is specific to their sovereign healing.
There are many times we might not be able to communicate with a specific ancestor.
Often right after a loved one transitions, our shared line of communication gets a little muddy. They are busy letting go of their old life, and figuring out who they are in a completely new world.
And we are grieving. In this space, we often get focused on a lot of excess stuff entangled with our grief, which is not actually about the person/relationship we’ve lost. We have to work through some of that before we are clear, open, present and available enough to receive our loved one again in a different form.
Let me take a moment here to clarify what I mean when I use the umbrella term, “ancestors.”
By ancestors, I am referring to the benevolent spirit beings you are connected to, who have evolved in a certain way to become beneficial, loving and compatible spirit allies to your continued healing. They have consented to being in a relationship with you as guides and as sources of unconditional love and support for your best possible outcome.
The best way to honour their dedication and remain in right relationship with our ancestors is to participate in the relationship with ongoing gratitude, recognition, reciprocity, offerings, reparations, shared friendship and love.
Ancestors are connected to you through all sorts of lineages. Certainly through your blood line. We also have ancestors connected through lineages of queerness, disability, revolutionary movements, artistic traditions, spiritual traditions, and so on.
When I speak about ancestors I also mean the Earth as our ancestor. The trees, rocks, water, all the elements. Animals and plants. The planets in our solar system. Our star relatives and galactic lineages.
So, when I say that your ancestors are inherently accessible and available to you – I mean this in the true spirit of sovereignty, interdependence and abundance.
Claiming our connection with the ancestors is to tap into our inherent connection with the planet and universe itself, where we are always supported, and always an integrated part of nature.
My ancestral healing means, I trust that the most specific, appropriate and compatible guide(s) will always reveal themselves to me, whenever and however I need. Even if it’s a presence that I wasn’t expecting. Even if a guide I initially called upon said “no.”
When I have this relationship with my ancestors, it extends to all my relations.
When I’m grounded in this frequency, I trust that specific, appropriate and compatible people will come in and out of my life, all in good timing.
I find joy, instead of suspicion, in support coming through in forms that I did not predict.
I’m not blocked from receiving unexpected gifts because I’m not locked into a tunnel vision of what those gifts could look like.
I don’t feel threatened with scarcity or bombarded with unworthiness when someone I thought I would work with, or hang with, decides to exit.
I trust that a disruption in an individual relationship does not disrupt my inherent belonging in collectivity.
I am more available to experience life as delightful! Full of surprise, wonder and mystery.
I have my most direct and immediate (human) ancestors on my (human) ancestor altar: my Dad, my four grandparents and my great-grandmother.
But their communication with me does not come in the form of advice giving. They kind of laugh at the thought: “Oh no, we don’t tell her what to do! That’s not going to go over well!”
This is what my Dad said to me last year from the spirit realm:
“I am not going to guide you. I am just going to love you. I know that’s what you need from me.”
A message like this is not going to be true or right for everyone. But for me, there is nothing more healing and liberating.
The truth is, in most circumstances, I’m the one who has my own advice. I already know what to do. While a part of me may be debating over this decision or that decision, I know in my heart I’ve already made the choice that is right for me.
But I do need to be loved.
I need to be held. I need to be understood. I need to be filled with the presence of unconditional support.
I need company while I go through all of life’s ups and downs.
While I learn, unlearn, try things that I’ll never try again, take risks, be bold and messy and imprecise – what I need most through all of that are some really fucking good friends.
And yes, there are times that I ask my ancestors for “advice.” In fact it’s quite the common scenario for me to sit at my altar and wail “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO DO, WHAT DO I DO!?”
When it comes to my journey as a cat mama, and the caregiving my senior cats require (as well as my grief related to eventually saying goodbye to them, and my calling as their Death Doula)…Angels and ascended masters will show up. Ancient animal guides will show up, particularly of the feline lineage.
When facing all my regular feelings of self-doubt, scarcity, unworthiness, fear of being (in)visible, fear of losing money, and everything that comes along with being a writer, creator and sacred entrepreneur – I have a specific team that shows up as my Otherworldly Giants guides.
When I’m writing my plays and books, my Star Family (particularly from the Sirius star system), as well as particular animals, will show up as creative collaborators.
The Earth itself will show up. The elements. Water, especially, has been one of my most active ancestral guides.
When we are fully integrated in an abundant, thriving community, if one person isn’t there for us, someone else will step up. So everyone always has access to the support they need.
This day and age we still struggle to figure out how to make this kind of interdependence a practical reality in our human communities.
But we already have it, with our ancestors. We already have interdependence with the world, the universe.
In our human relationships, we know that no one individual is ever going to be available to us all the time. But when I need the love and support of someone who is 200% available to me 200% of the time, I turn to myself as a benevolent “future” ancestor. I turn to Source. I turn to the Universe. I turn to the Core of the Earth.
With all that said, let’s now turn to the question of the hour: what do ancestral communication and comedy writing have in common?
I have a story about that.
One of my favourite things to do is put my headphones on and listen to music while I walk around my neighborhood: one of my prime avenues of ancestral communication.
It’s amazing what happens when you set an intention, put your music on shuffle, and listen to what messages your ancestors send you through the resulting playlist and song lyrics.
My recently departed loved ones commune with me like this.
My future relationships commune with me like this.
My art projects commune with me like this.
My star relatives commune with me like this.
There’s a tree in my neighborhood I have a deep relationship with. It’s in a small park near my place and I call it my Pleiadean tree. I come here to make offerings, give back to my ancestors, receive downloads, for pure enjoyment and rejuvenation, and to extend my friendship with the land I live on, that holds me and feeds me. I have a relationship with all the trees in the park, though this one, in the south west corner, is particularly special.
There’s a rock in front of the tree where I sit and hang out. One day in October 2021, I sat in my usual spot, and looked down at the ground to see a small snake had died, right at my feet!
I work deeply with animal medicine, so this was a huge deal. (Not to mention that I’ve never seen a snake in this park before!) Interpretation can vary and is context specific, but often, if a living creature chooses to die in the exact spot that you make offerings, they’re telling you that they choose you. They recognize you, they trust you, they thank you, they are a part of your journey and are offering something back to you too.
I checked in with my people and confirmed the snake was offering affirmation that I was starting a new cycle, and in their death they were assisting me in transmuting the last parts of my old cycle.
At the time I had just finished writing my grief memoir and self-study course, “Let Loss Make You Warm” which is a deep dedication to some of my most beloved and important relationships, including my Dad who died in 2016, and the Three Great Loves of My Lifetimes (aka my two cats Estha and Rahel, and my dog from my teenage years, Rumpelstiltskin). Writing this book definitely resonates as a huge completion ritual, not just for the last 5 years but really for the last 18 years.
Writing the book coincided with my north node return – an astrological transit that happens every 18-19 years: a time that basically smacks you in the face with your life purpose.
Because the gemini-sag part of me is an impatient motherfucker, and I also been carrying this Otherworldly Giants baby for YEARS and at this point super grumpy pregnant like GET OUT OF MY BODY NAO PLZ – I was more than thrilled with confirmation from the ancestors that I was FINALLY starting my next cycle!
Almost immediately after this moment, a portal opened…
My beloved Rahel’s illness escalated, her ascension symptoms showed up and she transitioned on January 23, 2022.
Those few months were incredibly tough. Rahel was 13 – my birthday number, the death card in tarot, a number also associated with snakes.
…And now here we are.
It’s March 2022, an unusually warm day in Tkaronto and I visit my park and Pleiadian tree. The snow is melting and now there’s a beautiful little stream flowing from the center of the park, moving in a south-west direction and crossing the exact spot where I make offerings, and where the snake died.
It’s moments like this I’m (ful)filled with gratitude and amazement. There is no other place in the park where a stream has formed!
This is how our ancestors speak to us directly from the land.
What a divine blessing from water, one of my closest ancestors. The water brings flow, cleansing, movement, nourishment and love to this area of the land, to all creatures who have lived and died here. To my life as a whole.
Water, my ancestor. My beloved, my guide, my friend, my partner, my Self.
I take this moment to speak my prayers, gratitude, and adoration for Water.
As soon as I finish my prayers, I hear two people finishing their conversation across the street.
Someone says:
“Thank you! I can’t believe you wrote a book. I can’t wait to read it.”
I mean!
If that’s not the ancestors speaking – I don’t know what is!
Here’s what all of this has to do with comedy writing: I recently attended a comedy writing seminar with Vijal Patel where I learned about “fly-by” jokes.
A “fly-by” is when two characters are in a scene and set up the joke – then a third character enters the scene at the exact right moment, says the punchline, and then leaves.
Our ancestors do this too!
They wait patiently for just the right set up, and then they swoop in with the punchline.
Listen and look out for what’s happening around you when you are seeking guidance or just in general – someone will walk by with the message, or a dog will bark, or a squirrel will drop an acorn on your head.
The message about my book was especially affirming given I’m just starting to share it with the world, which inevitably comes with a little bit of self-doubt and nervousness.
But my ancestors get it. They love it. That’s enough for me.
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