The title is not a grammatically incorrect typo.
Yes, when my Ancestors (plural), left their Body (singular).
I mean, when they left their Ancestor Altar.
When you’re a Ceremonialist, your Ancestor Altar is the most sacred place of your home. Whatever is going on with your Altar is a microcosm of what’s happening in your life. Issues in your life will be reflected on your Altar, and vice versa.
Thus, it’s incredibly important to keep your Altar clean, and your Ancestors fed.
I had first set up my Ancestor Altar in January 2015, after connecting with one of my greatest teachers of all time, Dr. G. Love, during the biggest Ancestral Awakening of my life.
Before 2015, I wouldn’t have considered myself necessarily a “spiritual” person (which is absolutely hilarious and bonkers if you know anything about me). There were three main events that catalysed me into this journey:
1) My intensive dedication to theatre, dance and performance work specifically in queer, trans, BIPOC, disabled, survivor communities. When I say “intensive” I mean INTENSE like I was channeling creative fire through my body in a WICKED frenzy, think Leslie Knope you’re a steamroller, just admit it okay, you‘re a massive, enormous runaway steamroller!!
(…while I didn’t know at the time that I was engaging in ceremonial artistic portal opening, this kind of sacred body-oriented performance work is a MOST POWERFUL initiator and activator into the Ancestral Healing journey. In my Ancestral Memory, Elders and peers in community revered those who were called to performance work, and understood these portals as sites to unlock deeper Gifts and Community Contributions.)
2) I had just written my first one-person-(burlesque)-show, called The Erasable Woman. This was based off a poetry manuscript I had written (but not published) in 2010 during my time at York University. It was an exploration of intergenerational relationships between, as I said, “all the women in my lineage that I did and did not have names for.”
(…the first line of this play went something like…
Did you know that some of the stars are so old, they’re not even there anymore? They’ve lived and died entire lives, and yet we can still see their light. Now tell me, how can you not believe in Ghosts?
I know, why the heck was I so surprised when I started having ACTUAL corporal experiences with ghosts? Ahhh, another story.)
3) I had just gone through a very messy, angsty end-of-life period in a relationship with someone I thought was going to be my “forever person” even though we lasted about six months (oh, honey) and our (wounded) Ancestors got seriously involved in our break-up, too.
(…that means during the height of the break-up, I was feeling, perceiving and experiencing my own and my ex’s wounded Ancestors with a tangibility I had never experienced before, and without knowing what the hell was going on, which yes was seriously terrifying and I thought I was losing my mind. At the end of the day, I didn’t key nobody’s car or slash nobody’s tires, the worst I did was send some long messy emails so I think I did pretty okay!!)
In the Spiritual journey, often it’s by hitting rock bottom, or getting really close, that we are compelled to find some of our most powerful and incredible Spiritual Teachers.
It’s because of this break-up that I set up my first session with Dr. G. Love. I told her about the supernatural shit blowing up in my life and she instructed me very clearly:
“Set up an Altar strictly for your Dead. Feed them water every day. Take that water to a tree every day and pour it out. I mean it, every day.”
I want to be clear that as a Spiritual Teacher, Dr G. wasn’t demanding me to do anything for her sake. She gave me clear instructions because she saw me, Erasable Women and all.
She spoke to the truth of who I know myself to be, deep in my bones.
I AM a Ceremonialist.
I am not just a “Spiritual Person”, I am in fact an Intensely Hardcore Heavy Duty Healer, a Spiritual Athlete, and nothing in my life will ever be okay unless I embrace a way of life that honours and cares for myself accordingly.
Remember, that for a Ceremonialist – the issues on your Altar are a microcosm and reflection of the issues in your life as a whole – and I didn’t even have one. No wonder I kept naming my books and plays after Erasable Women!
I didn’t follow Dr. G.’s instructions on what to do for my Altar just because she’s my teacher and I’ll do whatever a Spiritual Teacher says (that is decidedly…not me…lol…), I did it because when she gave me those instructions, I felt like myself.
Yes I was confused, and there was so much about this whole shebang that I didn’t understand, and I was constantly worried about not doing things correctly (low key still worry about that), but the truth remains, when she gave me those instructions, I felt like myself.
So I followed them. In the last 8 years, I’ll admit that I’ve gone through some phases where I wasn’t feeding, cleaning or caring for my Altars to the best of my ability (or at all, TBH.) But I do know the moments we fall off, and fall apart, and do things wrong, are all sacred and maybe necessary parts of the journey too.
After an incredibly powerful communal solstice ceremony in June 2020, I course-corrected, and I’ve been extremely diligent about Altar care since then.
But it was just today, October 28 2024, that I realized…they weren’t in there.
Fun Fact: that’s the first thought I had when I saw my Dad the morning of his funeral. Lying on a gurney, draped with flowers.
I didn’t know how I was going to react when I saw him like that for the first time – Not Alive – but that was it.
It surprised me, the soft, curious voice that wafted through my mind. Like a dancer waving a red ribbon. Somehow managing to express the innocence of a child, and the maturity of an Elder, all at once.
He’s not in there.
So, here we are, October 2024. I’m lost in thought while looking at the photo of my Dad – now an Ancestor on my Ancestor Altar, I’m somehow simultaneously zoned out and completely focused, and there it is, that same voice, that same dancer, that same red ribbon:
They’re not in there.
There are six photos of Ancestors on my Ancestor Altar – four Grandparents, one Great-Grandmother and one Dad.
But none of them were in their Body. None of them are on this Altar.
They had told me at the beginning of this year (2024) to stop feeding them.
That was a huge adjustment. But they were adamant.
No More Food. No More Water. We Mean It.
I needed to understand why in order to make peace with following their instructions (I told you, I ain’t just gonna do something cuz an Elder told me to do it!!), but finally I got it.
They were telling me, we are in a Fasting Period.
There’s more to share about what I’ve learned about their Technologies and Perspectives of Fasting, especially during times of Genocide – they were teaching me about ways of living in harmony with the cycles of earth and the cosmos buried deep, deep in our Memories – deeper and older than religion. But that’s another story.
So I hadn’t been feeding them. Every once in a while I’d still feel weird about it and ask them again, are you sure? I always get the same answer, yes we’re sure.
But today, it really hit me. I saw the specific moment they left their body.
They said:
We’re Done. This is Done. We Are Complete.
It was a moment they had to move, because I did.
It was the moment I officially entered my Season of Reciprocity.
NOW – when you’re a Heavy Duty Healer and Spiritual Athlete like me, every season needs to be a Season of Reciprocity.
For those of us engaging a level of Personal and Planetary healing work so ferocious, many times dangerous, with such great commitment, we need to be very well resourced to do our jobs, and be ourselves, every day, because we are never off-the-job.
Whether it’s waking hours or traveling the dream realm – we are never off-duty.
But this season is different it’s like…
Okay, it’s like the Community Mother who spends all her time in the garden, hands rough from the digging and planting, her heart ever so steadfast, her spirit ever so faithful, not waiting but patient for The Blooming.
Never rushing a loved one to grow faster than they want to grow. Triple checking before Harvest – are you sure, are you really sure? Do you need more time? I’m here.
And then she spends all day, week or months in the kitchen, preparing the most DELICIOUS meal for the community. And then she spends the entire party making sure everyone is well fed and hydrated, ensuring they have enough games to play, everyone is entertained, everyone has something to leave with, and all the animals and plants are happy too.
At some point, the Community has to tell this woman: Sit your ass down and eat. Enjoy the food you’ve grown!
It’ll be the weirdest shit she’ll ever have to do. I swear to you, the weirdest shit.
But she has to. She has to be able to discern What Time It Is On Earth’s Clock.
She has to be that Good of a Listener, to feel the beat in the Earth’s core.
She has to be that Good of a Dancer, and know when it’s her time to Move.
And, she has to be able to choose (the) Right Relationship(s).
As we spoke about before in a previous episode titled exactly that (Am I in (the) Right Relationship?) – at any given moment, when the truth is revealed and you are able to see someone you love clearly…
…You see the Gifts they walk with in their Quantum Birth Chart. The Promises they made to the Ancestors Shining and Rippling in the Quantum Archi-texture of their first breath…
When you see someone for who they really are, and you see Their Gift, you have a choice.
You can either:
A) Protect that Gift, or
B) Take Advantage of It
When you know that it’s her time to sit down and eat, will you say: Hey I really just loved that dessert you made. It was so yummy, thank you so much. Could you make a little bit more?
Or you could tell her to sit her ass down and eat her own food.
If you’re an Erasable Woman, when the time comes, you have to sit there, even if it was the weirdest shit.
You need to know when it’s time for the Community to feed you. And, you need to be in a Community that knows that too.
My Community, first and foremost, is my Community of Ancestors.
My Community of friends, allies, accomplices, guides, loved ones, beloveds, of all kinds of wild and domesticated species.
My Ancestors left their Body, and they came home to my Body, and it was so Heavy that I just had to sit down.
They said: We’re not in there anymore. We’re in you. We need you to focus on feeding yourself well. That’s how you feed us now. We’re not in there. We have to move. So do you.
I followed their instructions, not because they told me to, but because the instructions made me feel like myself.
We still like the Altar, though. It’s a Memory.
It’s the Memory of who we were, and what our home used to be.
But please stop feeding us here. Don’t feed the Ghost. That causes all sorts of spiritual maladies that you don’t need right now.
It honestly took me a while to get that one. I keep getting it and losing it. Finding it, then realizing there’s still more to get. I think I’m finally getting it now, though.
Stop feeding the Ghost, Shaunga. Stop feeding the Ghost.
Treat the Altar like a beautiful Memory, because Memories still need to be Kept and Cared for, in specific ways.
Keep it clean. Sing to it. Speak to it. Listen to it. Learn from it.
Learn everything from it, Learn everything from it, Learn everything from it.
Sing us your songs, sing us your flowers.
Like the one you sang yesterday. It fell out of you, like a tumbling River remembering how to Heal Itself.
Sing us the song about the flowers, yeah.
We call that one…a song for End-of-Life.
May the End-of-Life journey be as Long as our Strength to endure it.
And then, may it Stretch a little longer.
May we find pleasure in the exhaustion.
May we fortify this place with everything we’ve got.
And when we run dry, may we reach deep. May we find that We Too are Carriers of Deeper Wells.
May We Live. Here. In the End of Life….as if it were All of Life!
Because it is, remember? It is. All of life, All of life, All of life.
Right here. Just like this. End of Life as if it were Another One, All Over Again! Just as it is, this small thing.
What a grand blessing!
What a Gift.
Protect it, Shaunga.
Protect it.
Do you remember the moment your Ancestors left their body, and why?
What was it in you, and in them, that made a clear, without a shadow of a doubt, decision: this is the moment, and this is complete.
How do you know when a story is done?
That’s the revelation I had today, October 28 2024.
I saw it clearly – ah so THAT was the moment you left your body. Of course.
I woke from my sleep at 3am on February 1st 2023, (right on time for the Ancestor Hour). I came to the couch and I put on that Metric Album from 2005, the one called “Live It Out.”
I used to listen to that album all the time when I first moved to Tkaronto in 2005. I’d listen to it on the long subway ride from home to York University as I came to this city to start my tumultuous foray into completing my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Women and Gender Studies.
During Grad School, I wanted to drop out every day because as Dr. G. Love would say to me years later, A Ceremonialist like me has no business being in an institution that EVIL!
(Like seriously, if you are an awakened or awakening Heavy Duty Healer traversing through academia, those colonial energetics and Ancestors can eat you alive – seek support to protect yourself Spiritually!)
But yeah, I wanted to drop out every day, and at some point I lost my ability to think, write or read like an academic. I still had my Master’s Thesis to write, and OOPS I could no longer force myself to write in that language!
I could – however – write in poetry.
Luckily I had Teachers who supported me to do just that, even though it was “frowned upon” by most of the faculty.
That’s when I wrote “The Erasable Woman” my first book of poetry for my Master’s Thesis. I finished it, but I never published it. I wrote it, but I didn’t complete it.
I hadn’t listened to that Metric Album in almost 20 years, I don’t know why the Ancestor Hour chose 3am on Feb 1st 2023 to say, you have to wake up, sit heavy on the couch, and listen to the whole thing.
While I listened to the album, the Colours of the Community Lifted from my Ancestor Altar and wafted through the room, like Burlesque Dancers with Ribbons.
YELLOW: those who will easefully receive that depth of what you offer
ORANGE: those who will enthusiastically ROCK with your brilliance
BLUE: those who will tangibly hold you while you grieve
PURPLE: those with whom you can tell the truth, who you can talk to about what’s really going on
GOLD: those who will throw money at you whenever they have the chance
RED: those who will fiercely protect your sovereignty, and hold you accountable to your success
PINK: those you will fall in love with again and again, who are true friends of the heart, and true heroes you walk with
SILVER: those who will move by way of repair and reparations when you make mistakes or learn things the hard way, thus teaching you that making mistakes in community isn’t actually very scary at all
and
GREEN…
the colour of his transition and ascension
the colour of her beautiful ugly skin
the colour that remembers what we promised
we’ll come to each other free
I listened to that album called “Live It Out”, a book end and beginning for my time here in Tkaronto. An incredible city that is my home, and my heartbreak.
Someone I don’t know how to let go of, even though everything in me knows it’s time to Move.
This is where I Re-membered how to dance, afterall.
It’s where I learned that a queer, brown, survivor weirdo has the Right to Dance, after all.
Do you know what the voice whispered in my mind like a red ribbon right before I moved here in 2005?
It said, I’m going to go there and find my people.
If an Altar is a microcosm of your life then so is the book because the book is the Altar.
The book is an Altar of my Time here – I wrote the whole thing, but I didn’t complete it.
Or maybe I did. Who is an Erasable Woman, if not a human without a name? Who is she, if not Incomplete?
As I listened to that album, that’s when it happened. The colours lifted from the Altar. They danced in the room. They took their time. I didn’t rush them. I double checked and triple checked before the Harvest.
And then, they became me.
And my Ancestor Altar was a Ghost.
That’s when I remembered.
Oh my god. She’s singing about what happened in Lyra. This whole album is about the Galactic Roots of Genocide.
Okay, so that’s when. The precise day and hour it happened.
But, why?
Why did my Ancestors choose that moment to leave their Body?
Well, that’s a different story.
BELOVED GOOD LISTENERS, as I write this on October 28 2024, we are in the midst of a BIG timeline collapse (not off-brand for the end of Pluto in Capricorn!). We are changing the structure of our offerings, and really excited to invite new and old folks into a NEWLY RE-DESIGNED Ancestors Writers Room virtual community space <3 We also have a Town Hall coming up on November 19 which we will be streaming on YouTube. PLEASE SAVE THE DATE. Stay tuned, and for now…here’s a screenshot of a new title page on Scrivener I just created.
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FOR THE REVOLUTION…
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