06/14/2026
At least once a year, I invite the community to contribute to the making of a large Ancestral Offering, to feed and thank our well, wise and loving Ancestors for their support, seen and unseen. This year I put out the call in ceremony under the recent Blue Moon, and many of you answered.
Over the next week the collection of Offerings grew as community brought the foods and Medicines of their Ancestors: dried beans, seeds, cedar, flowers, to***co, rice, nuts, dried mushrooms, fruits, veg, bark, spices, mugwort, sage, corn, leaves, herbs, and more. Some also brought small treasured objects, wee stones, handmade incense, penned letters, prayers, songs and sealed envelopes with private thoughts.
These Offerings became part of a 3-day ritual of healing, honouring, praising, propitiating, listening and tending to the Ancestors of place, Ancestors of blood/bone, and Ancestors of Path, with a wonderful group of Death Doulas-in-training.
For 3 days and nights these Offerings were carefully, meticulously, beautifully arranged. Each bit prayed over, sung over, placed with intention and gratitude. As we crafted together, we shared stories about our families and people, (histories, locations, cultures, recipes, patterns, lineage wounds/burdens, gifts, blessings), and we learned and sang each other's Ancestral songs--call-and-response, celebratory, laments, rounds, drinking songs, working songs, Spirit songs, heart songs, and sweet lullabies. Some tended the Offering even while others slept.
The Ancestors, in turn, responded to their names being invoked, their lives being acknowledged, their descendants remembering, and healing requests being made. Participants also learned more about how to be in right-relationship with their Ancestral dead.
Once each contributed ingredient was placed in the gorgeous (and delightfully, perfectly wonky) final Offering, we juiced it all up in ritual. We offered up our pain, our burdens, our wounds, our illnesses, our confusions, our fears and tears to our Ancestors. We prayed for our lives, the lives of our families, our communities, our non-human kin, the Earth, the All-That-Is. Everything went in there.
Then the glowing, powerful Ancestor Offering was bundled up in the fabric. The beauty of the mandala was always meant to be fleeting (a Life and Death Teaching). The Offering bundle was lifted up and was run over the heads, bodies, feet of each participant that further lifting of burdens, and spontaneous healings might take place. I'm tearing up as I remember the space held and loving witnessing of the group for each other.
The Offering bundle was then burned in a Sacred Fire--that the energy might feed the Well, Wise and Loving Ancestors. What a gift to all involved. I, for one, was moved beyond measure.
Here are a few pics of how it went, and of the gorgeous Souls of Kelly Butler's AP Doula Training program who partook. Thank you to ALL in the extended community who contributed Offerings for your people! This is the way. xo
If you wish to personally experience this work in a more visceral way, I will be holding a 3-day in-person Ancestral Lineage Healing day-retreat (you go to your home/hotel every evening) in Hull, QC. in July or August with fellow dirt-worshiping animist Robyn Brehaut. 🙂 Let me know if you want to be informed as deets become available!
To book personal healing sessions with me, see: https://thedeathofme.as.me/
LOVE! ❤
