Michelle Ayn Tessensohn - The Way of Self-Healing

12/06/2026

If you are from South-East Asia or the Pacific, the music of the indigenous Taiwanese might speak to you in the way that it did me. Like a prehistoric memory long forgotten, of wayfinding ancestors who crossed the waters from Taiwan, navigating by the wind and the stars, reaching as far as Rapa Nui and the Americas. It has been described as heavenly.

Throughout history, cultures have sung to connect with their ancestors and learn about heritage, ecology and mythology. These oral traditions are living stories that remind us of our lineage and genetics. They teach us about values and social responsibilities and how to release stress, restore our strength and survive.

In Australia, First Nations people map Country with Songlines about water, plants and animals. In Ireland, Celtic keeners held their community while they grieved. Each ballad sung by the Taiwu Ballads Troupe is intricately linked to their ancestral lineages and teaches the Paiwan children about themselves.

Songs are an essential element of Ancestral Lineage Healing intensives. They help us create a container and spiritual bridge.

We awaken our connection to our ancestors when we sing their songs.

Through breath and melody, we build a sacred vessel for healing.

This is medicine, helping us remember who we are, where we come from, and what we might become.

A profound invocation of spirit, ancestors, and the heavens.

This is how we heal through ritual.

Learn more about healing through ritual with Conversations In Time and me in June at the free online event, The Power of Ritual in Ancestral Lineage Healing.

Last few days to register at the early bird price for the Melbourne Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive in August.

Link in comments for more and to register.

I took this video of the Taiwu Ballads Troupe at the Rainforest Music Festival in Sarawak, Malaysia, in 2017. Apologies for how shaky it is. It may be better to listen rather than watch.

10/06/2026

Lyndal Walker and I would like to invite you to this free online event on June 29th at 11.30am Spain/5.30pm Singapore/7.30pm Melbourne, where we will talk about what it means to do ancestral healing through ritual.

Conversations In Time

WHAT WE'LL EXPLORE

Connecting with spirit:
How this practice works, why it's accessible to everyone, and why showing up is healing in itself, for you and for those who were punished before you for doing the same.

Ritual elements in intensive work:
Offerings, song, and drumming as living vessels and how ritual creates the conditions for deep ancestral contact during intensive practice.

Working in a group:
The amplifying effect of collective spirit work, the healing of shared ancestral wounds, and personal examples, including cultural healing witnessed in Granada, Hamburg and Belfast, of what emerges when lineages meet.

The link to register is in the comments.

25/05/2026

Every so often white cockatoos will sit in the trees around my apartment. Sometimes they will call out and sometimes not. This morning they called to me as I was preparing food in the kitchen. There were about seven of them who settled in the bodhi tree next to my balcony, one of whom looked directly at me.

Known in many traditions as the bringers of rain, the cockatoo signals change, renewal, relief, and divine timing.

In Australia, the cockatoo is a profoundly sacred spiritual guide that symbolises wisdom, community, transformation, resilience, and acts like a messenger between realms, connecting the physical with spirit. They are a reminder of deep ancestral wisdom and kinship bonds. That we are interconnected with nature.

21/05/2026

Some people feel that ancestral healing isn't for them because they don't trust their families and fear making contact with ancestors. They come from hurtful families and are still dealing with the fallout from the harm.

If this was your early life experience and you have chosen not to enable and perpetuate abuse, it is a testament to your empathy, wisdom, and strength. It can feel counterintuitive to challenge harmful behaviour when it’s perpetrated in groups and is a dynamic that has been going on for a long time, possibly generations. Most people will just go along, if for no other reason than to avoid being the one who is bullied, berated or worse.

Abuse can also be subtle and hard to spot, like when families single out a family member to project their dysfunction onto so they can avoid accountability. This is just as debilitating. These stressful dynamics repeat in our adult lives and become internalised, developing into mental health struggles or chronic and serious illness.

But maybe deep down you knew there was another way.

You have a right to be treated with dignity and for others to be accountable for their behaviour toward you. This doesn’t always come from your family, but your well and wise blood ancestors love and respect you fully and unconditionally. They have your back.

If they were harmful to you or others when they were alive, in my experience they want to atone for this and offer their support to you now wholeheartedly. They can see the bigger picture and beyond the limited perspectives they had when they were living. By helping you, they help themselves to elevate and become more vibrant and well. But there must be willingness to relate to them.

There is an enormous source of support, healing and wisdom available to us when we connect with ancestral guides who have our very best interests at heart. They are closer and more available than you think. You are not alone and never were. There is light within reach. Just look up.

21/05/2026

Lyndal Walker is an artist, ritualist, and ancestral healing practitioner who shares in this interview about healing, ancestors, ritual, spirit, culture, and how she was given a very clear sign that her skepticism was not always helpful when she stepped into ancestral healing.

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/53xcLWZbPro6k8jyeHTpgO?si=a472bd27dbed48ab

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/turned-on-wild-free-sexy-in-your-midlife/id1500335240

Last year, we started to co-run an Asia-Oceania practitioner network group, and this August, we're co-leading a workshop in August in Melbourne, Australia.

https://www.conversationsintime.org/intensive

Join our 3-day ancestral lineage healing intensive in Melbourne to connect, heal, and foster cultural and family well-being through guided rituals and ancestral practices.

19/05/2026

The Kumpo is a sacred spirit protector from the Jola people in West Africa, and witnessing this ritual in person was never on my bingo card this year.

Young men initiated into this ancestral tradition are dressed by an elder in raffia palm leaves held together by rope from the baobab tree and wear a stick on their head with a flag.

The Kumpo brings the community together for healing, guidance, and prophecy and is venerated in return. Seeing it live? Electrifying. There was something more than human present. I felt it. You can see it in the video.

Indigenous rituals like this remind descendants that their ancestors are wise, powerful, and real, and they have inherited potent cultural legacies simply through belonging.

That day I saw an unadulterated truth alive in the Jola community members: remembering our ancestors is remembering our power. When we know where we come from and the legacies we belong to, we can express our dynamic selves. There are wise and well ones who are deeply invested in us, who protect and guide us when we acknowledge their presence and tend to our relationship with them.

They are waiting for us.

This Sunday, join us to meet your ancestral guide so you can reclaim your power.

13/05/2026

13/05/2026

Last two days to register for this leading ancestral healing course. Join us to learn an accessible frame and practical foundation for relating with your ancestors that focuses on safety and honoring the gifts of your culture and lineage.

Go to the link in comments to register.

09/05/2026

That's me as a child, sitting amongst the wooden statues in front of the teepee. I was in Canada with my family on a Ken-Air package tour of North America. It must have been a candid shot, as I'm not facing the camera and my mother is walking out of the frame. I’m sitting next to an indigenous North American Thunderbird house post totem pole.

I didn’t know then that I would encounter indigenous animist culture again through shamans, plant medicines, and respectful ritual. Animist teachings and ceremony reminded me of what my bones and blood already knew: that nature and all of life are sacred, alive, and in relationship with us, including ancestors, gods, and supernatural beings.

These rituals were comforting, even in the heat of the sweat lodges or the purging of the plants. I especially loved the prayer songs and longed to hear them again way after a ceremony was over. Building relationship with ancestors and receiving their support was a welcome respite from feeling overwhelmed by life and relationship challenges and triggers. Tending with my powers, guides, and allies gave me further strength and resilience.

It is humbling to join ritualists who honour nature and welcome thunder as a nod from the ancestors. To come together with them to co-create despachos of thanks to the land for balance and reciprocity. To be held accountable, so I relate to others with respect, dignity, and kindness. It is a privilege to help others do the same as a certified ancestral lineage healing practitioner and mentor.

If you feel drawn to indigenous spirituality and animist ritual and want to join with other ritualists to remember the sacredness of life and receive the support of your ancestors, powers and guides, join us for the Ancestral Lineage Healing Course starting next week. I’ll be hosting the practice support calls on Thursday mornings.

Go to the link in the comments for more.

07/02/2026

Where Healing meets Heritage

Last Wednesday, 11 participants gathered to gently turn toward their roots. To remember. To listen. To heal what has been waiting across time.

For many, it was their first step into ancestral work, a tender, courageous act of reaching back to move forward.

What carries you through when you’re new?

An open heart. A sincere longing to connect. Humble curiosity, anchored in gentle boundaries.

This work is a sacred balance between softness and structure, intention and surrender.

We held a carefully woven ritual container, a space of safety and presence, to honor each person’s journey and ground the healing that unfolded.

If you’ve felt the call to deepen into your own lineage to heal rifts, reclaim gifts, and restore flow, you’re invited to our next circle.

Date: Friday, March 6th, 2026
Time: 1:30 PM – 3.30 PM
Location: 68B Race Course Rd, Singapore 218571
Investment: $50

Spaces are limited to preserve intimacy and support for each participant.

Ready to begin the conversation with your ancestors?

Link in comments.