We started with each person sharing how they were doing and how their week was. It was a beautiful conversation that reflected growth in the capacity to pull all energies together to manage everyday life. Members had seen healing and movement in their spirit.
As is usual gifts had been presented at the ancestral altar. In noting the presentation of one member, a conversation ensued about the importance of the nature and types of gifts we take to the ancestors. Although gifts are sometimes chosen based on ease and convenience, they all carry ‘messages’ and are a part of our spiritual communication. We use these gifts to convey messages of thanksgiving, gratitude and from both our conscious and sub conscious spaces permit our spirits to show the ancestors what energies we crave in our lives.
I was used as an example of this since I have been taking a lot of sweet gifts such as chocolate, juice, biscuits etc. to the altar for some time. This could signifying, which was true, that I want to invite some kind of ‘sweetness’ into my life. Because I had been doing this for some time, Nana pointed out that if we keep giving the same gifts to the ancestors and we are not aware of a response, we need to say something. It is possible a discussion needs to be had with the ancestors to see the best way to approach them for what you need.
We then moved into a game of African telephone. During this game Nana sent 4 different messages. The first one said ‘My ancestors are fabulous'. That message was shared from one person to the other and was transferred well. The second message said ‘The ancestors are always with you, sitting with you, walking with you and guiding you.’ This time, let’s say, amid laughter and much brow knitting, the message did not arrive at its destination intact. The third time around the message was ‘our existence is due to our existence.’ This message was transformed. At this point we stopped and examined all that had come into play during the message transmissions. We identified the presence of expectations, self pressure, anxiety, expectations, ego and confusion in the process and how they affected the message.
It was mentioned that the communication of the latter messages may have gone awry because they were longer that the first message and so it was it was easier for them to be messed up. Nana sent a fourth message, a short, fun tongue twister, ‘she sells seashells by the seashore.’ The message ended up as…she sells that she sells seashells. We went ahead here and claimed that this time it was due to the S sounds. This was a serious fun exercise that took us into a conversation about spiritual communication.
Main points from the conversation are:
- Our spirit has agency, how do we listen to it? Do we listen without expectations of what we are to hear or do we listen with barriers such as anxiety?
- When messages are communicated, we should hear then, then process them, then understand them, then apply them.
- We should allow ourselves to hear freely and accurately i. e. do not infuse with our own thoughts
- Most of us are walking without the consciousness of our spirit. We should develop awareness of spirit and learn to trust spirit.
- We were likened to the process of a mango tree. We should be a mango blossom on the tree, by nurturing ourselves, we can grow into a big beautiful mango.
How do you trust spiritual communication?
- You know you’re supported by spirit when you’re about to do what you asked for, for years to come.
- When our ancestors are supportive of our decisions, there are more encouraging factors than blockages. When they aren’t, then it will be the other way around.
- Everybody should be able to speak to their ancestors in whichever way they communicate best. Be it dreams, actual words etc.
Spiritual Communication is as simple as the first message we sent in our game but when we add all the extraneous variables that we don’t really need, it becomes complicated. In order to communicate well and understand well, we should be in and maintain a state of readiness. No expectations, established time-frame and fixations as to how, through whom or what. Only the knowing that spirit will choose the most effective channel.
- Contentment is a place of balance and any emotion that comes at you, you would be able to handle them well since you’d be ready.
- The soul communicates through the eyes.
- Some persons aren’t able to maintain eye contact, especially with persons who are of good character as they aren’t able to face their true selves. They want to hide what is in their spirit.
- All emotions have chemical representations.
- On every single journey in your life, you can call spirit.
- Life is a cycle. It is cyclical, circular. We are all on that cycle. We looked at the life cycle of a tree and its fruits. A seed is planted for the tree to grow, it bears fruit and the same seeds from those trees will go back again into the earth to do the same process.
- Our spirit chooses the places where we need to go and learn lessons so it can grow.
- Jesus could not have died to save us or our ancestors because his death was not attended by any of our protocols.
- We are a people in knowledge of our relationship with the God being.
- Death is a door of rebirthing
- Sankofa is a vision of the future. Going back to the past is a methodology of getting informed so that we can gain knowledge to inform a brighter, more fruitful future.
How do we improve spiritual communication?
- Develop a relationship with spirit.
- We can improve spiritual communication by having a consistent spiritual practice, this includes sitting at your altar, to create a portal for two way communication.
- Using divination, asking questions, to know what to do and what actions need to be taken.
- There is also a responsibility to appreciate the outcome.
- Make sure you are in a space to hear. There are medicines that you can use to help to make spiritual communication become clearer.
- Be vigilant, alert, walking well with the messages.
- Practice makes perfect. You start to develop better skills as you practice more. This will help to know the way spirit has chosen to communicate with you, what entity is speaking and so on.
- Acknowledge that you’re always in a space of spiritual communication.
- Asking for permission to communicate.
We closed with songs and each of us saying closing words.
