Your ancestors assert a tremendous pull on you whether you like it or not. They set up a rhythm in your DNA that programs you to live, love, eat, communicate, think and feel in certain ways.
You have been pre-programmed in a sense to carry on some of the ancestral patterns. Some of them are good, beneficial and life-giving. Some programs are negative and destructive.
Consider today what ancestral programs work for you and which ones do not. Did your ancestral patterning teach you how to love in a way that is healthy for you? Did your ancestral patterning teach you how to communicate in a way that is satisfying for you? This kind of inquiry is very powerful as you build a healthy root system for your Tree of Life.
Many people have lost connection with their tribe, being displaced from the village where they grew up and feeling disconnected from the land of their foremothers and forefathers. We meet people frequently who never knew their grandparents or even the names of their great grandparents.
It is helpful to honor the rhythms of your ancestral community. The rhythm of each village or tribe is unique. Your community/tribe of origin had unique communication styles, instinctive patterns, collective identity, and is rooted into a particular land. Some tribes talk loudly and gesticulate with their hands, getting into heated discussions with everyone talking around the table at the same time. Other tribes have a communication style where members talk softly or use silence, where only elders are allowed to speak and dinner conversation is cold or intellectual.
Some tribes are hot-blooded and affectionate, and sexuality is approved of and expressed. Other tribes are restrained and sexually repressive, lacking affection or physical demonstration. Some tribes identify themselves as religious and celebrate particular religious seasons. Other tribes identify themselves as agrarian and celebrate the seasonal cycles of sun, moon and the growth of crops. Still other tribes identify themselves as counterculture groups and create their own celebrations.
With each seasonal turn, each repeated custom and each ceremonial dance, the disparate strands of the village are woven together into a unique tapestry, according to each cultural blueprint. In Western culture, many of us have lost connection with the particular pattern and beat of our ancestral village. We need to reconnect with our ancestral variety, vitality and color. In our ancestral village, when each member learned the communal beat, the dynamic instinctual heart of the community came alive.
If you want to discover and learn the rhythms of your community, observe your tribe of origin and feel what kind of rhythmic patterns surrounded you. If you feel disconnected from some part of your ancestral rhythm, it can feel very healing to get back in sync with your ancestral beat.
Just for fun, pick any strand of your ancestral inheritance that you wish to reconnect with and dedicate a period of time to celebrate the seasonal cycles of your ancestors. Do some research into the celebrations, traditions, holidays, special food, symbols, music and dances that made up the total rhythm of your ancestors. Celebrate the seasonal cycles and make them your own.