Last Winter I was walking a labyrinth next to the Breitenbush River and asked the land and my ancestors to share a message with me.

After many meditative steps, an image arrived: a tattered cloth with taut threads barely hanging on to one another. The fabric was frayed, but not completely undone. The message I heard was that Indigenous practices of kinship with the more-than-human world and the ancestors is what keeps our world woven together. In spite of the violence done to those who continue to practice these ancient lifeways, the fabric is still holding. Our world is still here.

For a multitude of reasons and over hundreds of years, many of us have forgotten the very old art of weaving, both the literal practice but also the spiritual orientation–the understanding that we are woven into a great tapestry called Life and that being a part of that weave comes with certain opportunities and responsibilities.

One result of this great forgetting is that many of us in the human community feel frayed, tattered, and unclothed.

We're missing the great garments of our ancestors: the cloaks imbued with symbolism to remind us of where we come from, the belts passed down from our Grandfathers, the shirts with protective spells stitched into them. Nowadays, we wear fast fashion and wonder who we are and why we're here.

But no matter what your heritage is, you have ancestors from long ago who would like to help you remember how to weave.

“Frigga Spinning the Clouds,” Guerber, 1909

You are probably tired. I'm tired, too. Right now there is a weight to life that I can't ignore. I also believe that this weight becomes untenable when we're trying to hold it on our own, cut off from the sturdy fibers of ancestral support that can help lighten the load.

If you're like most people, you need way more help than you're getting right now, and the humans around you may not be able to provide a lot. Your animal, plant, and fungal kin may not have a lot to give right now, either.

But somewhere you have a group of Aunties cackling around the spindle, ready and willing to bring you the levity and support you need.

All you have to do, truly, is ask for their help. Invite your long-ago dead, those who are wise and well and able to help you, into your life. Ask them to help you mend where you need mending and weave new connections where they're most needed.

It is your right, by virtue of being alive, to enjoy the full scope of support available from your wise and well ancestors.

You do not need anyone's permission to do this, but it can be helpful to have a guide along the way and a container in which to do this work.

My ancestors have asked me to offer this community a new class, and it's called Weaving With the Ancestors.

Weaving With the Ancestors is an 8-week container in which you'll be invited to re-establish contact with the wise and well ancestors of one of your family lines (e.g., your Mother's Mother's line) and bring down the power, gifts, and healing of that line so that they can be woven into your daily life.

I've taught this class once fully through and am over halfway through with a second cohort of folks.

Some of what I've seen people weave with their ancestors through this class includes:

Hammocks of restfulness - a peace and grace that comes into their lives that they weren't expecting.
Safety ropes - a feeling that there's something very strong to hold onto in difficult times.
Garments of beauty and self-respect - new levels of understanding about why they're here and the beauty that they bring into the world, not in spite of their lineage, but because of it.

Weaving With the Ancestors is a spiritual process with immediate practical benefits.

When our Grandmothers spun thread and wove cloth, they knew that their labor served both magical and mundane purposes. They were creating clothing or a tapestry, yes, but they were also spinning spells and invoking the gods on behalf of their community.

My intention is for your experience in this class to be useful–for it to enrich your daily life and also bolster your capacity to live into the gifts you bring to your community.

I invite you to learn more about and register for this class. We start on April 7th.