The Ancestors

This week as I do every week, I lit a candle for my ancestors and I prayed for them and for their elevation. I thought about the people I loved who had died in my life and I sat and listened to their advice and their wisdom.


Ancestor veneration is a very important part of Sanse, this is because as my papa says you come into the world standing on the shoulder's of your ancestors. Without them I wouldn't be here right now and without them letting in my other spirits in I couldn't work with them.


When I first started practising I found working with my ancestors one of the hardest things to do. It was painful to think about the ones I love who had died every week and so I tended to avoid doing it. Once I began to serve them however, I began to deal with those feelings of grief and it helped me to remember my ancestors with  loving memories rather then painful ones.


Now when I serve with my ancestors its a deeply positive experience. I get the sense of them being like a wall or a chain, they surround and protect me. They lend me their wisdom and their strength and act to help me in numerous way. Furthermore as I have begun to work with them more, I have begun to discover new commission spirits and discovered links between my own family and the Mysterio that walk with me.


As I work with them more I hope to discover more about them and help them rise up and one day when I join their ranks. I hope I can provide the same understanding and wisdom to future generations that they have given to me.

Thoughts on elevation

Seeking to spiritual elevate both ourselves and our spirits is one of the key goals of both Sanse and Espiritismo. Within these traditions God is seen as being the most elevated of all spirits and it is He that is the source of all spiritual light and progress. As such it is to Him we turn to when we seek elevation, either on our own behalf or for our spirits.

This inevitable leads to the all important question, what is spiritual elevation and what does it mean to be elevated? To tell you the truth, I don't fully know. Now thats not to say I don't have some of the insights or intellectual knowledge needed to partially understand the subject. But at the same time I don't feel like I am at a spiritual level where I can fully develop my own spin on the matter. As such I wanted to write about some of the ideas i've had about what elevation is and the effect its had on me.


Now at least for me the word elevation brings to mind the same connotations as the the word height. However within Sanse this is not the case, as one of my spiritual brothers once described to me, being more spiritually elevated is more akin to having more spiritual awareness. The more elevated you are, the more spiritual levels you can perceive and interact with.


Over time I formed an analogy that I personally could relate to. This was the idea of climbing a mountain, with the eventual aim being to become as close to the sun (God in this case) as possible. If I was to start at the bottom of the mountain, I might not be able to see much and in fact the sun itself might not actually be visible. However if I was to climb by improving myself spiritually, overcoming obstacles in my life and improving myself with the help of more elevated spirits. The view that I get of the world I might be better, looking back I would understand where I had come from and therefore where I was going. And I might be able to help others to reach a higher point themselves.


Becoming more spiritually elevated can also leads to the development of ones spiritual abilities, this varies from person to person based on their spiritual cudro. Some people develop the ability to astral project, some are clairesentient, clairvoyant, some heal and others can become possessed. Whatever that person's latent abilities, through hard work and practise these abilities can become can unlocked and used to help others.


I've found seeking elevation isn't always easy, sometimes I've had to face painful sides to myself. Alot of the time this isn't just about elevating yourself, but also the more unpleasant spirits that you may attract to yourself. Such as dragging, intranquil and cause spirits. This may be difficult but its necessary in order to overcome the tests and  challenges that God may have given to you.


At the end of the day I believe that looking to elevate yourself is about finding newer and better ways of thinking. Of finding within us the hope, love and faith to work our way towards treating ourselves and each other in better ways. As well as the power to break out of the mental traps we make for ourselves and the self destructive patterns that come from them. It may along the way give us more power and spiritual abilities, but these are nothing without the wisdom that elevation gives us to use them and the acknowledgement that all the elevation we gain in Sanse comes from God and the spirits.

Bitter medicine

I had considered posting another opinion piece this week showcasing my growth and progression, but in all honesty it would have been a bit hypocritical. You see I was presented with a situation (which i'm not going to go into), in which I could have shown how much I have matured and grown over time.

Instead I ignored vital advice given to me by people with more knowledge and wisdom then me, communicated my thoughts and feelings badly, flapped around and panicked. Yes, the situation that caused it was deeply unpleasant and certain factors that had been added to it made it that much worse. But the fact remains that I handled it badly.

Now when I sat down tonight, I could have hashed out another blog that completely ignored this little train wreck. But if I had I think I would have ignored something important, because there are lessons in this for me. 

And I hope the next time something like this happens again, i'll have learned something from this and react in a better way...