I wanted to share a short post today about an aspect of animist journeywork that opened up during recent journeys I’ve been engaged in on behalf of people I support at Monarch Trancework.
For those of you who have been a part of the Monarch community, you’re probably aware that I’ve been committed to learning the Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) language for nearly three years now.
A big, maybe the primary, reason that I started on my language learning mission was an experience I had during my own Ancestral Lineage Healing journeys.
Over and over again, during the journeys, I was experiencing a feeling of frustration that seemed to be coming from the ancestral guides in one of my lineages.
The frustration was around communication and language. The message - mostly generated through feelings and images - was that they wanted me to learn the language - Gàidhlig.
I figured, if I really wanted to take this spiritual work seriously, I had to take the messages seriously; and that’s when I began learning.
People often talk about the shift - when learning a language - the point where you begin to dream in the new language. For me, I began to have fragments of Gàidhlig in my dreams after about 6 months of learning. After a year, it became a regular occurrence.
I’ve noticed that in my dreams, I’m much more at ease speaking Gàidhlig than I am in my waking life, and I suspect it’s because I’m less self-conscious and insecure in my dreams than when I’m awake - we all are. Like any language learner, I have much more vocabulary and grammatical knowledge building up in my subconscious mind than I have automatically accessible to my conscious mind.
In the meantime, I’ve continued my Ancestral Lineage Healing practice, and my relationship with the ancestors in my Scottish lineage has continued to grow deeper and more connected. I figured it was a natural deepening as a result of consistent journeywork.
It wasn’t until recently, when I began doing journeys on behalf of volunteers and clients, that I began to notice some differences in how I was able to connect with wise ancestors - other than my own.
Beings in non-ordinary states of consciousness are always able to communicate with us, when we attend to those relationships; but as I began to engage with the allies and ancestors of other people, I really began to notice that the vast majority of information, guidance, and help came in the form of visual information images, sometimes just a flash like a photograph, sometimes a scene playing out before me, sometimes it became clear that what I was seeing was a visual metaphor that required some interpretation; or there would be communication coming through physical sensations and emotions - a kind of kinaesthetic dialogue that was guiding me along… but they don’t talk to me… in words.
It wasn’t until recently, when I was doing some journeywork on behalf of someone else… along a French ancestral lineage that, having connected with one of their ancestral guides, I realized that this Ancestor was speaking to me - telling me things directly and clearly… in French.
French was my mother’s first language, and when I was young, I received a lot of French language education, and I could communicate quite well by the time I started Highschool. My family had moved several times though, and as I began a new school in suburban Toronto (Pickering), French was really “uncool” in my social circle, and so I left it behind…
The language still lives in my subconscious mind though, and my comprehension is still fairly good - and what I’ve come to realize is that in doing ancestral work, because I’ve taken the time to learn ancestral language, the communication with ancestors has become significantly easier, more direct, and clear - because they can speak to me!
It makes sense… imagine if your ancestors from 200 or 500 or 1,000 years ago just showed up on your doorstep.
Even if they had something of critical importance to share with you… all they could do would be to point, gesture, and maybe draw pictures.
It’s a rare thing these days for a person to carry an ancestral language.
I’m so grateful now realizing that the connection I have with my ancestors has gradually shifted from a kind of psychic charades - to straightforward conversation… and my ancestors are quite happy to talk with me. They still use images and feelings of course; but now they also help me to interpret and understand what they’ve shared.
I wanted to share this learning because I often hear people talking about the “difficulty” of learning an ancestral language… and people often ask me “why” I’ve been leaning Gàidhlig.
For me, it hasn’t been “difficult” at all… and if I’m honest, I don’t know that there’s much choice in it for me… at all.
Of course, it takes time, and commitment, and of course there are periods of plateau and frustration… but for me, it’s all worth it. Language is a powerful tool that can deepen your connection with the people you came from, with your ancestral culture, and because all language arises in context, to the very land that your people came from.
A labour of love, to be sure - but there is no question in my mind that the benefits far outweigh the costs.