Our Weekly Tip: Include Ancient Ancestral Practices in Funeral or Memorial Services

Gathering in a circle formation is another element that is common across traditions.
(Credit: mysticallifepublications.org)

Our Tip of the Week: In this age of secular dying and grieving, many people struggle to find meaningful ways of memorializing their loved ones that don’t lean on a superficial spirituality or empty platitudes. If this resonates with you, and if you do not have a daily consciousness and connection to your ancestral lines, then this tip is particularly for you: Create a memorial to honor your loved one by incorporating ancestral practices from their lineage, from yours or from both.

By understanding how those who have come before us have navigated death and grief, we can all feel less alone in times of great loss. A memorial can incorporate practices from your loved one’s ancient ancestry, tying them to the thread of the family line for the benefit of future generations. You may also wish to incorporate a practice from your own ancestry (if different), especially if the memorial is a way for you to personally integrate the loss of someone who has died.

Grandma Maria Alice Compos Freire, holding
a ceremony utilizing simple natural materials.
(Credit: talesfromthegoldencabinet.blogspot.com)

How-to Suggestion: The first and most obvious step in this process is to find out where you and your loved one came from, including place of birth, and when the family left their ancestral land. Are there any unknown factors, and how can this be reconciled with what’s known?

If you are interested in incorporating ancestral practices into a pre-existing spiritual or religious framework, know that the two need not conflict. We are living in a complex and globalized time — a time of fusion and cross-over. The most important part of this process is to source your ancestral practices from a tradition that you and your loved one are connected to through family lines. Once you have determined the culture or country of origin, you can also survey our past blog posts for ideas in our “Cultural Practices” column here. These will anchor your grief journey in the wisdom of those people who lived and died, survived and thrived, for the sake of those who came after them. By walking in their footsteps, you can find comfort in remembering, and move forward with a clearer vision of your place in the Big Story.