Showing Up Whole
Among the incredible diversity of teachers at Aniwa, two core threads stood out: a relationship of reverence with the Earth, and an honoring connection with the Ancestors.
By Kari Grady Grossman and Her Elder Council
I recently attended a gathering of Indigenous Elders from across North, Central, and South America, brought together in the California redwood forest for a long weekend of ceremony, ritual, and teachings. The Aniwa Gathering is dedicated to “fostering global unity and spiritual growth by celebrating the diverse traditions of Indigenous cultures.” There was even a traditional Mongolian shaman, speaking through two layers of interpreters, who shared wisdom from the spirit world of his lineage.
The word shaman has become a ubiquitous catchphrase in the Western world for spiritual mediumship. However, it holds deep historical roots in Mongolia, where it refers to a specific skill set for communicating between human and spirit worlds—one that predates Buddhism and other major religions. Watching Shaman Spark leave his body during a nighttime fire ceremony beneath towering redwoods and speak in the tongues of the spirit world was a powerful experience in witnessing intact Indigenous ritual technology. I realized I was encountering what a shaman truly is for the first time. I felt deep appreciation for the elder council of my own ancestors standing behind me, allowing me to be present as a spiritually fortified human being—not a mystified, needy one.
Among the incredible diversity of teachers at Aniwa, two core threads stood out: a relationship of reverence with the Earth, and an honoring connection with the Ancestors. Participants were thirsty for both, though it was clear that connecting with the Earth felt more accessible. For many of us descended from settler-colonial histories—as children of European immigrants—the lonely ache of ancestral disconnection is palpable, especially in the presence of people who are not.
This void can pull us strongly toward Indigenous cultures that center ancestral relationships through intact rituals. But their ancestors cannot fill our void. They can offer support and powerful allyship in our quest for belonging—but our own ancestors live in our DNA. Turning to face them is the only way to authentically fill the ancestral void. Healing the burdens of our own dead allows us to show up whole to the teachings and technologies today’s Indigenous Elders so generously share—to help us reconnect to Life, purpose, and meaning.
It’s essential to remember that our people once had Indigenous relationships with land and ancestors too—over thousands of years. It’s written in our DNA. Our minds may have forgotten over centuries of empire and colonization, but our cells have not. Before the Roman Empire colonized Europe, it was populated by diverse Celtic and pre-Celtic tribes richly connected to the Earth, spirits of place, and ancestral lines. The past 2,000 years have been rough, but all is not lost. There is medicine in tending to the pain and trauma of dispossession, displacement, and violence our immigrant ancestors endured—and often embodied and perpetuated.
Our spiritual re-education begins with cleaning up the past. We descend from generations who lived through systemic oppression, war, empire, colonization, hierarchy, and competition—forces that created the unsustainable global mess we’re living in. This isn’t about blame; they were born into those systems. It’s about truth—truth that lives in our bones. Healing intergenerational trauma—carried from both the victim and perpetrator sides of history—is the cultural repair our world so desperately needs. There is magic in our unique diasporic DNA. Medicine in our lineages—some we need to receive, some we need to give—that can help dissolve the trauma bonds holding systems of oppression and separation in place. When one person changes, the energetic matrix shifts. On a lineage level, whole sections of the web of life can reconnect. And if you are adopted, your healing can double that impact across two family systems.
Ancestral lineage healing offers profound possibilities for cultural repair when we come into right relationship with both the Earth and the dead. We begin by establishing contact with wise and well ancestors—those who lived before the trouble started, when ritual technology and relationships with spirits of place were still intact. We ask these well ones to bring what’s needed to heal the broken lineages between them and us. Communication is cultivated through honoring practices that strengthen trust in our intuitive connection with those who lived long ago in faraway lands. As we witness and tend the burdens carried in our lineages, we watch them dissolve—and feel ourselves released from the hooks of ancestral pain.
Freed from these burdens, the blessings and gifts of our lineages begin to flow. Our DNA receives an upgrade. We are no longer living in ancestral deficit. The doors of our psyche open to the wholeness of our people. From this place, we can meet our Indigenous teachers as energetically compatible beings—able to engage their wisdom with reciprocity, authenticity, and reverence.
Are you ready to get that party started?
