Today I was working with one of my students and I saw a Native American woman approach from the right. She had long black hair and deerskin clothing, beaded jewelry hung from her neck.
As she came near I heard “Ancestor” and she showed me a memory of being in a desert landscape that looked vaguely similar to Utah. The ground was hard, there were rocky hills and boulders all around.
She came near a dark-skinned man in Wild West clothing. He laid uncomfortably against a rock, wearing a soft brown hat that matched his jacket, and a black shirt with puckered orange fabric sticking out the top. His face beaded with sweat as he battled some mysterious illness.
In her hands she held a bowl of water that had been steeped in herbs, a cloth floating within.
She kneeled next to the man, who looked at her with wide eyes, and rang out the cloth, dripping droplets of water into his mouth and patting down his face.
It was a memory, perhaps of how they met? I’ve heard before that ancestor may not exclusively mean a person from your lineage, that it can be a blanket term. Was this a past life of his, where he was the man and she a woman who healed him? Was the man his ancestor, was the woman his ancestor?
The scenery shifted and I saw her kneeling beside a bowl of offerings. Light gleened in through a bedroom window. The room itself was blurry, but the offering bowl was vivid, as if it were the only detail that mattered enough to vivify.
I asked the student if he was still leaving offerings for his ancestors, and he replied yes, every day.
“Do you ever feel guided to leave certain things sometimes?”
“Yeah! All the time.”
“That’s her, she’s asking for specific items that are useful for her.”
The woman dipped her fingers into the offering bowl, her non physical hands sinking into the items within. She pulled out a cloud of energy, it glimmered various shades of gray.
Her hands transferred the energy into a small woven basket she held. She pulled out more and more of the warping gray tufts until satisfied.
She stood and headed towards the bedroom wall. The drywall rippled, as if it had turned into a glimmering source of water, revealing an archway into which she stepped through.
I could see through the portal into another land. It looked similar to the desert landscape she had shown me before, except there were a few trees standing amidst the boulders.
I followed her through to get a better view.
There were people mulling about aimlessly. They all looked like they were just standing there or sluggishly walking around, not really heading towards anywhere in particular.
It was clear we were on the ethereal sides of things. Everything felt lighter, calmer. Plus, all the people were translucent and vibrating in different colors.
One man dressed similar to the attire I’ve seen paintings of Christopher Colombus in, I don’t think he was him, he didn’t really radiate “genocide leader” to me. They just wore the same hat, with the funny looking curve in it. This man was younger, perhaps mid-20s, he had dark hair and a long nose, wearing puffy pants and a stiff bulky jacket. His body was a deep blue color and you could see right through him.
He stood next to another translucent man who was the color of grass. His attire was more simple, a tunic and trousers.
There were three men standing together in exterminator suits. Their heads were covered in protective equipment and they stood farther away from anyone else.
The Native woman walked with her bowl, far to her left a purple-colored woman dressed in medieval clothing looked blankly, without hope, at her as she walked towards the dark blue man with the funny hat.
She plucked out some of the particles of energy from her basket and sunk her long fingers into his chest for a moment before removing them.
He let out a startled breath of air, placing his hand on his chest where her fingers had been, and smiled. His face lost its hopeless star and looked peaceful.
She turned and walked towards another person and repeated the action.
I was vastly confused by where we were and why these people were here. Were they stuck in some way?
It was odd to me because there was no consistency. Each person was clearly from a different time period. Had they perished while traveling through this area over centuries of time? Or did they come from all over and she gathered them here? I hadn’t a clue, and she didn’t answer my quandary.
The woman kneeled upon the hard desert floor. She grabbed another gray wisp and plunged her arm straight through the dirt. She smiled at me and a voice in my head said “When there’s no people to heal, I do this instead.”
The message was clear, “Thank you for the offerings. I use them every day. Please keep them coming and listening to what I ask. They would be able to go even farther if you raise their vibration by blessing them or charging them beforehand.”
I’ve left offerings here and there over the years without feeling a strong connection towards it, without knowing if there was a use more than a symbolic thanks to it. But after this experience, I feel so much more driven to create a proper altar and set up a bowl.
-Alia
