tarot creative diary no.0 | What Is Ancestral Tarot?
This is my weekly ancestral tarot spread, in which I ask the ancestors at my altar for creative and spiritual guidance as my life unfolds before my eyes.
an introduction to my ancestral altar
For at least the past three years, I have been exploring a new relationship with my ancestors. The pictures of my maternal grandmother, grandfather, and my maternal great-grandmother all stand on an altar of my making – a small dresser I transformed into a sacred space for ancestor veneration. There’s a leather-bound copy of the King James version of the Holy Bible that hangs on the altar’s edge. Though I left the formal church many years ago, my grandparents were steadfast Christians who lived good lives and used the teachings of the Bible to guide their right action. SO, that’s just to say, I felt good including this text on my altar. There’s Florida Water that sits behind the gilded frames of my grandparents’ pictures. There’s a small yet steadily growing collection of crystals including pyrite, clear quartz, and citrine that is gathered around a candle I light when I want to talk to my beloved ancestors. There are small slips of paper that hold my new moon and full moon affirmations I’ve created and chanted aloud over the years. And how could I forget the gleaming sea shell that holds the affirmations! Finally, there’s a clear glass of water I keep filled at all times on the altar. I see the water as standing in for my ancestor’s lifeforce. When I water them, they can water me and my dreams.
My Ancestors: who were they?
I never met my maternal great-grandmother, Mary, though the stories about her loom larger than life thanks to my mother and her meticulous care of the family archives. She was the first licensed woman to become an interior designer in the state of Pennsylvania and she traveled across the Philly Metro area making the most beautiful pieces for people’s homes. From what I hear, she was a lover of beauty and she made a home in beauty and homes out of beauty for people’s most sacred spaces. When My grandmother, Sallie, would leave her native home of Beargrass, North Carolina and move to Philadelphia in the 1940s to find work and a new lease on life like the millions of other African Americans who fled the American south during this period of Great Migration, my grandmother would meet the woman who would become my maternal great-grandmother, Mary, in a local Philadelphia church. In other words, my grandmother, Sallie, was taken under her wing by Mary and became her spiritual daughter of sorts. Far away from home and in need of work and guidance,Sallie found a mother in Mary. And that’s the role she would play in her life. My mother and her two brothers would come to know this woman as their grandmother and would too be touched by Mary’s love and protection. There’s more to say here about how African American family structures are not phased by notions of blood but I’ll leave that for another post.
I was lucky to know both of my maternal grandparents throughout my childhood and early adult life before they passed away. Theodore and Sallie were both practical yet had expansive and rich dream lives. Their humor could cut you open. They both owned their own businesses at critical points in their lives and supported their families through their talents and in the face of violent racism(my grandfather was denied access to the very white construction union in Philly, so he started his own construction business.) They traveled the globe throughout their lives: There are pictures of my grandfather on camel-back in Palestine, and my grandmother draped in West African pagne during one of her trips to the Ivory Coast to visit my mother when I was born. And they were constantly in the service of others. During the height of the AIDs crisis, my grandmother visited local care facilities where patients with AIDs were being treated and would bring them hot meals. This was unheard of for a woman of the church, when many from her community treated the HIV/AIDs epidemic with great fear.
learning through my ancestors
This is all to say, my ancestors lived their lives out loud and saw their own dreams take shape in their own lives and the lives of others. I didn’t really appreciate this when they were alive as I was too young to really understand. But as I’ve entered the latter half of my 20s, I’m having a lot of big spiritual yearnings, transformations, and challenges that I’m feeling like I can’t process alone. I’ve been craving the guidance and wisdom of my grandparents, and I refuse to believe that I can’t be in relation with them at this point in my life just because they are no longer in the material realm with me.
Over the past three years, I’ve built a practice of checking in on and talking to my grandparents through tarot cards and prayer. It’s actually pretty simple. I light a candle on the altar to open the connection. Sometimes I ask them specific questions and then draw a single tarot card for each ancestor to see what answer they have for me. Sometimes I just say what I’m grateful for and allow them to bless that source of gratitude within me. Sometimes I just journal in front of them or play them music. Sometimes I leave them their favorite snacks as an offering. Sometimes I ask them how they’re feeling and what they want or need from me.
introducing ancestral tarot diaries
When I talk to Sallie, Theodore, and Mary through tarot, the messages and themes of my life come in clearer than ever. I feel the fog of my life begin to lift and I can begin to walk with purpose again. This practice has opened up so many exciting possibilities of ancestral connection for me, and as I have shared the practice with dear friends, I have seen their own spiritual lives enriched.
Right now, the major themes I and many in my life are traversing seem to orient around ideas of freedom, creativity, rest, and process over outcome. I’d love to dedicate this series to the messages I’m receiving from my ancestors, which I believe don’t just apply to me but rather these are messages we all need but don’t always see coming.
Come with me as we explore the richness of ancestral connection and learn how to move with grace and intention towards our wildest desires!
Stay tuned for the first, three-card tarot post coming next week!