On Spooky Szn and Honoring Our Ancestors

Hi friend,

How are you? I’ve found myself holding a lot of space for duality these past few weeks. Holding space for the grief of witnessing the worst effects of climate change barrel down on the East coast. Holding space for collective anxiety and unease as we inch closer to the election. Holding space for the joy of every day pleasures like buying a little pumpkin for my desk and connecting with new friends. It’s an odd feeling. Most days I have a lot of whiplash from the immense gratitude and sadness I’m feeling at any given moment. At the same time, I think that’s one of the most interesting parts of being alive. The fact that multiple things can coexist at the same time gives us so many opportunities to be deeply anchored in the present.

With all that being said, I was most excited to write about my relationship with fall and spooky season this month. As much as I love Spring, Fall is definitely becoming one of my favorite seasons. After moving through the overstimulating nature of summer, I love being able to have full permission to be a homebody, wear my coziest loungewear, and indulge in all of the unique colors, flavors, and textures that fall brings.

Over the weekend, I got to attend a community meeting where we focused on Tarot and our connection to spooky szn and ancestral work. It was a really beautiful opportunity to reflect on what this time of year means to me beyond dressing up for Halloween. If you’re unfamiliar, in many spiritual communities, it is believed that this time of year is when the veil separating the physical world and spiritual world becomes thinner and thinner, making it an opportune time to connect with our ancestors. You can see this belief reflected in celebrations like Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and in the Celtic celebration that Halloween is derived from Samhain.

I’ve always loved dressing up for Halloween and trick or treating which thankfully my parents didn’t have much resistance towards as West African immigrants. However, my parents did have a lot of resistance towards traditional African religions which made me feel a lot of shame and fear around wanting to understand my relationship to spirituality beyond the Catholicism I was raised in. As I moved away from Christianity and began exploring other forms of spirituality, ancestral work and altar work were areas I really struggled to embrace. Thankfully, I was able to attend a workshop with a teacher that I deeply trust who shifted my perspective on ancestral work in a way that changed my life. During this workshop (which probably happened around this time of year tbh), my teacher explained that ancestral work is something that is actually very normalized in our society in ways that we don’t consider. As people of color, we are conditioned to venerate the ancestors of white people through holidays like Columbus Day and Presidents’ Day while somehow at the same time being villainized for connecting with our own ancestors. When I realized that the shame and fear I had around ancestral work was yet another manifestation of the impact of colonialism and imperialism on my relationship to my lineage, I felt a lot of permission to release those blocks and define how I wanted to connect with my ancestors on my own terms.

For context, my maternal grandmother passed when I was 11 years old after living with us for about a year when my youngest sibling was born. My paternal grandparents, who lived in West Africa my whole life, passed in my early 20s. Grieving losing them was strange because I didn’t really have a deep relationship with them due to the physical distance and language barrier. However, ancestral work has given me the opportunity to build a really beautiful relationship with them even though they’re no longer here. In many ways, ancestral work shifted my life for the better because it made me feel less alone and more connected to my lineage. It made me feel cared for and seen and it gave me reassurance that the path I’m on is not by accident.

As we continue to move through this transformational period on Earth, I think it’s important to remember that so many of us are here at this exact point in time for a reason. We are not alone by any means. We are the continuation of beautiful lineages that are just waiting on us to answer the call so they can provide us with all of the tools necessary to accomplish what they were unable to in their lifetime. I wholeheartedly believe that tapping into these spiritual tools is just as important as being active in our physical actions to support collective liberation. Thankfully fall is the perfect time to do so.

If you’re interested in delving deeper into relating to your ancestors and refocusing your intentions for the future, join me for a group gathering on October 27th. You can register here and half of all proceeds from the event will be donated to mutual aid relief efforts for survivors of Hurricane Helene and Milton.

Alsoo if you didn’t know, I have a YouTube channel and I’ll be uploading a new video this week. Subscribe so you don’t miss it: https://www.youtube.com/@Paula__Ami

Also alsoo, I’m currently offering 1:1 sessions for free while I focus on developing other projects for the rest of the year so visit this link to book if you’re interested.

That’s it y’all! Wishing you a fun and nourishing Spooky Szn ❤️ 

With gratitude,
Paula