Moon Books
Published August 1, 2020
112 pages
![Pagan Portals - Ancestral Healing by [Trevor Greenfield]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51gmkGCq1zL.jpg)
This collection of essays by various authors focuses on various facets around healing with and through our ancestors. Irisanya Moon's piece, "Intergenerational Silence: Witnessing Yesterday to Heal Today," highlights the dangers around keeping silent after trauma and the ways in which we can heal through directly confronting the ancestors who kept us silent, as well as leaning on other ancestors to speak the trauma to.
Andrew Anderson in "Looking Them in the Eyes: Animals, Ancestry and Animism" links ancestral work to reconnecting in real ways to our animal brethren, specifically by becoming more aware of the role animals play in our modern food chain. Additionally, the fact that the animals we ingest ultimately become a part of our biological make-up, animals become, in their own way, ancestors to us humans.
Angela Paine addressed the importance of burying the dead to the grieving process in "Recovering the Bones, Healing the Past," while Mabh Savage explores "Dealing with Ancestral Shame." This one was my personal favorite, as I have been largely ambivalent to toward ancestral veneration in my own pagan practice primarily because I don't know that everyone in my line deserves such veneration. Savage makes the case for selective ancestor worship, which strikes me as a much less daunting approach.
While these essays have certainly given me a lot to consider on a personal level, I do find the collection to be a bit uneven. The great essays are really great, but there is an equal number here that struck me as rather meh, and some would have benefitted from a bit more editing. Still, the essays that struck me have stuck with me, so this is certainly a collection worth checking out if ancestral work is important to you.
Rating: 3/5
Published August 1, 2020
112 pages
This collection of essays by various authors focuses on various facets around healing with and through our ancestors. Irisanya Moon's piece, "Intergenerational Silence: Witnessing Yesterday to Heal Today," highlights the dangers around keeping silent after trauma and the ways in which we can heal through directly confronting the ancestors who kept us silent, as well as leaning on other ancestors to speak the trauma to.Andrew Anderson in "Looking Them in the Eyes: Animals, Ancestry and Animism" links ancestral work to reconnecting in real ways to our animal brethren, specifically by becoming more aware of the role animals play in our modern food chain. Additionally, the fact that the animals we ingest ultimately become a part of our biological make-up, animals become, in their own way, ancestors to us humans.
Angela Paine addressed the importance of burying the dead to the grieving process in "Recovering the Bones, Healing the Past," while Mabh Savage explores "Dealing with Ancestral Shame." This one was my personal favorite, as I have been largely ambivalent to toward ancestral veneration in my own pagan practice primarily because I don't know that everyone in my line deserves such veneration. Savage makes the case for selective ancestor worship, which strikes me as a much less daunting approach.
While these essays have certainly given me a lot to consider on a personal level, I do find the collection to be a bit uneven. The great essays are really great, but there is an equal number here that struck me as rather meh, and some would have benefitted from a bit more editing. Still, the essays that struck me have stuck with me, so this is certainly a collection worth checking out if ancestral work is important to you.
Rating: 3/5
