Many of us do not know the details about our lineage yet without our ancestors, we would not be here today. Even though we may feel disconnected from our ancestors, they are part of us physically, down to our DNA, and spiritually, looking over us.

Connecting with them can help us understand and discover things about who we are and where we are going. So how can we connect and honor them?

Here are a few simple ways for us to connect and honor them.

We can find pictures of them and really look at them. By looking into their eyes, the windows to their souls, their facial expression, their body language, what they wore, and where the picture was taken, we can feel closer to them.

We can reflect on the time periods they lived and think about the life they had, the things they did, what they celebrated, what they ate, what they enjoyed and what they struggled with.

To honor them, we can hang their pictures or place their pictures among our precious things. We can also create a space, an altar, a place to express gratitude to call on them for guidance and through meditation, we may be able to hear or see signs of this guidance. Especially in certain times of day like 11:11, where the portals into the spiritual world opens allowing our ancestors to point to signs or make us think of something that points us in the right direction. If you pray, prayer directed to them with words of gratitude and forgiveness, can also help us remember what came before us and what lies ahead.

Without them, there would be no us and tapping into the unbreakable bonds we have with our ancestors can lead us down the path we are meant to be on.

The brain functions on different operating levels depending on what it’s doing. When the brain is excited by focused awareness of the present moment, it transitions into theta function, called a flow state. Merging action and awareness, we enter a flow state commonly experienced in artistic endeavors, sports, work, or even meditation and prayer.

The theta brain state is in harmonious frequency with the soul, charging the connection between the spirit and the oneness of the universe. When we align with the universal frequencies, we can begin manifesting desires and dreams.

Manifesting our dreams and desires is rooted in the power of words, as each utterance is a statement of belief, or prayer. In history, prayer has been dictated by religious edicts and books but it is important to realize the power of prayer and each word we think, especially what we say.

When we are not aligned with our true Self and operate at base levels, our words are less powerful. To make our words more powerful, it is important to speak in an active voice that is present, clear and invokes feelings of love.

For prayer, or statements of belief, it is unnecessary to address a G-d but we must invoke the power of feelings and have gratitude for Self and the world around you. This gives us access to the higher realms of imagination, where belief lives.

Belief and prayer and similar higher states of consciousness are made stronger when in conjunction with others. Throughout history, we see examples of this going very badly through stereotypes and fervor; examples like the Salem witch trials call to mind an escalation of belief to consensus reality. Yet on the flip side, we see miracles happen when minds collaborate and manifest shifting realities.

To pray effectively, we don’t need to be on our knees to pray, or beside our bed looking at a bright star. The power of prayer is accessed when we are focused and emoting intensely. Holding dear memories, singing or dancing to invoke flow state, creates a passionate bond between heart and head, allowing our thoughts and words to vibrate at an intense cellular level to manifest realities.

Throughout time, people have believed the sun to be a deity, capable of endowing life to the earth and all living things inhabiting earth. Found all over tribal Africa, but especially dominant in the Egyptian times, the early sun deities were female, but later transitioned to a falcon-headed Gd named Re, whose worship occurred in open air solar temples. In the Middle Kingdom, the deity/king Osiris replaced Re.

The Egyptian Osiris mythology closely resembles the Christian cycle of Jesus’s birth and life. Aligned with the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, on the 25th of December, Jesus, and Osiris’s birthdate. This belief coincides with the earth’s cycle around the sun, in which the 21st – 25th of December, the darkest days of the year, and the sun returning on the 25th and regenerating its force.

On the other side of the world, the yogis of India worship the sun through postures called a sun salutation, dedicated to the deity Surya. Each posture, or asana, is supported by a different mantra, designed to align the waking body with the sun. Opening with standing posture, Tadasana, the yogi can hold in mind, ‘ॐ मित्राय नमः Oṃ Mitrāya Namaḥ’, meaning, ‘affectionate to all’, to awaken their empathy through the union of posture and breath and perhaps sound.

In China and Japan, our lifeforce energy is called chi, or ki, and prana in Indian yoga subsects called kundalini. Our bodies’ life force is made from subatomic particles that come, as everything does, from the formation of the sun, and is constantly nourished by the effect of the sun’s power on earth. The subatomic particles form a field of energy that can be affected also by different forms of meditation, like sun-gazing.

Sun-gazing is an Ayurveda practice, in which during the first 45 minutes of the sunrise, the sun does not harm the eyes. Practitioners gaze into the sun with slitted eyes, or indirectly, receiving the benefit to their mind and body. The gaze is intended to be an active open-eyed meditation, in which the sun is activating neurochemicals to release, allowing more love and understanding into the body.

All words, as thoughts and as speech, have vibratory expressions. The mind, through conceiving of the sound, and then if manifesting through voice, carry a frequency and meaning that is perceivable to others, and to the larger Universe.

Words of love, carry the highest and most beneficial vibrations. The word ‘love’ is one of the most potent and magical mantras a person can hold, as its resonance is correspondent to the good of the Universe.

Often, we conceive of meditation as trying to quiet the mind to nothingness. However, there are many types of meditations that use tools to focus, but not silence the mind. One of these meditation tools is mantras.

Mantras are traditionally sounds or words strung together to hold in the single focus of the mind, clearing away other mindless chatter. Mantras can be in Vedic, like in the yogi’s practice, or have evolved into English phrases of beneficence.

One of the most powerful Vedic words is ‘OM’ which is representative of the vibration of the Universe, made into sound. Yogis will begin an asana led class with a long-held chanting of OM, which clears the space and manifests to goodness in the heart and mind, preparing for the calm stillness required to yoke the breath and body.

In the magical world, spells traditionally rhyme, as sounds that reflect each other correspond to each others’ frequencies, promoting the power of the statement. This is why songs and raps are so charged with the locked in emotions of the word weaver. Yogic mantras are strung together with a similar charge, allowing the speaker to tap into ancient syllables that promote life and longevity.

Typically, one repeats a mantra for as long as they can hold focus, and if they do lose focus, they pick up the mantra again and continue for the duration of the meditation. Whether in one’s mind or aloud, the mantra is the sole attention.

It is simple to find Vedic mantras in yogic texts and sites. It is also simple to conceive of one’s own English mantra depending on what you’re seeking. An expensive guru is not necessary to find one’s own mantra, you will know it upon saying it.

Following is one suggestion of a yogic meditation using a mantra.
1. Sit in meditative pose, cross-legged, and close your eyes.
2. Breathe deeply in and out a few times to steady the mind.
3. Breathe in deeply, on the release, sing/chant OM
4. Continue breathing and singing for as long as focus allows.
5. While chanting, imagine a white glowing light emanating from your heart center. -Practice beginning 1-5 minutes, gradually increasing your practice time per day.

The mind’s eye is a powerful tool for visualization. Whether you are already able to clearly see images and colors, or you are still working with visualizing, it is potent medicine to work with meditation techniques that employ visualization.

Some examples of closed eye visual meditations are nature-based guided visualizations, in which the participant places their spirit body in a setting like a mountain or the beach at sunset, and interacts with the environment, whether breathing in the calming atmosphere, or clearly and simply seeing the wonder of nature.

Another is a traditional kundalini chakra meditation:
Some sit in meditation pose, some lie on pillows and under blankets: Maybe low music or a candlelight, any way relaxing for you: prepare.

Begin to deepen your breath: inhales, exhales. Envision white light entering your mouth and blood stream as you inhale, and the dark waste from your system leaving as you exhale. Let your spine naturally straighten with each breath, or not, just be comfortable.

A note on color visioning – breathe deeply and think of a color. Let the blankness of your mind’s eye find the color, in your memory, or sunlight, or grass, or the ocean, or vegetables and fruits, or your mother’s dress: anything that lets you feel the color.

Beginning at the root chakra (at the tip, or base of your spinal cord where your tail might be connected to the matter beneath you), begin by visualizing red. The root is a dark blood red. Breathe in through your nostrils and let the red air travel up through the root of your spine. There may be a glowing orb here, it may circle one way or another like atoms charged, there may be nothing but your spine: see it, and send the red energy here.

Next move your attention to below your waist, the top of your pelvis, where there is an orange chakra glowing, radiating, creativity through your body. Breath in oranges and send it down to the belly. This is your sacral chakra, where all creativity and life begins.

Straighten, breathe deeply, stretch, allow newness into your body and let staleness out.

Then move up to around your belly button and let in yellow here: your solar plexus; your ‘gut.’ The goal is to vibrate bright sunshine from your mind’s eye to the yellow chakra point at your belly.

Slowly, deeply, inject pure yellow into this point that controls all the excretory systems in your body. Feel the energy lifting from your red root, orange pelvis, and yellow stomach.

Next is the heart chakra, radiating in the middle of your breast plate, bright green. Fill your heart with nature, trees, grass, the smells, the feelings. This chakra allows you to love naturally. Allow green to enter your mind’s eye whenever you are seeking love.

Moving up the spinal cord, or pausing with green forever, can be very therapeutic. The 5th chakra is the vocal cords, in the middle of your throat, and control to your communications. Breath blue – oceans, skies, blueberries, here to control and bring truth and power to your most powerful expression.
Moving up to your third eye, in the middle between the eyebrows, the crown chakra is purple. Here lies your intuition, higher thoughts, the junction of your mind and spirit. Breathe royal amethyst crown energy here.

Breathe deeply. Align. This is your moment to connect with yourself, your chi, the air, the planet, the universe.

When you are ready, and the chakras are glowing, breathe clear energy in, down through the front of your body, then into your root chakra, and up, seeing each color in a line, up through your charged spinal cord to the top of your head, to your seventh and crown chakra, where it streams out glowing white light to Everything. Breathe in and through the white light until you are ready to return to nothing.

To come out gently, wiggle each finger and toe, then shake gently, and stretch. Reward yourself with a drink – water, tea, juice. Be gentle with yourself, your body is your temple.