The Veil Was Never Closed, Part 2: The Thread That Runs Both Ways (Ancestral Healing)

Acadian women wove.

They made catalogne, rag rugs from worn-out clothes. A dress that couldn't be mended anymore became a strip of colour on the floor. Nothing wasted. Everything carried forward into something new.

I think about that a lot when I think about lineage.

We are woven, not stacked

We're taught to picture ancestry like a family tree. Neat branches. Names in boxes. One generation stacked on top of the other, the past safely behind us.

But it doesn't feel like that, does it?

It feels woven. The warp runs one way and the weft runs the other, over and under, again and again. My grandmother's hands are in my hands. My worry has her shape. Her laugh comes out of my mouth at the strangest times.

I feel myself wanting to save everything, ‘just in case’. Just like they did for generations. I also remember that I have more access to what I need than generations past. I use discernment. Carefully selecting what I keep for future use and what needs to be thrown away. When I wrap myself in Memere’s (grandmother's) quilts, I am reminded of all of the clothes reused for the warmth I am receiving. 

…The thread doesn't stop at the edge of a life. It crosses back over. It keeps going.

Ancestral healing goes both directions

This is the part that changed everything for me.

Ancestral healing isn't only about cleaning up what was handed down to you. It isn't just inherited trauma, inherited grief, inherited silence.

The thread runs both ways.

When you heal something in your body, in your nervous system, in your heart, it travels. Forward, to the ones who come after you. And backward too. I believe the ones behind us feel it. The ones who never got to rest, never got to grieve, never got to say the thing out loud.

You are not just receiving the pattern. You are reweaving it.

Recently I've seen this first hand in my father. 

As he summoned the courage to step into cycle breaking with me.

What gets carried

Some of what comes down the thread is heavy. Exile. Displacement. The Acadian story holds a lot of that. Families scattered. Homes burned. A people who had to start over, and over, and over.

But resilience comes down the thread too. Stubbornness. Humour. The knowing of which plant to pick and when. Songs. Prayers in a language half-forgotten. The ability to make something beautiful out of what's left.

You get both. You always get both.

A practice for the weaving

Take a piece of thread, yarn, or string. Hold one end and think of the ones who came before you. Hold the other and think of the ones who will come after. Your children, your students, the people your life touches.

You're the middle. You're the knot that holds.

Ask yourself:

• What am I carrying forward on purpose?

• What am I ready to set down, so it stops here?

You don't have to answer right away. Just let the thread sit with you.

Next, and last in the series: who comes with you when you move, and what the land already holds.

The veil is always thin. But Samhain is a night the whole land seems to agree on, and I’ve made something for it.

A Samhain Prayer Ritual: Honouring the Roots, Releasing the Leaves is a guided practice in two movements: turning toward the ones who came before, then giving back what’s ready to fall. It includes three prayers to choose from or weave together, a simple release ritual, and journal prompts for afterward.

You can bring it home as a single offering, or find it inside Mystic Marrow, alongside seasonal rituals, readings, and essays all year long.

trust yourself, Natalie