Last month, during the New Moon Eclipse, I experienced a profound reconnection, a remembering… with my ancestors.
Eclipses have always felt like sacrosanct times for me. Moments when the sky itself invites stillness, when the veil between self and spirit thins, and the collective pulse of the unseen world leans near. They can be portals for sitting in silence, for shamanic journeying, and for deep listening, for tracing the threads of soul and story that run through time and the timeless.
During this past Eclipse, I found myself drawn into that quiet current once again.
I lay upon my bed, the light dim and soft, breathing into the mystery of the moment. I called upon my guardians, my guides, and my *benevolent ancestors* to hold the sacred space as I spiraled inward, to journey through the landscapes of memory and lineage that live within me.
In the stillness, thoughts and emotions drifted like clouds. I simply listened, feeling, sensing, tracking…
until what rose within me was a deep and undeniable presence: my ancestors, back and back and back in time.
Those of my father’s line.
Those of my mother’s.
This is a picture of my Father’s grandparents, and him and his Mom. When he was a child in the 1950’s.
Images began to weave within me, the lands of my Grandparents and Great-grandparents, the high deserts of northeastern Nevada, wild and vast beneath an endless sky. I could almost taste the dust, smell the scent of rain on sagebrush, and feel the ache of the desert wind that shaped their lives.
I wondered about “these people,” my recent kin and the people before them, the ones whose names I do not know. What kind of souls would have left their homelands in Europe, and journeyed west, drawn by hope and grit, to settle such a raw and beautiful frontier? Ranchers, dreamers, survivors, carving out a life from the desert’s edge.
As I delved into their stories, I sensed the many bloodlines that converge within me: on my father’s side, a mingling of European roots, including Austrian, Irish, Portuguese, and Eastern European, the ones that gifted us our last name, which means “son of” in Russian. Each ancestral thread carries its own longing and fortitude, its own endurance to create a better life.
And on my mother’s side: the formidable mystery that my Grandmother sealed when she left my Mom an infant at an orphanage in Reno. What heartache must she have carried to have made such a painful decision, what acts of self-survival must have forced her hand? Was she aware of the gap in the lineage weave she created with her choice. I hold this gap with a light reverence, trusting in my ability to track deeply what needs to be integrated despite any concrete relationship with the “peoples” on my Mothers side of the family.
Then there were the patterns and upbringing of my Mothers adopted family, and the gifts and challenges present there. Their family stories, subtle threads that shape me but also remain a mystery.
As I was tracing and feeling into these family story lines, as often happens when the heart opens, the emotions started to flow with a delicate understanding of both the gifts and the burdens passed down through the generations, the blessings and the reckonings that live in my blood.
Through this journey with my ancestors, a deep healing unfolded. It arrived gently, like water finding its way through stone, tears, breath, release, a communion with the souls whose stories were woven in fortitude to become my own.
For better or worse, I carry them. Their dreams, their choices, their grief and grace. Through remembering them and imagining their lives, their blessings and their hardships, I felt a new connection awaken in me: a call to share my own gifts, hopes, and artistry as a way of honoring theirs.
I felt a renewed understanding that my purpose was as simple as being a conscious continuum in the spiral of evolution.
A Seed was planted:
This experience inspired me to explore further and deepen my idea for offering a unique kind of Soul Portrait Session, that would include Ancestral Healing Work, Lineage attunement Processes, and the creation of a personalized “Ancestral Collage”, and this inspired my new offering, especially for this month, of “Lineage Attunement: Soul Portrait Sessions”
This offering is a heartfelt invitation to journey together through guided meditation into the landscape of ancestral remembrance and healing.
These sessions invite you to carve out sacred space, to connect with and honor your ancestors, to listen for the messages, symbols, and guidance they hold for you.
Yet this work extends beyond our bloodlines. It reaches into the luminous weave of our “soul blueprint lineages,” those unseen threads of spirit, purpose, and memory that shape who we are becoming.
Lineage Attunement - What is it?
At times, we are called to reconcile or reorient our relationship with these lineages, to come back into resonance with the deeper truth of our being. This process is what I call Lineage Attunement.
The accompanying “Ancestral Soul Collage” process integrates what is revealed in the session, transforming insight, emotion, and imagery into sacred art that embodies your lineage’s medicine and beauty.
Ancestral work is deep and layered. It is a beginning, a threshold, and an invitation to make contact with those who came before, especially at this point in the seasonal flow of the Celtic Wheel, this time of Samhain when the veil thins and the otherworlds draw close.
Across many cultures, this is the time of remembrance, a sacred turning when we honor the ones who have gone beyond, yet whose blood and stories still move through our veins. Enlivening our hearts.
It is a season of acknowledgment, of listening, of reestablishing the red thread of connection between the living and the remembered.
These Lineage Attunement Soul Portrait Sessions are crafted with that same intention. They are light and heartfelt, yet deeply focused, offering a safe and sacred container to connect with your lineage at whatever point of the journey you find yourself on.
Within our time together, I share tools and gentle practices to support your unfolding connection.
You’ll also find suggestions at the end of this post, offering ways to prepare yourself, to begin attuning before we meet.
During the session, you will be guided via meditation to touch the memory and energy of your ancestors, to acknowledge them, to witness patterns that may arise, and to do any necessary clearing or reaffirming.
Together, we’ll identify the “benevolent ancestors”, who walk beside you, those who have chosen to guide, protect, and uplift your becoming.
Through this attunement, you begin to recognize how your lineage, in all its complexity, is in service to your soul’s unfolding beauty.
Layer upon Layer …unfolding like an Onion…
There are many layers available when working with our bloodline ancestors, each one a doorway into a deeper understanding of our spiritual purpose.
At times, we may feel divided within ourselves, caught between our “inherited identity” and the “spiritual identity” we are consciously cultivating. Many of us have reached toward our spiritual lineage as an antidote to the pain or limitation we’ve experienced in our family systems.
When we discover a new path, a way of belonging that feels truer, there can be a natural impulse to distance ourselves from the stories we were born into. This can be a meaningful stage of healing, a necessary departure, yet over time, we are invited to circle back, to root once more into the soil of our ancestry, not to be bound by it, but to find compassion and continuity within it.
To blossom into new expressions of lineage and purpose, we must reconcile what we’ve inherited with what we are becoming.
This is the essence of my “Ancestry Work”. To exhume the deepest knowing within our bloodline, to integrate that wisdom with the spiritual lineage we are now consciously choosing to embody.
This process of integration, this reweaving of our assemblage point in relationship to our ancestry, is why I call these sessions “attunements.” Because we are attuning the “Gap” from what once was to what will be.
TOGETHER WE BUILD A BRIDGE of Healing…
Often, we do not know what occurred in our lineage storylines. Many people only have a slight knowledge of their grandparents or great-grandparents, and yet their stories still ripple through our lives today.
Patterns, imbalances, or unresolved stories can surface as repeated behaviors, emotional challenges, or even physical tendencies.
By consciously building bridges back to our ancestors, we begin to carry forward the natural healing work that is woven into generational evolution.
In this way, creation itself becomes a teacher, a continuous unfolding of growth, blessing, and learning. Each generation has the potential to bring the gifts and the challenges of the past into a new octave of awareness and consciousness.
When trauma or imbalance is unhealed, it can anchor as a disturbance within the psyche, and at times even manifest as conditions in our bodies. Yet, as we turn our attention back to our lineage, we invite a conscious shift, a return to resonance, healing, and sacred alignment.
The Invitation:
The invitation of this work is to track back deeply through your lineage to “scry” the past, to bear witness, to bring forward a vibration that is more whole, more resonant, more sacredly aligned.
This journey is not about blame, or reactivating trauma, nor about erasing the past, but about receiving the gifts of insight, clarity, and blessing that allow the next generations to walk more freely, in clear knowing.
It is in this sacred dialogue with our ancestors that we discover the threads of wisdom that support our soul’s unfolding, and the roots from which we can rise in balance and clarified purpose.
Why I offer these sessions
I am excited to support others in doing this work, and I believe that engaging on the level of the creative and imaginal can bring about very powerful transformations.
I’m offering these sessions not as an expert, but as a fellow traveler who has felt the profound power of this work firsthand.
I hold a sacred, nourishing space, a container where you can feel fully seen, supported, and held.
Here, you are invited to journey inward, to encounter your lineage with openness and curiosity, and to express what emerges outward through the creation of your “Ancestral Soul Collage”.
The imagery that arises becomes a potent reflection of your ancestors, your spiritual lineage blueprint, and the healing that flows through this continuum.
**Note: The Ancestral Collage is something I can make for you as a Soul Portrait or something I can guide you in creating yourself.
Your “Ancestral Collage” will be a tangible manifestation
of the guidance, love, and wisdom
that your lineage offers you now.
This is my intention, and I am committed to walking alongside you in this work, to honor the sacredness of your ancestors, and to help you attune to the currents of healing, so that their gifts can ripple fully into your life.
I warmly invite you to join me in this work during this powerful month of October, through mid-November, as we move deeper within the energies and mysteries of Samhain.
I offer only one session per week, so if your heart feels drawn,
I encourage you to reserve your space soon.
If even a gentle stirring calls you forward, know that this is an invitation from my heart to yours…
to rest in the sacredness of your connection with your ancestors, to attune, and to receive the medicine gift of a soul portrait as a reflection of your journey and lineage.
Thank you. ~ Love Shelley
Deepening Your Ancestral Connection -
If you feel called to explore this work on your own during this sacred season, here are some ways to deepen your relationship with your ancestral lineage and cultural heritage:
1. Meditation and Inner Journeying
Set aside quiet, sacred time to sit with your breath and inner landscape.
Use guided meditations focused on ancestral connection and remembrance.
Hold a ceremony of recapitulation, honoring the ancestors you know, and those you do not.
2. Explore Your Family History
Research the origins and migration stories of your family.
Reflect on the challenges, strengths, and resilience of your ancestors.
Consider the diversity of cultures and bloodlines woven into your lineage.
Spend time with family photographs, letters, or heirlooms, letting stories and memories arise.
3. Emotional and Energetic Work
Allow yourself to feel and process emotions that arise from ancestral connection.
Practice conscious release to move generational trauma or unhealed patterns.
Notice the gifts and challenges that your lineage carries, and hold them with compassion.
4. Spiritual Attunement and Practice
Call upon benevolent ancestors to support your spiritual path.
Create an ancestral altar with meaningful objects, photos, candles, incense, flowers, or offerings.
Visit gravesites of loved ones, meditate, and remain open to insights or messages.
5. Creative Expression
Create a visual expression of your lineage — an ancestral collage, mixed media art, or symbolic family tree.
Explore storytelling through writing, video, or digital art to honor your ancestors’ journey.
Let creativity become a vessel for reflection, healing, and remembrance.
The key is approaching this work with openness, reverence, and compassion.
Through listening, honoring, and witnessing, you can begin to uncover the wisdom of your lineage, integrate it into your life, and carry its gifts forward.
This is a sacred practice, one that reconnects us to the living pulse of those who came before, and helps us stand fully in the blessing of the life they forged, so that we may continue to walk with courage, clarity, and grace.