What are the ancestral stories of your family? Are you proud of your people? What are the limiting beliefs or opinions that you hold about them?

Our DNA, bones, and blood are the sum total of thousands — possibly millions — of years of ancestors before us. Ancient shamans believe that all we need to do to access the vast treasure trove of memories and knowledge within us, is to say the names of our ancestors.

This week introduces South African cosmology and the concept of ubuntu (humanity) popularized by Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both of whom are from the Xhosa culture in South Africa — the same tribe/culture that adopted and trained John Lockley to become a sangoma (traditional South African shaman).

You’ll be encouraged to see your ancestors as streams of consciousness, like a river or tree sap extending deep into the ground.

In this session, you’ll:

• Feel your innate rhythm during opening prayers in which John will chant and drum — helping you to connect to your inner channel of vibration
• Experience the Heart-Beat meditation to connect to your inner channel and activate your life force
• Learn to say your name and connect to the tree of life
• Invoke your ancestors with dignity
• Explore the importance of tree medicine and grounding into the Earth

Ubuntu is the circle of life. Only after first connecting with yourself and your soul can you then look to your ancestors and offer a prayer to them. Finally, you bow humbly to the Divine.

This week, you’ll practice ubuntu and go into a deeper discussion of both blood and adopted ancestors, spirit guides, and helpers.

You’ll continue to pray and say your name, and invoke bloodline and spiritual lineages, as you’re guided to create sacred space in the form of an ancestral shrine — symbolizing that we are all made of the Earth and will one day return.

In this session, you’ll:

• Learn how to create an ancestral shrine or earth altar and connect more meaningfully with the land from which we come
• Explore how to pray and say your name using your authentic voice
• Experience a guided meditation with live African drumming and chanting to connect with your ancestors

Our dreams are a reflection of our lives and our lives reflect our dreams. How can you realize your destiny and reforge the road on which you walk upon?

This week, you’ll explore traditional South African teachings of uvula ndlela, or opening the road, to invoke your ancestors in prayer and listen to the response from the other world — often appearing in the form of dreams.

You’ll learn how to communicate in the language of the spirit world, which speaks in riddles and metaphors.

As you connect more deeply with your ancestors, your dreams will change…

… and as you become more mindful of your dreams, you’ll learn to identify synchronicities and develop the capacity for experiencing more soulfulness.

In this session, you’ll:

• Learn the 3 levels of dreaming and how to identify ancestral or teaching dreams that help navigate your soul’s path
• Discover ways to manifest your dreams into reality
• Identify your “dreamprint” and explore your dream language
• Examine how many of your senses are engaged while dreaming
• Experience a guided meditation to connect more deeply with your dreams
• Invoke your ancestors and learn to become a better listener — both in your dream world and in your waking life

In Buddhism, the three jewels of Buddha, Dharma & Sangha serve as vehicles to help people shine and connect to their purpose in life.

Buddha represents the enlightened or shining one, Dharma speaks about the teachings to connect to our inner shining, and Sangha represents the community that supports us along our journey.

These jewels complement an earth-based ancestral practice.

This week, you’ll explore how traditional South African shamanism, khanya (shining), and khanya umsebenze (shining work) are pivotal to any ancestral practice, in relation to contemporary Buddhist and yogic practice.

In this session, you’ll:

• Explore the importance of elders and the notion of sacred respect and humility to strengthen the community jewel
• Understand the importance of spiritual lineage — and discover how a variety of ancient spiritual principles have much in common
• Balance blood lineage with spiritual lineage
• Learn a meditation to foster humility and openness
• Connect to your inner shining or soul

In all traditional ancestral practices, movement and dance are used to connect to the physical and spiritual. As you move with rhythm and intention, your spine generates heat, which energizes the spirit.

Anthropologists maintain that all human life came from Africa, specifically Southern Africa. After the last ice age, our ancestors lived in coastal regions and danced in caves.

This week, you’ll discover South African “trance dances” they performed that helped them connect to their higher consciousness and dreamtime — stimulating the growth of their spiritual intelligence.

These dances survived the test of time and form the bedrock of traditional spiritual practices in Southern Africa.

In this session, you’ll:

• Learn the South African “trance dance” or shaking medicine
• Explore simple body percussion exercises to experience the importance of rhythm to connect to your higher self and ancestors
• Connect to your own lightning rod through correct alignment of your spine, head, and feet
• Discover the leopard breath — a breathing exercise to energize the body and awaken the senses
• Become more connected to your nervous system, which serves as the gateway to the dreamworld and spiritual realm
• Fall in love with your own pulse and feel more deeply connected to the world’s heartbeat

We live in a modern world addicted to constant updates, adrenaline, and movement. Many of us struggle to feel full or satisfied — what Buddhists call the plight of the hungry ghost.

People are frenetically trying to fill the void of spirit/soul that their ancestors moved away from since the Industrial Revolution.

For this reason, we must examine how we live today and what we might have inherited from our ancestors which no longer serves our greater life purpose.

This week, you’ll learn how to befriend your shadows and look with understanding at the parts of yourself that make you feel ashamed, guilty, or lacking in self worth.

In this session, you’ll:

• Befriend your shadow through a guided meditation to feel inside yourself and explore ways in which this might be an ancestral shadow
• Notice ancestral patterns that have been passed down the generations
• Discover that which you have inherited from your ancestors and that which you can surrender
• Realize the importance of looking at ancestral stories in a balanced, nonjudgmental way to prevent the negativity from the past to move into the future
• Learn to slow down and notice what is within and around you
• Uncover superstitions and the limitations of cultural programming — and begin to see soulful elements with more clarity

As custodians of Earth, we are each responsible for the state and wellbeing of our planet. As we reconnect to one another in this world and make peace with our ancestors from the past, we complete ubuntu and connect more deeply with nature and our destiny in this life.

According to the Buddha, the point of life is to find our purpose. Oftentimes, this requires challenging, uncomfortable work as part of our spiritual initiation.

Once our human relationships are met and given voice, the next step is to face outward and connect with the natural world.

This week you’ll contemplate how nature calls you.

In this session, you’ll:

• Explore what it means to follow or connect to your destiny
• Dive into spiritual initiation and the importance of tracking your dreams to activate alchemy and your ability to shine
• Decode the role of animals in our human evolution and how they can teach us — when we allow ourselves to listen and learn
• Reimagine the power of being still — and moving from a place of doing to listening to the world around you
• Come to understand that manifestation is following spiritual intelligence that comes through dreams and intuition