Sh8peshift Your Life

Ancestor Veneration 101: Reclaiming Roots, Honoring Legacy

• Zakiya Harris aka Sh8peshifter • Season 1 • Episode 26

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In this episode of the Sh8peshift Your Life podcast, we’re tapping into the power of those who came before us. Ancestor Veneration 101 is your guide to reclaiming roots, honoring legacy, and remembering that you are the answered prayer of generations. From setting up a simple altar to inviting daily guidance, this convo is about more than ritual — it’s about living in alignment with purpose, creativity, and abundance. Because sis, your ancestors stay walking with you, cheering you on, and reminding you of the crown you already carry. 

If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your people! Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me and let me know your biggest takeaway.

Sh8peShift YourLife (00:

00.078) you 18.159) Shape should feel 50.146) Welcome back, Shapeshifters. I've got another exciting episode for you. This is all about Ancestor Veneration 101, reclaiming our roots, honoring our legacy. If you know me, you know that fall is my favorite time of year. And we kicked off the last episode really digging into the power of the harvest season. And now I'm back with another episode to go a little bit deeper into Ancestor Veneration. So let's get into it. So first, let's get into what exactly is ancestor veneration? What are some of the myths and misconceptions? So first, I want you to think about what are some of the ideas, images, messages that come up for you when you think about death? When you think about how you've seen death in media, what comes up for you? What were some of the lessons that your family taught you about death? Especially because we're coming up on the season of Halloween. Many of us think of the walking dead, people coming back from the dead, ghosts, goblins, zombies, bloody horror stories, the dead are coming to attack you. So when we think about death through the construction of Western culture, we were taught that death is something negative. That death is associated with the color black, that the dead are dangerous, evil even, and commuting with the dead can even cause you harm. Now, I want to be very clear from us who come from the lineage of African Americans, particularly our cousins in Louisiana and down south. When we think about the second line, when we think about other ancestral veneration practices, even in the hood, pouring out a little liquor and the creating ancestor shrines where people have fallen or commemorating them. that there are still these remnants of ancient indigenous practices that are still embedded in our DNA. So I don't want to paint the picture that all Western construction of death is bad, but again, that is us lifting up our African-American roots. I know many other indigenous cultures. Many of you that are listening can go back into your own cultural canon and pull other death rituals out. But in general, we are taught

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07.17) that death is something scary, negative. And life ends in death, that that's it. And so as always on ShapeShift Your Life, we're all about decolonizing our minds. We're all about going back Sankofa and pulling through the threads of our ancestors. And I want to take it all the way back to even pre-Kemit. Oftentimes we think about ancient Egypt. We also call it ancient Kemet. But we forget that there was societies that existed thousands and thousands of years before that, because not only to construct a pyramid, but to also geographically place it where it reaches its peak when the sun is in the summer solstice and the equinox, all of that sacred geometry that was required for the building of pyramids, that knowledge had been attained for thousands of years before. So that was really the time where folks were flexing what they knew, right? That was when they're dusting their shoulders off, like, you're put some respect in our name. We created the original sciences and they wanted to show the world to this day what they were made of, but we know that that knowledge existed prior. But even if we take that time period as a snapshot, what you will see in this mummification of the human body. The human body was maintained impeccably. I had the opportunity to go and see King Tut's tomb when it was on tour. And that's mad problematic because we literally know that white folks literally went into the tombs of our ancestors, excavated all this shit, and put it on tour and then charged us money to go pay and see it. So obviously there's problems, but at the end of the day, we also get to see remnants of what they believed about death. this impeccable preservation of the items that they carried with them, like their jewelry, sometimes the workers and staff, all of those folks came into the tomb with them and were actually preserved because they believed that they would still use these items in the afterlife. So regardless of what you believe about life and death, what we can take from that is the fact that the grandest civilization in the history of humanity believed that

Sh8peShift YourLife (05:

22.498) the earthly realm was not the end, that there was more. After you shed your physical body, there's an opportunity to join a metaphysical realm. Some of them even brought their pets and they mummified their pets. And so we see in all ancient cultures this idea that the physical experience on planet Earth was not the end. Even though that spirit sheds the physical body, that spirit is a lie. So the invitation is to reclaim our own lineage, our own power as it relates to ancestral memory. And this becomes a hot topic because there are folks out there that believe that they were a bird in a past life and they were a cat and no disrespect, but as it relates to indigenous cosmologies and ancestor veneration, that is not the case. We believe that you are birthed through the blood and bone of those who came before you. So even when we have our own traumas and we are not here by coincidence, we are not a mistake that the things that you like to do, if you have a gift of song, a gift of dance, a gift of cooking, a gift of photography, a gift of spirit, believe it or not, somebody in your family did as well. I come from a family of priests and reverends and deaconesses. So it's no coincidence that I'm here doing what I'm doing. Now, let me tell you, they definitely were not practicing African spirituality and they probably would call me crazy if they were here today. But the energy of that spirit is still in the blood and bone of who I am today. The ancestral memory is a power. It is actually an inheritance that we can carry forth for those who were adopted, who have had very traumatic childhoods, traumatic experiences with their parents and their families. And they're like, Zakiya, you want me to venerate who? You don't know my mom and my daddy. You don't understand my grandparents. And so that is where, again, we have to go beyond just the parents and the grandparents that we know. And we can reach into

Sh8peShift YourLife (07:

39.246) those that came before them. And so why is this so important right now? When we think about this 2025 timeline, if you listen to the last episode, you know that this is a year of nine, that this is a year of change, that this is a year of death and rebirth, that this is a year of transformation, that we are watching everything shake up like never before. And what I know that I know that I know that I know is that what we're experiencing on this planet right now, It is not a physical war. It's a spiritual war. It is a revolution, but it is a revolution of spirit. And that currency of spirituality, your spiritual practices, honoring the cycles of the season, honoring the forces of nature, and honoring your ancestors are a superpower, are a toolkit that was willed to you when you were born, that allows you to remember that you are not walking this path. And so in the midst of all of these shifts on the universe, we've got to go to what is eternal. We have to go to what they could not build, so they definitely cannot destroy it. We have to go to that which is solid. And what is solid and known is that you have a spiritual team of forces that surround you, that are here to guide you, that can alchemize your pain into pleasure. Turn an empty bank account into a bank account of abundance. Shift the power of sickness into the optimal health. And no, I'm not saying that ancestors are gods. I'm not saying that. I still believe in one God. Your ancestors still believed in one higher power, but they also know that there are other forces and those forces are intermediaries that we don't go to God with our small problems, that we can go to these intermediaries. These intermediaries in the Abrahamic tradition are called angels. So it's like people can accept angel and be cool with it, but as soon as you say ancestors, they feel some type of way. It's so interesting as you know that I'm here in Mexico City and I watched some folks of African descent feel so uncomfortable around ancestor veneration.

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57.753) But when Dia de los Muertos pops up, they're the first one in the skull. They impaint it. hold face. They can go to somebody else's cemetery of loved ones that aren't even related to them, but don't even go to their own. If you're looking at your life right now and you're wondering why maybe things aren't working for you, one of the first places that you need to look at, what's my relationship with my ancestors? The first thing that we all can do is pull out ancestry. calm, call big mama, grandma, call your daddy, your cousin, your auntie, anybody that you know in your family and start to trace your family lineage. To go back to your mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother, to go back to your father's father's father's father's father's father's father. Yes, we honor cousins. Yes, we honor aunties. I know that I've had father figures in my life that were not even blood related to me, but have stood in the gap. in places where my father was unable to, Iba A. Willie Vance, I'm gonna call his name right now. So it doesn't mean that these people are not important, but we really wanna go back into literally your ancestors, those that you were related to, and see how far back you can go. This is a powerful exercise because it gives us the opportunity to maybe connect with family members that we haven't spoken to in a while. to harvest all the gifts, the family photos, the stories, recipes of those that came before us. My grandmother was a vocalist and I'm a vocalist. I didn't know that when I was a child. That was something that I learned through my own harvesting these ancestral stories to allow me to know that what is in me is not just in me by coincidence. So gathering those names, stories as far as you can, I've gone all the way back. to literally my family members that were enslaved. I literally have documentation of the plantation where some of my ancestors were kept. I also have free blacks that are in my family. And so for many of us who are foundational black Americans, we can trace that lineage up to so far. And then the record keeping starts getting shipped to you. So do the best that you can. I've actually gotten an ancestral reading.

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11.938) which allowed me to also know that before my ancestors came to America, they actually went through Haiti. And I ended up marrying a Haitian man. Like my ancestors already knew that. And I didn't find that information out until I was well into my 30s. But then I was able to start connecting the dots on how so many aspects of my life, my spiritual practice, my relationship to music and art, what calls me to Haitian dance, because my body already knew those rhythms. I walked into dance class. and I knew how to do every dance. It was already built into my DNA, built into my ancestral memory, only later to get a reading and to find out, yep, that's where your people came from. Your bloodline is powerful. Your bloodline is purposeful. Your bloodline is here to support you. And so being able to call out their names, if you do nothing else, we don't wait until we're broke. We don't wait until we break up with somebody. We don't wait until we get sick to say, now I need to go to my ancestors. Well, honey, you haven't been honoring them. Why should they support you? Right. We want to be in a place of momentum. We want to be in a place where we already have done so much veneration. The altar is tight. The food is laid. The names are being called on a regular basis. We're going to them just to say thank you before we ask for anything. because we built up that relationship with them that then when that hardship, that challenge comes, that relationship is already intact. That momentum has already been set in motion and then we can take it even further. So the invitation, as I said in the last episode, is to start your ancestor veneration practice because harvest season, the season of fall, the veil is thin. That means the ability for you to reach out to them, for them to hear you. The distance is shorter so that your prayers will land on their ears. When we set up altars, what you're doing is you're creating a portal. It's like if somebody was trying to get your attention. It's one thing if somebody calls me Zekia.

Sh8peShift YourLife (14:

15.384) But it's another thing if they call me Oya Dolu, that's my Ipane. And it's another thing if they call me Shape Shifter. So somebody has created a table and they're playing my music, literally probably music that I recorded. And they're saying all of my different names and they've prepared a table with all my favorite foods. And I'm in the metaphysical realm. That's going to get my attention. You can think of it as a speaker, that the distance between you contacting them is short. And you analyze that in contrast to someone who is not honoring their ancestors, does not know their names, does not know their foods, does not have a place for them. Where are they going to show up? And a lot of people have these dusty spaces. Yes, I'm going to call it out. But they're like, oh, that's my ancestors over there. And it's dusty. You haven't cleaned it. The water has not been changed. The plant that you put up there is dying. And it's like, would you want to show up to something dusty? No. The ancestors want to come to something that is immaculate, that is intentional, and that has been prepared. I want to specify that an ancestor altar is different than a shrine. A shrine is consecrated by an initiated priest that you receive through a spiritual ritual process that is normally figured out through a process of divination. That is different than an altar. So I actually have, through Ifa, an ancestral shrine. that is a consecrated shrine and that I honor in the ways of Bifa. But I also have an ancestral altar. And that altar has the pictures of my ancestors. It has the names of my ancestors. I have my father go to the grave space in Richmond, Virginia and gather dirt from the graves of my grandmothers. I have also gone myself. We have an entire cemetery. of from our church, Mount Zion Baptist Church, Hanover County, Virginia, where my ancestors are buried on both sides. Literally my mother's father and mother's side all went to the same church and all of our lineage is buried in the cemetery. So I went to that cemetery. I poured cold water at that cemetery. I prayed at the graves of my ancestors. I brought flowers to the graves of my ancestors and I also collected that dirt and I brought that dirt back to altar.

Sh8peShift YourLife (16:

33.58) I also have on my ancestral altar obituary programs, my great great grandmother, actually they made a little laminated bookmark of her obituary. So I have that on my altar. I have a handkerchief from my grandmother. Things that you know that were either objects that they had. or things that you know that they like. Some of us didn't have that relationship. We just have to pull from the culture or the geography from which our forefathers were located. If you know your people were from New Orleans or from the Midwest and their certain foods or implements, types of music or ways they like to dress or a certain type of comb that they use, even if it's not their specific item, to gather those items. Again, you're setting that table. You want to set an intentional and impeccable table. Also the color white is associated with ancestors, a vessel of water, because we know that water is a channel. is a conduit of spirit. So I have a small vessel of water. Even though I'm initiated to Ifa, my ancestral altar, because my altar is a composite of my Southern ancestors, is giving Southern. When I cook for them, it's giving Southern soul foods. I'm not using the almond milk when I'm making cornbread for my ancestors. We're giving whole milk. It's giving whole butter. It's giving buttermilk. We might need to pull out some meat, even though I don't normally eat meat, but I'm gonna eat meat for my ancestors. There's certain things I'm going to pull out for them because I want that speaker to be what they're into. I'm putting on gospel music. I'm not imposing. The African-ness that I've Sankofa'd and returned to, it's great, but I keep that separate. And when I go to my Ifa shrine, I'm pulling out obi, I'm pulling out palm, I'm pulling out strong drink, I'm saying Yoruba prayers, I'm honoring them in a very specific way. Typically, you can place an ancestral altar on the floor, you can place it on a shelf, but you do want to create however small, however modest a space dedicated to them.

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42.595) Big, big taboo, and I see people do this all the time, is they put their own picture on your ancestor altar. Please do not do that. Please do not put any pictures of the living. Even if it's a picture of you and your grandparents and you love that photo, you are not deceased. You are still here in the realm of the living. And so we want to keep the realm of the living separate from the realm of the dead. Every year, you should be doing a celebration. for your ancestors. Some years I've done that celebration on my grandmother's birthday because my grandmother is a very powerful ancestor in my life. This year I'm gonna be doing a celebration for my ancestors around the fall. So I'm just going to pick a day. It's probably gonna be on Sunday because I know my people went to church on Sunday and they were avid churchgoers. I'm going to bring out a white plate, particularly if you have a chip plate. As I'm cooking, I'm in the vibe. I'm praying into the food. I'm praying when I'm shopping for the food. I'm praying when I'm cutting up the food. So the ritual begins the moment that you begin the idea of the celebration. It's not just when all the altar is set up and everything is pretty. Take the whole opportunity as part of your ritual. I also like to light white candles. I'll do single use candles or a seven day candle. If you are burning a seven day candle using the hoodoo tradition, you can carve a message. into that candle of what you want to receive and intention. You can light that candle for seven days. You can make a commitment. Since it's a seven day candle, I'm a kick it off with this party every day for seven days for nine days. I'm going to come to you. I'm going to sit with you. I'm going to eat with you. And if you remember the story of Oye Pulu from last last episode, if that tells us you don't have to know anything to receive everything. So if you're feeling like, I don't really know what to say. I don't really know how to talk to them. You ain't gotta know. You just have to do it. You just have to have the intentionality. When we pray, we pray out loud. You want to call their name. You're going to talk to them. You're going to say, hey, this is who I am. You're going to say what you brought. You're going to fellowship and eat. And then you're going to ask them for what you want. Ask them for what you need. If it's clarity, if it's for a shift, if it's for a sign.

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01.024) if it's for abundance, if it's for that new job opportunity, they want to work for you. They want to serve you. For those of us of African descent, for those of us who are melanated, who literally have been in a spiritual and physical war against the dominant Western paradigms of colonization and patriarchy for hundreds of years, we know that we come from a lineage of people who've had to overcome the Ma'afla Transatlantic Slave Trade, who've had to deal with segregation, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement. So when we get so bogged down about the government and about wars, we have to recognize, hold on, yes, this is difficult, but my ancestors have actually had to go through even more difficulty or even times like this. and to know and to recognize and to understand that when they were in those times of uncertainty, they prayed that future generations would be able to come whole, embodied in life and have fluid, prosperous, abundance lives and reconnect with their lineage and to understand who they are. And they prayed for you before you even existed, before you even were known, before you even came down from the cosmos. And here you are. So you are a miracle. So we have to know that miracles are part of our DNA. They are part of a treasure chest that we have access to and that we can claim. I hear what everybody's saying about the government and about wars and about politics and the economy and the job market and how many black women got laid off this year. But that does not have anything to do with me because I can tap into a treasure chest. that is eternal, that was here before and will be here after. And they can't touch that. Honoring our ancestors, it is gonna ground you. It is going to allow your mind to vibrate at a higher frequency. So having those grand celebration every year, but more importantly, what are those seasonal monthly ways? It doesn't have to be big and it doesn't only have to be limited to your altar.

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15.779) You could be walking down the street. You can be showering in the morning and just take the moment to give thanks and praise for your ancestors to call a name in right before you go to that job interview or right before you're getting ready to make that presentation or that pitch. You can call on the ancestors that you want to support you during this time. The invitation is to develop a relationship. If somebody wanted to be your friend and they wanted to be in a relationship with you and they only called you once a year, what would the nature of that relationship be like? We can cultivate relationships with the metaphysical realms and with spirits in the metaphysical realm every day, every month, every week, all throughout the year. And the stronger that relationship becomes, the more you build that muscle, the bigger the speaker, till you get to the point where they're calling on you. Some of you right now are being called on by your ancestors. Some of you right now keep getting that tap, tap, tap. Some of you are being called to, you don't know why this certain family member keeps coming up. Maybe you were named after them. Maybe they're your namesake. Someone comes to you in a dream and the question becomes, are you ready to receive? Are you ready to listen? They're pushing you to make a space. They're pushing you to make a way. They've got a gift for you. but you haven't made a space to receive the gift. And you're going out into the human doingness of life, thinking that it's the job or the bank account or the relationship or this external force that you have to tap into when you have an internal power. The other power of ancestral veneration is we get to break generational curses. Many of us are the cycle breakers. Many of us have looked at patterns of harm, pain. violence, abuse in our families. Maybe it's happened to you. Maybe it's happened to a family member. Maybe it happened to your mother or father, and that's why they were fucked up and you had to deal with that. Ask me how I know. And so by developing a relationship with my ancestors, I get to heal that work. As I sit down in my altar, I'm healing my bloodline seven generations back and seven generations forward. Because remember, time is a construction. Time is not real.

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35.47) Time does not really exist. You are benefiting off of prayers that happened before you were even born. So the frequency that you put out can heal the past and the present and the future at the same time. Every person that was in your family does not get to go on your ancestral altar. That's a little bit more Ancestor Veneration 102. This is the 101 class. The 102 class is when you're able to tap into some level of divination through a pendulum, through cowrie shells, through obi, through a trusted medium. And you're actually able to ask this ancestor, really someone that I should be on, should be on my altar. Also 102, you can get to the Misa level. Many of you in the Lukumi or the San Tireya tradition know that you can have a Misa where you literally speak with them directly, where you can ask them questions and they can ask you questions. There's levels to the ancestor veneration. Some of the folks that are devotees of Bifa actually are initiated into the egunbun. Egun means bone. So we say egunbun, we say bone bone. Just like you say tre tre or real real. We put that that double double on it. It means something. So when we call on our ancestors, we say that bone bone, that egunbun. Some folks are actually initiated into the egunbun society. They are initiated into a society where their sacred purpose and power is to steward the realm of the dead. We also know that as black folks, we have cultural ancestors, folks like Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman. They might not have been in your bloodline, but they are still people that you call upon. For this, I'm going to urge you to push on the folks that are actually in your bloodline. But if you want to expand that lens. again, ancestor veneration is something that all traditions do. It's only when black people start doing it that people start getting scared of it. But this is part of the reclamation of your power and this is part of decolonizing your mind. When there's no other thing that you can rely on in the world, you can rely upon your ancestors. Many folks are attracted to African traditional religions and the first thing that they want to do is they want to get initiated. But we are taught an ifa or re.

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51.67) Your own self. That is the first initiation that you go through your crown chakra, your personal power, a gungun, your ancestors and then Arisha. So you don't get to leapfrog over the people that birthed you, that gave you the gifts in your own DNA so you can start honoring Oshoon. I feel like I have this relationship with Oshoon. I feel like I have this relationship with the goddess and your ancestors are sitting right there, alter dry. prayers dry, haven't given them a plate of food, it doesn't work like that. You start at home first. And everybody's calling upon the Orisha, but only you and your bloodline are the ones calling upon your ancestors. That connection is even closer. My journey into initiation to Oya was a 20-year journey. I didn't wait for that to start my spiritual journey. I was already on that path. And Oya plays a very critical role when it comes to ancestors in the Ipah tradition because she is the one that opens the door into the realm of death. She is the one that is the bridge between the living and the dead. She is a steward of ancestors. We believe in the Yoruba tradition that it is Oya who gave birth to the Egungun, the Egungun Masquerade. If you're familiar with the Masquerade, the Masquerade is its own secret society. And it started off by being led by women, believe it or not. And then it was eventually taken over by the men. But it is Oya who gave birth to that. So because of that, it makes me have to honor my ancestors even more because as I'm honoring my ancestors, I'm honoring Oya. And as I'm honoring Oya, I'm honoring myself. And as I record this episode to you today from Mexico City, I am hearing the wondrous thunder of Oya. She is. Cosigning what I have to say. I know that you can't hear it in the interwebs, but I'm hearing it now just allowing me to know that she's with me right now. She's listening to the words. She's doubling down on what I'm saying. If you've ever heard powerful thunder, you know that thunder will shake you to your core. That is the power of Oya and that is the power of that relationship into the ancestral realm. I affirm that you deepen your relationship with your ancestors.

Sh8peShift YourLife (30:

10.552) that that becomes a North Star sanctuary, a safe place as to go and to receive counsel and insights, partnership. Your ancestors are here to give you the gifts, to give you the spiritual inheritance that you are deserving of. Many of us have come from families. I know me, let me make an I statement. They maybe couldn't pass down a lot of money. There's no trust fund set up for me. But what my ancestors gave me in their spiritual inheritance, is greater than money can buy. It's priceless. And not only am I imbued with it, but I have made sure that my future has been imbued, my future as my daughter. The blood and bone that came from me has a strong ancestor practice, knows the names and the stories of the people who came before her, and has her own relationship with them. For those of you who are parents, I'm gonna say it over and over over again, we've got to teach our children these things. If we're only doing it for us and we're not giving it for our children, as my teacher, Naman Yasui Pond, reminds you, who is going to venerate you? If you are honoring your ancestors and one day you will become an ancestor and every human is a future ancestor, who will be the one to venerate you? Who will be the one to call your name? Who will be the one to lift up the legacy of your family, the legacy of your bloodline? All right, that's it. I talked a lot. love you again. I'll see you in two weeks because we're on a new schedule until then keep shifting.

Sh8peShift YourLife (31:

46.552) Thank you for tuning in today, Shapeshifters. Your presence means the world to me and I deeply appreciate you being here. If something resonated with you, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Leave a comment and spread the love by sharing with others. Until next time, keep shifting.

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Zakiya aka Sh8peshifter

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