How Knowing Your Ancestors Can Deepen Your Spiritual Practice

    In a time when modern life pulls us in a thousand directions, jut like me, many people are feeling a call to reconnect — not just with nature or spirit, but with something even deeper: their ancestral roots. Whether through cultural heritage, spiritual tradition, or family memory, knowing where you come from can serve as a powerful compass in your spiritual journey.

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    Earlier this year, I began a journey to reconnect with my heathen heritage. With the assistance of DNA testing, I discovered some surprising information about my ancestry. In a time when modern life pulls us in a thousand directions, jut like me, many people are feeling a call to reconnect — not just with nature or spirit, but with something even deeper: their ancestral roots. Whether through cultural heritage, spiritual tradition, or family memory, knowing where you come from can serve as a powerful compass in your spiritual journey.

    Your ancestors are more than names on a family tree — they’re the living thread that ties you to the land, the seasons, and the rituals of a people who once lived close to the rhythms of the earth. Rediscovering those connections isn’t about romanticizing the past. It’s about grounding yourself in a lineage of wisdom and resilience.

    For many spiritual seekers, especially those on earth-based or animistic paths, turning toward ancestral traditions can bring a sense of homecoming. Practices like honoring the turning of the seasons, working with sacred plants, or invoking ancient symbols like runes or sacred scripts become not just spiritual tools, but acts of remembrance.

    In times of personal or collective upheaval, ancestral traditions offer stability. They remind us that we are not alone. Our foremothers and forefathers faced hardship, uncertainty, and transformation — and their stories are encoded in our bones. Learning about their ways of healing, their celebrations of life and death, and their understanding of the cosmos can provide context and strength in our own lives.

    When you feel spiritually unsure, looking back can help you move forward. Ancestral practices help us root into values that stretch across generations — like reciprocity, reverence for the land, and the cyclical nature of time.

    Finding Your Way Back

    You don’t need to have a perfect family history or know every detail of your lineage to begin this work.

    1. Start with science: I highly recommend DNA testing from companies such as Ancestry. Uploading your DNA file to Genomelink can further help you to dive deep into your research.

    2. Learn the stories and myths of the cultures you come from. Whether it’s Norse sagas, Slavic folktales, or Celtic poetry, stories hold keys to worldview and sacred symbolism.

    3. Practice seasonal rituals your ancestors may have observed — solstices, harvests, or new and full moons. These rituals bring you into alignment with natural cycles and ancestral time.

    4. Work with traditional symbols or tools, like runes, ancestral herbs, or folk prayers. Use them not as rigid rules, but as invitations to dialogue with the past.

    5. Create an ancestor altar — a small space for statues, names, or offerings — where you can express gratitude or ask for guidance.

    As it turns out, my ancestors were mainly of German descent, my Celtic index is pretty low, only 35 percent from the Magdalenenberg archeologic site situated in Baden-Württemberg. I also have some ties to the Baltic region and Scandinavia (my Viking index is 65 percent, you can get this fun report for free via this link). I am probably a descendant of the steppe people (42 percent) who were the ancestors of the various European societies which we know from ancient history, Celts, Germans, and Slavs in the north, Italians, Iberians, and Greeks in the south. The Indo-European language of the steppe now dominates all of Europe, and the gods of ancient myth, Zeus, Thor, and Jupiter, were their gods.

    Final Thoughts

    Knowing your ancient roots is not about exclusion or superiority. It’s about belonging — to a lineage, to the earth, and to the great tapestry of life. When you root your spiritual practice in the soil of your heritage, you grow with deeper meaning, greater resilience, and a sense of place in the world.

    Let the bones of the past nourish the soul of your present.