The Wild Temple Community

Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tantric-worldview-with-yogini-fire-tender-and/id1593785925?i=1000648532349

In this episode of The Wild Temple Podcast, Brooke speaks with Sandy Anderson, a senior faculty member at the Himalayan Institute, about the Tantric worldview and its spiritual and physical benefits. They delve into the relationship between mind, body, and soul, discussing how a person's dharma, or purpose, can manifest through natural inclinations and skills combined with the circumstances in which they find themselves. They further explore the transformative and alchemical aspects of Tantra, its practical applications, and the importance of body-centered practices. The conversation also sheds light on how the practice of yoga fits into this worldview.

Connect with Sandy Anderson:

Email sanderson@himalayaninstitute.orgHimalayan Institute courses https://himalayaninstitute.org/online/teachers/sandra-anderson/

Trainings and Apprenticeships with Brooke https://www.thewildtemple.com/yogacertification

Pitru Paksha (or Pitri Paksha) 

The Pitris are our ancestors, and so  Pitru Pashka means “Fortnight of the Ancestors”.  This window of time is devoted to a ritual tending to or honoring of the ancestors known as Tarpana, which means to gratify or satiate.

The practice varies, but in Vedic culture, largely follows these guidelines:

• Honoring the ancestors on the New Moon of each month, or this two week “dark moon fortnight” (from Full to New Moon) in the month of late September (sometimes into October).

• Uses 3 ingredients as offerings, a mantra, and a body of water or the earth

  • These ingredients are: Black Sesame Seed, Milk, and Water

I will  give a brief explanation of the importance and purpose of ancestor ritual, then provide some examples, offer a practice, and suggest some journal prompts to ponder during this time of year. 

As modern practitioners, engaging in rituals such as setting up altars and honoring our ancestors via prayer or ceremony can feel a bit odd.  This is largely due to the fact that in the west, these practices have been broken within our family traditions.  Rituals like these often hold stigma due to religious and colonial suppression, and the gradual cultural shift from widespread spiritual practices to the general belief that science negates spirit. Folks who admit to doing any form of ancestral worship, or reveal that  they are in touch with spirits or believe in ghosts are often looked down upon in current society. It is seen as being naive, or that they are engaging in  acts of superstition that are less than reason and science.

Honoring and caring for the ancestors in ways like worshiping (which means to give worth and respect) and feeding the ancestors (this can be as simple as a portion of one’s daily supper) has occurred since the beginning of time, all over the world. In much of India, this particular practice has never been broken, much like the continued honoring of the Divine Mother and healing using herbs  and powerful phrases (mantras). 

Pitru Paksha is an annual event that has been honored and active for thousands of years, practiced by millions-if not billions of people all around the world. Many non-Christian cultures also practice ancestor worship, which is firmly entrenched in their religion and culture. These are not naive cultures, but modern day people in Japan, Africa, Korea and Mexico to just name a few.

Daniel Foor, the modern psychologist and author of Ancestral Medicine, explains that a lot of what people experience as mental, emotional suffering, and mental health issues are either unmetabolized intergenerational harms or direct ghost interference. He believes that ancestral healing work can lead to individual healing, alignment with one’s skills and talents (leading one to stronger fulfillment and life purpose) as well as cultural and earth healing- in essence, this work is dharmic- out of the box for these times, and definitely revolutionary.

I myself have been studying a bit with Dr. Foor.  I began my own ancestral healing work in 2007 with Bri Maya Tiwari- aka Mother Maya. I have also studied with Dr. Svobod of the Ayurvedic Institute and author..  It is from these three sources combined with my own experience that I am this with you today.

Let's look at WHY should we do ancestral healing/honoring of the ancestors

Many of us are searching for a sense of belonging.  One student who explored her ancestral healing  became deeply connected to the people and food of her culture.  This led her to become a personal chef and caterer of her country’s cuisine and eventually to lead spiritual groups to her ancestral lands. Her ancestor work mingled with our tantra yoga practices, which awakened both her skills and passions leading her to her Dharma. From this, she felt like she belonged once again to her own culture and satiated at a very deep level. 

Many of us inherited deep feelings of brokenness, unworthiness, poverty consciousness, sicknesses etc.. and understanding our ancestors and their stories can be very healing- for ourselves as well as our lineage, and to a greater sense, our culture and world. WHY?

One of the reasons is that we have inherited the brokenness, unworthiness, poverty consciousness, sicknesses and unmetabolized traumas of our ancestors. We can see these negative inheritances as bundles of burden, which can lead to a propensity for addiction, poor behavior, bigoted belief systems, and all kinds of negative biases- as well as physical sickness. Doing our work of understanding and healing our ancestors can help relieve us of these burdens and transform our personalities for the better. Understanding the burdens of our inheritance, can help exalt our traits, values and belief systems to be better humans in the world.

In “My Grandmothers’ Hands” by Resmaa Menakem, he talks about “trauma ghosting.” This is “the body’s recurrent or pervasive sense that danger is just around the corner, or something terrible is going to happen at any moment. Often, these responses make little cognitive sense and the person’s own cognitive brain is unaware of them. But for the body they make perfect sense; it is protecting itself from repeating the experience that caused or preceded the trauma.” He then goes on to talk about “Trauma retention” where in other cases, people do the exact opposite: they reenact or precipitate in  situations similar to the ones that caused their trauma. This may seem crazy or neurotic to the cognitive mind, but there is bodily wisdom behind it. By recreating such a situation, the person also creates an opportunity to complete whatever action got thwarted or overridden. This might help the person mend the trauma, create more room for growth in his or her body, and settle his or her nervous system. 

However, the attempt to reenact the event often simply repeats, re-inflicts, and deepens the trauma. When this happens repeatedly over time, the trauma response can look like part of the person’s personality. As years and decades pass, reflexive traumatic responses can lose context. A person may forget that something happened to him or her- and then internalize the trauma responses. These responses are typically viewed by others, and often by the person, as a personality defect. When this same strategy gets internalized and passed down over generations within a particular group, it can start to look like culture. 

Whether we are a victim, perpetrator or witness to horrifying events that cause trauma in the body, it affects our nervous system. And science is proving through epigenetics, and polyvagal theory, that this inheritance is passed down from generation to generation, until we acknowledge these wounds and heal them. This is why ancestral work is so important. It can be helpful not only on an individual body and subconscious level, but on a systemic cultural and worldwide level as well. 

I would like to share a writing by Pema Chodron  I found that I had written down a while ago. It feels very relevant here for our practice of Tarpana, a water practice dedicated to healing our depths.

“Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top.  At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind-- our drunken brother, our schizophrenic daughter, our tormented animals and friends. Their suffering continues, unrelieved by our personal escape.

In the process of discovering bodhicitta, the journey goes down, not up. It’s as if the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhicitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.”

In essence, this is a deep dive into our shadow work. It is also bloodline and lineage work. ALthough uncomfortable and “out of the box” it is very, very rewarding.

Because understanding who and where we come from, can be very enlightening. On the other side of burden  is blessing. Our ancestors did not just pass down their burdens, but also their blessings. This too, we carry in our body. Some of the blessings are dormant seeds, waiting to be discovered- like a talent for painting, gardening or cooking delicious pies. Others are known to us- like being able to see the world behind the worlds, having an empathic or caring nature, being a healthy optimist, having a huge and caring heart, or being strong and resilient no matter what life throws at you. 

*Whenever I take the time to do ancestral work, I receive blessings. 

1. Getting to know my grandmother, helping her pass more peacefully as part of the family

2. Learning about the healing magic I have inherited- and not- due to fear and suppression.  The men from my lineage had power to heal with phrases of the bible, and married skilled medicine women, then forbade their wives to do their healing work.  That lineage carries within it  the fear of these women’s power and the suppression of it. 

Who are our ancestors?

From the work of Daniel Foor: 

To distinguish among the dead, and all the not-incarnate humans right now, the word ancestor can refer to those who are seated and settled in that new status.   They understand they've died. They're connected to other ancestors. They've arrived at the city on the other side of the river

• to contrast with the ghosts, the troubled dead, or most generously, the not-yet ancestors, the ones who are still in an in-between state

• In his work, we do not connect with the troubled ancestors, but we go waaaaaaay back to the healthy ancestors of our lineage, and connect with them, and hold space for them to do the healing work of that lineage. * If you are interested in this, I highly recommend getting his book and doing the meditations (“Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing”)

It is important to also recognize there are lots of kinds of ancestors.

• ancestors we're connected to through to by virtue of where we live

• ancestors of spiritual tradition

• ancestors of culture, cultural heroes, or people who have been really impactful for your life, sacred friends, and just other people who you have come to view as family who may not be connected by blood per se. 

• We also have non human ancestors: plants, animals, minerals

*One way to connect to your ancestors is to understand these affiliations to your people, and the land they were on. For example, I just found out that on my mother’s father’s line, the family crest is that of 3 Nettle leaves. Nettles was my first plant ally. It came to me the same time I was learning how to be a wise woman healer in midwifery school, teaching me about the power of  simplicity found in nourishment. This power, found in weeds that grew all around me, I knew to be a force I needed to keep myself and my family strong. Nettles was also one of the main foods I wildcrafted, drank liberally while pregnant and made teas for my daughter when she was a baby. I had no idea our family heritage also honored the plant in this way. And so one of the things I aim to do with this Pitru Paksha, is to place nettles tea on the altar. For Tarpana means to satiate. And offering nourishment is a form of caring that can heal the deepest, most unseen woes.

The Practice of Tarpana: Gratifying the Ancestors

1. Set up an altar space (more on this later).  An altar can have pictures of deceased ancestors (never use photos of living persons), ghee lamps or unscented candles, precious stones, flowers, incense and essential oils. It should be tended carefully every day. It can also be outdoors. 

2. Make a list of as many of your ancestors as you know (even if you do not know, say due to adoption or other broken relationships, you can just call them in unnamed). 

3. 3 ingredients: Black sesame, water and milk. The life-beckoning properties of seeds and water make them the auspicious choice for an offering. If black sesame seeds are unavailable, black rice can be substituted. Have a bowl (if doing the practice indoors) and a pitcher. 

4. Facing South, mix the dry ingredients together in a brass or clay bowl. Pour the milk (or water as substitute) into a pitcher and add the dry ingredients. Swirl to mix, as you think of your ancestors with love and peace. 

5. Request the ancestors to come. Start with your closest ancestors, and blood lineage. Then expand to other beloved ancestors: your spiritual lineage, your land relations, non human ancestors, other groups or classes of people you wish to pray for

6. Reciting the ancestral mantra (or a special mantra or phrase), pour the mixture into either the big brass bowl or your hand in Gyan mudra (forefinger and thumb create a circuit), feeling the ancestors in your heart. If you choose to do it in your hand, you can do this repeatedly for groups of your ancestors, chanting the mantra 9x for each group. 

7. Once complete, either pour the mixture from your hand (thumb faces down) directly into the earth if outside, or the vessel, or pour into a body of water.

8. Mantras to choose can be:  “Om Namo Vah Pitraha Saumyaha,” Om Nah-mow Vaff Pete-riss Saum-yaha Swa-ha   (pronunciation) which means: Dear ancestors I offer you my obeisance, my gratitude and regard. Kindly accept my offering. Alternatives could be a mantra you love, the Maha Mrityunjaya or healing Mantra, or a Mula Mantra. In tantra, a special mantra can be given for those prepared. 

9. After the ritual, you may close with Journal Prompts Below

Blessings reflections:

• Journal Prompt: When you do ancestor worship, take time to feel into the blessings that you have received from your ancestors. Take a bit of time each day to write these down and reflect on them. Perhaps in your morning meditations, include these reflections for 5 minutes in contemplative style, allowing you to feel the joy, freedom, excitement, curiosity, etc.. that these blessings bring (or can bring) you when nourished. Offer your gratitude. 

Burden reflections:

• Journal Prompt: We can easily succumb to the deep woes of our pains, worries, doubts and fears inherited from our ancestors. It is a good practice to be aware of these burdens, but not to get lost in them. For this, we have tools as well as preparatory practices. Some of them are:

  • Having good boundaries/establish a positive connection with benevolent forces, your own clear/good energy and sacred space when doing this practice (and reflecting)

  • When the burdens arise, understand it is important to feel grounded and embodied. One may call upon healthy ancestors to transmute them, or if a practitioner of tantra, yoga or ayurveda, “place them into your belly” and actively visualize yourself metabolizing them. This can be done by anyone but is a specific kriya as well, and has supportive practices to strengthen the fire of metabolization.

  • Journaling helps to release and to process/integrate

  • Therapy is also a great way to integrate that which has surfaced from the past
    

As one of my first teachers, Mother Maya writes: 

“To know your ancestors, be they saints, sinners or average folks, you need to keep an open mind that neither judges nor condemns. Be prepared to accept their strengths and weaknesses. Remember that because of their sacrifices, you have been given life and the sacred opportunity to regain the knowledg of your spirit. Your paren’ts and grandparent’s strengths give you the power to repair your inherited weaknesses. Their weaknesses enable you to see your own and strengthen your resolve as you journey into consciousness. As part of the law of karma, we all carry memories of pain and conflict passed down from our immediate family. As long as we do not face these memories, we cannot embark upon our own true path. The open and honest acknowledgement of our people’s spiritual, emotional and physical trials allows for healing and resolution.”

My experience in doing ancestral healing work is that I always get a boon. What was once deep in obscurity, becomes revealed. Pay attention to the gifts you receive- for they are gifts, not coincidences. Listen to my podcast HERE to hear what the ancestors gave me, after doing my work of deepening my understanding and relationship with them. 

Warmly,

Brooke

References:

• The Path of Practice: A Woman’s Book of Ayurvedic Healing by Bri Maya Tiwari

• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies by Resmaa Menakem

• Dr. Svoboda: Tarpana practice

• Daniel Foor: Ancestral Healing Course

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1882323/13047061

In this episode Brooke shares:

• The importance of Rhythm and connecting to the Moon

• Dark Moon Babies

• A moon song

• The Nakshatras: "Faces of the Moon" or archetypal "Mansions" of the movement of the moon in the night sky, as insights into the flow of Nature's Prana + Mental/Emotional states

• The Myth of Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes

• Rohini: The most beautiful wife of the moon

• Good + Bad Habits: Understanding the importance of each

• Healing Yoga: Understanding that a large part of authentic yoga is upheld by the practice of Svadhyaya (YS 2.1)

• Specific Plants + Flowers for "Moon tending" (supporting mind/emotions + deeply engrained habits or beliefs)

• Specific Tantra Yoga Techniques that help to break bad habits, cultivate good ones by strengthening one's intuition and ability to see in the subconscious realms

This is the second video from a webinar series from Brooke called "Ignite your Dharma" If you find this exploration into igniting soul purpose through tantra and plants interesting, you're going to LOVE Plants Drop Wisdom.

Enrollment for PDW closes May 31, 2023. https://www.thewildtemple.com/plants-drop-wisdom-flower-essence-certification

Dear Friends,

I wanted to share with you a recent experience that has really inspired me. As you know, I am deeply enamored by the world of herbalism and natural healing. This morning, I was listening to an old lecture given by my teacher shortly before I found him, back in 2007. The lecture focuses on the power of nature for healing and using mantras to awaken the power of plants, which is a practice that has been around for centuries.

This lecture expounds upon one of my favorite mantras (one I will be offering a study of soon if you wish to join me). Not only is it said to cleanse the mind, psyche, and body to maintain and restore health, but it aids us in the removal of fear. When done in a particular order and with the proper guidance, these practices can bring about deep nourishment and healing. However, if used for personal gain or without proper preparation, the power of this practice can do great harm. Why?

My teacher shared a prayer that the sages have for guidance in using these gifts responsibly, which really resonated with me. It was: “Oh Lord, please guide me, so that I can put locks and codes on these gifts that you have given.” It is in this way, that a good teacher creates a solid foundation (for balancing and healing body AND mind) before passing on "the secret sauce." It reminded me of the immense power of nuclear weapons and the danger of immature individuals having access to that power.

We really don't need more of that at this time. We need kind, gracious, inspiring souls to have the power to lead us out of the messes we have created. And to access this power, we need stepping stones and landing pads before we get to play with its "fire".

So with this in mind, I feel so grateful to have had (and continue to have) the guidance of my teacher, Pandit Rajmani Tigunait of the Himalayan Institute who has helped me understand the true nature of power and its responsibility. Through his teachings and the practices of Tantra, I have been able to step more fully into my own power as well as share these tools with others- like many of you reading this:)

In fact, my teacher is now offering a new program (that I would consider to be one of these "landing pads" for information and embodied healing, called Kaya Kalpa. I believe many of you would be interested in it. It is a scientifically-based herbal program that focuses on the Vedic outlook, using plants to promote longevity and overall health. It will be a delectable and powerful resource, as I feel I understand (in part) the long view of his goals as well as the immediacy of what we are needing collectively at this time. So if you are craving a good landing pad for the plants, and for eventually the more subtle, powerful alchemical practices with #plants, he will be sharing a whole Materia Medica of about 60 herbs from Indian Unani medicine, Chinese medicine, and more. It will be deeply rooted in science, with a healthy dose of mysticism.

So. I highly encourage you to check out this program. It is open to all levels of experience and will provide a deep understanding of the power of nature and its Intelligence in our healing.

In my conversation with him in India a little over a month ago, he also offered a special invitation to my students and community outside of the program. Where we can gather on ZOooom for a private group Q+A to get deep and wide with him:)

Y'all... this window is amazing. As I also know, who shows up will help to form the level and direction this program can go. Want to understand why the Trimethylacine found in Hawthorne could be important for fertility? Or why Bupleurum is a key ingredient in abating inflammaging and inflammation?? Join me. Let's bring it. Let's get down with some gooooood questions to understand more of this Tantric Herbalism™.

As someone who has found immense value in studying with a great teacher, I believe in sharing the good medicine of good teachers. My teacher is a beautiful soul, a family man, and a kind and joyful role model. I encourage you to explore his teachings and the many lenses through which we can come to understand the plant world.

Thank you for reading if you have gotten this far, and I hope you will join me in exploring the power of nature and its ability to bring about deep healing and nourishment.

Link is HERE to check out, to register. (And to be clear I AM NOT AN AFFILIATE or making money selling this program, I just believe in his work.) The course starts Saturday but is online so self-paced.

Please let me know if you join (!!) so I can gather us together, to set a date for our private meeting with Panditji.

Blessings, Brooke

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