Crystals, Essential Oils and the Ancestors

I've been asked this week by a couple of people, what are some things that they could do to celebrate Samhain, which is coming up on the 30th of April and 01 May here in the Southern Hemisphere.

So with that in mind, and as I've been setting up my Crystal Grid to heal my ancestral line, I thought well how about a how to work with crystals and essential oils to contact your ancestors.

What is Samhain?

Samhain pronounced Sow in, is the Pagan New Year festival, and when the veil between this world and the Otherworld is at its thinnest, making it the perfect time to contact and honour your ancestors.

Last week I went into the history of this festival, and this week I'm going more in depth with how to contact the ancestors.

Let's talk Crystals.

There are a few Crystals that are great at helping to contact the ancestors, here are a few of my favorites.

Black Obsidian

This stone is a great psychic protection stone, and helps to clear the dirty energies blocking your psychic abilities.

It is also a great stone to protect you against negativity, and has strong ties to Mother Nature making it a fantastic grounding stone.

With its shiny surface, black obsidian has long been used in scrying works.

How to use Black Obsidian to scry.

Light some candles, as a low light is best.  Then relax your eyes and mind, and gaze into the crystal.  Allow the thoughts to come into your head be the voices of your ancestors.

Petrified Wood

This crystal is actually the remains of ancient trees that over time has fossilised and mineralised, eventually becoming this crystal. 

Petrified Wood is a stone of transformation and perseverance. It helps with understanding, and teaches you that much of what you need to realise, understand, remember or know is buried deep within you.

This stone is a fantastic stone when is comes to healing inter-generational trauma.

The best way to use this stone, is to simply meditate with it.  I will hold it is the palm of my hand and allow the stone to heal what it needs.

It is also a great stone to have on your alter to represent your family tree and ancestors.

Howlite

This crystal is a great stone to use as it helps to provide a deep, calming, peaceful strength, and eliminates stressful thoughts. 

It is great to use in mediation as it grounds you and opens you up to your guides and ancestors.  

Howlite is especially a fantastic stone for beginners to use to open up and start a shamanic journey to meet and contact the Ancestors, as it will gently shift you into their realm over other crystals that will drop you in quite dramatically.

Essential Oils

Why would you use essential oils to contact the ancestors?

Scent is in a lot of ways our strongest sense.  Think about your favorite home cooked meal, and how that smell can invoke memories of child hood.

By combining the right combination of oils you can invoke the scent of your ancestral home to help attract your ancestors to you.

There are many different recipes of ancestor oil, personally I feel that it is best to work with your own intuition to come up with the right combination for you and your ancestral line.

Just like crystals essential oils also have different healing and spiritual properties.

Here are some of the oils and their benefits that I use in my own ancestors oils.

Clary Sage Oil

This oil is associate with sight and vision, not only is it a great oil to help your physical oils, it also helps your third eye where the gift of clairvoyance sits.  

Using this oil will help to lift what is blocking to help with divination and channeling helping you to see and hear your ancestors.

Juniper Berry Oil

The sweet smell of Juniper Berry oil helps to ease stress out of the body, and helps to protect you on your journey into the Otherworld to connect with your ancestors.

Myrrh Oil

This earthy oil is great to use as it helps to keep you grounded while you journey into the Otherworld much like Black Obsidian does in the crystal world.

Rosemary Oil

Rosemary is known to help release psychic and spiritual blocks, and also brings good luck and protection when going into ceremony.

How to use the oils:

There are two ways to use oils to help with ancestor workings.

The first is to blend a combination and put into an oil burner or vaporiser when going into meditation and then allow the scents of the oils to help you on your journey to meet your ancestors.

The second is to blend a combination of the oils into a base oil - jojoba, almond oil, coconut oil, wheatgerm oil - and anoint yourself on your forehead, palms and feet and then go into mediation and allow the oils to help you on your trip.

There you have it, just a few crystals and oils you can use to help you with reaching out to your ancestors this Samhain.

Happy journeying.