Introduction to Ancestral Ceremony

Hello,
As an introduction to those who are unfamiliar with the idea of Ancestral veneration through ritual, today I am going to introduce a little of the theory behind the practise.
In the West this practise has mainly died out but throughout the rest of the world from Eastern Europe to China to South America and Polynesia the concept is readily understood. It is my intention to regularly update this site with information both spiritual and anthropological from around the world including my own practise of Ancestral Healing through ancient Taoist ritual. The following is according to Taoist ideas on life and death.
Regards,
Innersound Ancestry




We are born as a result of the union of our parents’ opposite energies of yin and yang when mother’s yin and father’s yang come together, which makes the spark that creates light. This is the original light of creation that we carry in us throughout our lives. Life is the movement and harmonious relationship of yin and yang where body, mind and spirit coexist as one. Death is the separation of yin and yang, and the return to nature of the material elements of earth, fire, water and air. Body returns to earth, spirit should return to its origin, and the mind, if light, rises up with the spirit, or if heavy, sinks down with the body. Depending on the state of the mind, spirit either returns to its origin or remains on the earth.


Eternal life is to live without a physical body and outside of time and space, as material things exist within time and space, but non-material does not. To exist within time and space means that change is only possible when living with a material body and with a mind capable of adapting to life’s movement and changing circumstances. When the mind is fixed, so are body and spirit. A mind that cannot let go of its passions, sorrows and attachments will remain bound to its earthly existence.


People in the past used to think about birth and death differently from the way we do now. They were joyous occasions to be celebrated, as birth represented the incarnation of spirit in matter, and death was the return of spirit to its
original abode and reunion with its source. Spirit was the light of creation and what animated matter, for without it, matter was lifeless. Spirit was the cause and reason for the material world, and what created the body, supported its life, and healed its ills.