The Ancestral Transmission
In Serbian folk religion, Saturdays are reserved for the dead. It is the day we pay our respects to the dearly departed. For the very same reason, it is believed that people born on Saturday can peer into the Otherworld. Because of this, I pay special attention to Saturdays and my bond with my ancestors and celebrate it with simple offerings: a beeswax candle, a cup of coffee, and some incense. The very same way they respected their ancestors whenever they visited their graves.
It is a popular trend (dare I say fad) among Neo-Pagan and New Age circles to talk about ancestral veneration by placing the entire concept on such convoluted and abstract levels, going all the way to the stone age, while waxing moronically about the hypothetical ancestors of the yester years, expecting some extraordinary transmissions of wisdom. I have no time for this. It is my opinion that the ancestors you know of are much more worth your attention, for a very simple fact that transmissions have already happened throughout your lifetime. The stories of your great-grandmas, the weekends spent with your grandparents, your grandma’s cookbook, or your grandfather’s smoking pipe - all these are magical anchors that facilitate our ancestral bonds. They do so by the very fact that we have direct experience of them, and living tales told about them.
To this end, I ask the cards what is the most efficient way of receiving an ancestral transmission.
Dondorf Whist deck No.148, between 1889 and 1918. Frankfurt, Germany.
9 of Hearts being at the very center of the spread talks about both love and the desire to facilitate the contact. Transmissions happen when a clear path is laid (6 of Diamonds) for our desire to meet the message of a loved one (9 of Hears; Jack of Hearts). To facilitate this transmission, one must focus on a very concrete type of transmission, from one particular “grandmother-witch” (Queen of Spades), and stay away from the anonymous mass of hypothetical ancestors (8 of Spades). Clarity and focus - surprise, surprise.
