Creating a Home for Your Ancestors: Stories, Memory, and Living Wisdom

In this episode, shamanic teacher Evelyn Rysdyk explores what it means to treat our ancestors not as distant history, but as living presences woven into our daily lives. Drawing on Indigenous traditions, oral cultures, and her own lineage, Evelyn invites listeners to create a physical and spiritual “home” for their ancestors—through altars, remembrance, story, and intentional relationship—reviving a practice long forgotten in Western culture.Through vivid examples ranging from Ulchi spirit houses to Australian Aboriginal songlines, Evelyn illustrates how ancestral knowledge was preserved with astonishing accuracy for thousands of years, not through books or technology, but through story, memory, and lived transmission. She reminds us that elders once served as libraries, carrying hard-won wisdom about survival, love, loss, healing, and how to live well—and that this wisdom is still available to us.In this episode, you’ll explore:* How and why to create a dedicated space for your ancestors in your home* The role of oral storytelling in preserving knowledge across millennia* Why ancestors hold practical wisdom for modern life, not just history* How dreams and shamanic journeying can restore ancestral connection* A moving personal story of recovering lost ancestral herbal knowledgeThe episode closes with a powerful reminder: our ancestors lived through unimaginable challenges and still carried the wisdom, courage, and love necessary to bring us here. By turning toward them—through remembrance, intention, and story—we open ourselves to a vast reservoir of guidance that can help us become the best of who we are, now and for generations to come.Visit Evelyn’s website at spiritpassages.comLisa Bonnice is an award-winning author, podcaster, and former stand-up comic whose work blends humor, heart, and spiritual depth. Her latest novel, Castle Gate, is a historical fiction saga rooted in ancestral trauma and the 1924 Castle Gate Mine Disaster, available in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audiobook. Her book Fear of Our Father, co-authored with Stacey M. Kananen, was recently made into a Lifetime movie, Monster in the Family.Learn more at lisabonnice.com and castlegatebook.com.This interview is part of the Ancestral Healing Summit 2020, a free online event. This recording is a copyright of The Shift Network, used with permission. All rights reserved.Subscribe free or paid — same content, but your support helps keep the magic flowing. Get full access to Lisa Bonnice: Post-Woo Oracle at lisabonnice.substack.com/subscribe