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Kyla's indumba (medicine hut) sat high on the hill of her father’s land, deep in Zululand, South Africa. The small brick room was where she received clients seeking healing—throwing the bones for divination, administering herbal steams infused with potent medicinal plants, and entering trance states to channel the voices of their ancestors through femba.
Although I grew up in South Africa, I was raised to fear and avoid sangomas, traditional healers who, in the struggle to survive post-colonialism, often turned to dark magic. Even the esteemed Credo Mutwa, the lineage keeper of the Zulu sangoma tradition, mourned the fall of his sacred practice as many healers resorted to selling muthi (potions and spells) for commercial gain. It was a far cry from the deep ancestral communion and water spirit worship (Inzunza) that once formed the heart of this powerful tradition.
I never imagined I would one day seek healing from a sangoma. But here I was, making my way up to Kyla’s indumba, feeling as though unseen forces were guiding my steps. I was in the midst of a full-blown spiritual awakening, a journey that had led me from Peru to New Mexico, Hawaii, and finally back to the land of my ancestors—the Zululand. The energies surging through me felt overwhelming, like rivers rushing through an uncharted landscape. I needed teachers who could help me navigate this unknown terrain.
Kyla had a message for me. It was from my grandmothers. I was not afraid.
Ancestral Healing—A Critical Part of Shadow Work
When you walk the medicine path, you will inevitably confront your shadow—the fragmented parts of yourself that have been hidden, shamed, or abandoned. Shadow work is the process of integrating these lost aspects so you can become whole. It is not easy. Once you open the door, you cannot close it again. But with the right guidance and an open heart, you can move through it with grace.
One often-overlooked aspect of shadow work, particularly in Western models, is the healing of ancestral wounds. These wounds are not just metaphorical—they are encoded in your very DNA, passed down through generations. The traumas, successes, and survival patterns of those who came before you are imprinted within you.
This inheritance can manifest in various ways:
Addiction—substance abuse or other compulsive behaviors
Abuse—patterns of emotional, physical, or sexual violence
Scarcity Mindset—deep-seated fears around money, success, or survival
Chronic Illness—physical manifestations of unresolved generational trauma
Repetitive Relationship Struggles—unconscious cycles of abandonment, betrayal, or codependency
The most spiritually sensitive members of a family often bear the weight of these patterns, as they are the ones called to break the cycle. If you feel this burden, it is because your soul chose this path. You incarnated into your family, your lineage, with a sacred duty—to heal, to transform, to alchemize the pain of the past into wisdom for the future.
How We Guide You in Ancestral Healing
We have worked deeply with various ancestral healing traditions and can help guide you to:
Connect with your ancestors and build a rapport using plant ceremony and high-vibrational, nature-based spiritual rituals. Strengthening this connection allows for deep wisdom and healing to flow through your lineage.
Begin channeling messages from them—whether in dreams, synchronicities, or through intuitive downloads. Once you connect with your ancestors, learning to recognize and interpret their guidance can be life-changing.
Dig into the shadow work with a guide—this is a core part of our spiritual integration 1:1 work, where we assist you in uncovering and healing deeply ingrained ancestral patterns that may be brought to the forefront in your ceremonies.
Intentionally heal ancestral curses through ritual and ceremony. Ancestral imprints such as trauma, scarcity, and suffering can be transmuted into wisdom and power when addressed with the right intention and safe spiritual container to hold this powerful energy.
Healing from these afflictions is absolutely possible. The patterns that have run through your lineage for generations do not have to define your life. Through spiritual work, conscious awareness, and aligned action, you can become the turning point in your ancestral story.
My Personal Journey to Heal Ancestral Wounds
One of the messages that Kyla channeled for me hit hard. She told me that there was a curse placed on our family many generations back, due to the unclean acts of one of my ancestors. She instructed me in performing sacred rituals that would make penance for this curse and release us from its effects.
I left for the Garden Route the next morning, where I would spend two weeks with Swepena—another Shipibo-initiated ceremonialist and close friend—at her home bordering the Tsitsikamma forest. We had planned a series of training ceremonies that would prepare me to lead my first aya ceremony—which I was to host for my mother, Shakira.
During the days, we sang to the ocean and the forest, collected herbal medicines, made offerings to the nature spirits, and set intentions for spiritual cleansing and healing of our ancestral lines. In the evenings, we would sit with the medicine, sing the songs of icaro, and clear blockages. Finally, it was time to let it all go. I set bold intentions to break all ancestral curses, and together, we journeyed deep with Grandmother Aya.
It was one of the hardest ceremonies of my life... and one of the most liberating. I shook violently, somatically releasing generations of stored trauma. I bore witness to painful scenes and prayed for forgiveness for our family. At the end, I sat weeping at the altar, singing a beautiful song about my great-grandmother’s devotion to her sunrise suryanamaskar—a song that I was channeling in the moment.
'Every day she rose, at dawn, to greet the Sun.'
And in that moment, I understood and felt it in my bones—the healing had already begun, and our lineage was forever changed.
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