Cover Image: Honoring Your Ancestors

Honoring Your Ancestors

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Member Reviews

This book was interesting but a little far out for me. I prefer to honor my ancestors by the way I live my daily life.

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I really enjoyed this book. My metaphysical book group read this for our monthly book selection when this first came out. The author talks about why we honor our ancestors, ways to honor them and things like making an offer and doing offerings. My book group made our altars and shared them and did all of the activities suggested in the book. I feel a much deeper connection to my ancestors since reading this book. The book is well written, well organized and thought out. Its meaningful yet easy to read. I highly recommend it.

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Interesting read. I liked that there were tips on honoring ancestors even if you don't have a long family tree. My mom's side goes back many years, but all records from my dad's were lost in the war, so we only can go back a couple generations. My husband is adopted and doesn't know anything of his. So the fact that this book acknowledges we don't all have hundreds of years to go through is a huge plus.

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(Received from NetGalley & the publisher for review... ages ago...)

Quite an enjoyable read, if that can be said about a book that's about dead people.

I was touched by many things in here, and I made a few notes, felt many of my ancestors in my bones in a way I have so far felt only some of them. However, in entirety, the book felt quite distant. As if I was reading an operating manual of ancestors, if that makes sense.

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A fantastic introduction to Ancestor Veneration. This is such a needed topic to focus on among Pagans, really for everyone because we ALL have ancestors. As a Heathen, Ancestor work is foundational to my practice and this book helped me approach the work without the awkwardness of bumbling through to figure out what works and what doesnt. I'm very grateful.
I didn't think the spell section in the back of the book was particularly necessary as it felt like a different book added on. However, its hardly something to complain about.
Everyone should read this book.

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I love this book!! Coming from a long line of Norwegians, I have been wanting to somehow figure out a way to honor them. I wasn't sure how to go about doing this, and was thrilled to find that Mallorie Vaudoise had written HONORING YOUR ANCESTORS. The author writes in such a way that is not only informative and deep, but readable and friendly. I walked away with a new, beautiful love for acknowledging my lineage, finding ways to give a nod here and there to my bloodline, and ideas for how to incorporate remembrance of my ancestors into my every day life.

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Mysticism is on the increase over more recent years and whilst for a great many of us, some parts are strange and almost alien, its when you sit down and do your research that you can find a great many truths that add not only a sense of belonging but a sense of knowing those who have come before.

Within this title are ways for you to connect to your past blending mental exercises with psychological aspects alongside reasoning from other cultures who practice ancestral worship to help bring the points across to create an almost universal understanding so that we feel their connections down through the ages. It gives you a sense of belonging, an ideology of understanding those who have gone before but perhaps best of all ways to understand yourself better. All round a fascinating read and one that I will take lessons from for quite some time to come.

Goes live at 0830 on 7th November

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This is a fantastic book for any level spiritual practitioner or any path. While the author seems to have a primarily hoodoo-based perspective, there is such a variety of practices with well-defined descriptions that they are suitable for nearly tradition of belief that includes or allows space for ancestors. She also covers situations like not knowing your ancestors, not getting along with, or even having serious rifts and issues with your ancestors and how to approach the practice from those places as well, all with a warm, friendly, compassionate tone that never becomes dry or academic.

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I’m very interested in genealogy. I’m the “genealogist” of the family so to speak. When I saw that this combined ancestry and spirituality I said yes please! This book didn’t disappoint. It’s filled with practical and applicable information. I love how she
includes “journal prompts” at the end of the chapters. This would be a great book for beginners as it’s very thorough.

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Captivating from beginning to end! I couldn't stop reading it once I started. It is full of useful information, family anecdotes and different perspectives on how to honor ancestors, whether blood or not. Bewitching

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Published on Blog: Flying the Hedge
Run Date: August 25, 2019
Link to Review: https://www.flyingthehedge.com/2019/08/book-review-honoring-your-ancestors.html
Review: "I've noticed that as I have become more experienced in the Craft, I have turned away from reading and purchasing "spell books." It's not that these books aren't good; its that the information is often the same every single time, and I am tired of reading about moon phases, the elements, the Wheel of the Year, and all the other introductory stuff that comes with it. Besides, I like writing my own spells so much more. So lately I have been reading books that introduce different practices within the Craft, whether it be death rituals from around the world, incorporating Druidism into hedgecraft, or in this case, ancestor veneration. Ancestor veneration has become more of an interest of mine as of late due to my experiences as a hedgewitch. I most often work with my animal guides, but find myself wanting more. Furthermore, I wish to develop a more daily-type of practice, although a very simple one. I would like this daily practice to focus on hedgecraft and spirit work, and Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration by Mallorie Vaudoise has given me soooooo much to think about!

I am absolutely in love with this book. It's practical, easy to read, and relatively short. The few spells and rituals are thought out and their inclusion is important to the lessons taught in each chapter. When I read new books, I often leave a lot of the text with the book, taking only bits and pieces of new information and ideas as I find them. This book, however, I took almost all of it with me and left very little, if anything, behind. Vaudoise, a spiritualist of Italian descent, speaks from her personal experiences with her ancestral veneration practice and how she has used a combination of practices sacred to her family and ancestors to determine how to honor them. Her advice is practical and applicable to all those interested in ancestor veneration, whether it be to aid in your spellwork or to bring you comfort.

Each chapter ends with some questions to be answered in a journal, Book of Shadows, or just thought about. The questions are thought-provoking and guide the reader in beginning their own ancestral veneration practice. I felt some of the questions were...blah, so I didn't answer those. I guess the answers felt obvious to me or as if the answer didn't apply to what I was wishing to do. Vaudoise makes it clear you should take what you want and leave the rest. I appreciate her candor and her encouragement to create your own practice. It was her candor and honesty that I loved most about this book. She mentions how when she first started out she bought tons of ritual tools and supplies, only to never use them in her craft. I remember being guilty of this. Actually, I still am. Haha! I often buy witchy things because I like them, not always because I will use them. The majority of my magic uses nothing or very little items. I related to Vaudoise draw to folk magic and simplicity, and appreciate that her book took the same approach. On top of all this, her book is well researched and uses science to support her practice. Anything that includes science, and does so correctly, scores loads of points with me.

If you are interested in working more with your ancestors as part of your practice, especially if you're a hedgewitch, this book 100% gets my approval. Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration by Mallorie Vaudoise will be available September 8, 2019. Looking to find out more about Mallorie Vaudoise? She is also the author and blogger behind ItalianFolkMagic.com."

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This is an interesting introduction to the concept of veneration from a European perspective. As someone who studies the intersection of possibility, family genealogy spirituality it was especially interesting.

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This book is a great introduction to the world of ancestry and spirituality. It's engaging and thorough, which makes it an interesting read.

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As a very, very new beginner to the world of ancestry and spirituality, I found this book to be the perfect introduction for learning how to honor my ancestors. Often, I find that honoring your ancestors is relegated to a brief paragraph in books that tackle other spiritual topics, but this author focuses in on each of the pieces that make this subject a vital and important part of any spiritual practice. I feel like the author included more than enough information to help anyone who is willing to include ancestors as a part of their daily lives and it was engaging to read about the ways the author has done so in their own practice. I found this book easy to read and fascinating to learn from. I look forward to seeing more published work from Mallorie Vaudoise in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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An interesting and engrossing book. I learned new things, it gave me food for thought and it's well written.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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I found this book to be a thoroughly engaging treatise on the subject of honoring my ancestors. While I’ve never been one for “spells,” I felt that I could take what I liked and leave the rest… And there wasn’t much that I left. As someone who is just beginning the journey of claiming and discovering my ancestors stories, I found this book enlightening as well as practical. It is written well, in a warm conversational style that is highly readable.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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(Sorry for possible English mistakes!)
Magic and your ancients people!!! This is magical handbook how to work with your ancestors from "the other side". Yes, there are general explanations about who are actually ancestors and there is one method how you can heal main trauma in your family lines but mostly from this book you'll get information how to approach this work in more traditional magical way. And so, here is presented how one can build altar, how to pray, how to do offerings, how to use plants...and finally how to do occult rituals with one "dictionary of spells" also...all this is from point of view which is connected with your ancestors. There are excellent insights, for ex. you'll understand why we can do magic in first place. Chapters about plants, offerings, prayer are also very interesting. One tip: be slow in reading with this one because text is kinda dense with valuable infos so if you hurry you might miss something! Little criticism: minority of spells are not very practical, that spell for good luck will give you good luck but be careful that you don't have good luck in being little "strange" to your friends and family when doing actual ritual.
In general this is an very informative book mostly for folks who like magic and occult! Now do you remember that some of your ancestors was doing magical things? It can help...find in this book how's that.
Thanks to Llewellyn and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book.

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