The Ancestral Altar

Craft personally meaningful Rituals and connect with your Ancestors

Created byRegan Drouin Halas

Last updated 5/2025

English

What you'll learn

How to build, activate, tend and practice with an Altar
How to cultivate a relationship with the Unseen/Ancestors in a personally-meaningful way.
Questioning and shifting unexamined and fear-based perceptions of death and cultivating a healthier relationship with the reality of death...
Coming to a greater understanding of one's personal 'mythologies'.

Course content

5 sections • 19 lectures • 1h 6m total length

Introduction2:04
The Thinning Veil & Orientation8:19
Please read through this material before embarking on your journey. It will give you a sense of the territory ahead and how I, as your guide help you to navigate it. Skimming through these pages will also give you a stronger sense of whether or not this course is for you!

Why Practice?2:35
What is the significance and motive for practicing in this way?
The Imagination3:03
This video discusses the power and importance of the Imagination in spiritual work.
Who are the Ancestors?2:00
An exploration of the concept of 'Ancestry'.
Establishing a Relationship with the Unseen / Ancestors2:10
On these pages you will find suggestions for making a relationship with your Ancestors through imagination, ritual and contemplation.

Sacred Space2:43
Perspective on the nature and meaning of sacred space.
Preparing to Work: Opening Sacred Space1:55
Some suggestions and guidelines to keep your practice simple, accessible and effective.
Building and Activating An Ancestral Altar3:38
These pages offer suggestions and the reasons behind them; to help you build a personally meaningful altar and tend to it.
Preparing Your Altar6:48
About the Altar5:58
Guided Meditation6:53
This video offers suggestions on how to set-up and initiate a basic sitting-meditation practice. It includes a short guided meditation which can be practiced virtually anywhere.

Death2:11
Exploring conceptions of death as a critical part of the cycle of life.
The Veil3:23
This video explores the concept of the 'Veil between the worlds', a metaphor for the thin, gauzy and actually illusory boundary between what is incarnate and that which is dis-incarnate.
The Word: Written & Spoken3:07
The power of 'utterance' both written and spoken...
Writing, Practice, & Prompts6:39
Explore your own perspective of death through contemplations and writing accompanied by suggestions, prompts and wisdom from those who have embraced it as a natural part of life.
Further Practice Suggestions2:28
Keep things interesting by engaging the mysteries from different angles. This sheet will get you started with some ideas for ritual, visualization and alternative practices.

Requirements

All that is required is a curiosity and desire to explore one's own relationship to the immaterial or unseen.

Description

This course will guide you in an exploration of how to open sacred space, connect with your personal ancestry and live with an awareness of life's mysteries. You will explore the purpose of an Altar and how to build a meaningful one of your own. The focus of this course is the Autumnal Season (Samhain). Autumn symbolizes letting go as nature prepares for winter. Death (in its many forms) is a part of all of our lives; making a conscious relationship with it can help us to live more vividly, to examine our assumptions and release our fears.

"On a basic level, acknowledging the ancestors, considering those who have pre-dated me; their lives and their struggle to lay the pathways that I now walk... and the fact that we, ourselves will one day be ancestors, recalls to me the great ineffable cycle of birth and death that we are all a part of. No one escapes death, so it best not be a topic to dread or avoid; indeed, it is vast and intriguing in scope and territory. Let us begin to dissolve our fears."
~Raven Grimassi

This course is suitable for anyone wishing to begin or deepen their spiritual practice.

Testimonials

This was a really insightful course. It helped me become more knowledgeable about spirituality, and I was able to apply the lessons to my own life.

- Alex Watson

Who this course is for:

Those who want to explore the deeper topics of life.
Those seeking spiritual empowerment.
Spiritual Seekers
Witches
Meditation pracitioners

The Ancestral Altar

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction2 lectures • 10min

Establishing a Relationship with the Unseen / Ancestors4 lectures • 10min

Building, Tending, Activating and Practicing with an Ancestral Altar6 lectures • 28min

Inquiry and Imagination5 lectures • 18min

Post-Workshop & Continuing Your Exploration2 lectures • 1min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: