How Spring Breathes New Life Into Ancestral Practices

Estimated Reading Time 5 minutes | Song: Egun (Ancestors) by Onyi Love

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One thing about my Taurean heart, I absolutely love spring. For me, spring just breathes new life and rebirth and makes me excited to witness the ways the Earth around me is awakening. Growing up in the Mid-West, what excited me most about spring was things finally went from brown to green. This was one of the same reasons I knew I would either live somewhere tropical or down south because that brown just dampened my spirit. In Spring, I find myself having more energy and wanting to be more social than when I was in hibernation mode in the winter or nesting mode in the fall. 

In Spring, I find it easy to connect to the ways my ancestors did things like spring cleaning and baby, I love a good deep clean and it being warm enough to open up all of the windows to let some natural air come in. Clean fresh air just blowing through the house does something for me. So here are 5 of my favorite ways to incorporate my ancestral practices in daily life in the spring. 

Honoring the Land

In my lineages and many across the diaspora, before we planted seeds in the ground we engaged in ceremony like dance or singing to honor the land that held us and made way for us to produce crops for our substance. In my lineages we lived in deep relationship to the land and the water because we were agrarians. It is important to remember that during the TransAtlantic Slave Trade they sought out those that could withstand the harsh conditions of marshlands, swamps and knew how to cultivate crops (link to Leah Penniman podcast). Black folks in America have always had a relationship with the earth. 

One of the ways my family honors the Earth, especially the land we inhabit and steward, is to have a small ceremony of chanting and setting intention while asking for permission from the land for the desired crops we want to plant that season. This is a deeply decolonial practice in, many of us have been told or taught that land is ours for the taking instead of being a living, breathing relative to honor and seek permission from. 

What this could look like for you is saying a small prayer while standing outside barefoot in your yard or back patio (if you do not have access to unpaved land) or going outdoors and playing a song that always makes you feel gratitude. These are ways to honor the land as the living ancestor she is. 

Blessing the Seeds

I am not sure where I was or what event I was participating in where we were outdoors and began in ceremony whispering our intentions or affirmations to the seeds we were about to plant before we planted them but it made such a profound impact on me. Ever since I have continued to do so and have taught the young people to do the same. In years past, at the end of harvest season the seeds were collected and store away for future use. This helped to preserve so many heirloom seeds that still exist today even with the threat of GMO or modified seeds. 

This practice is very simple. After asking the land you plan to steward for permission to cultivate crops there, you gather the seeds you desire to plant. I like to hold them out of the seed container or packet in my palm and whisper over them my intention or affirmation. Some times this is just a simple thank you in advance for the abundance they will produce and allow me to share with my family, friends and community. Of course you can make this as simple or as intricate as you want to and then plant the seeds. 

Deep Cleaning the Home

In my Niecy Nash voice, “Who wants a clean house?” Growing up in a Black household there wasn’t a single day we did not have chores to do to maintain the home. On school breaks it probably meant we were going to deep clean and area of the house my mom did not have the chance to get to during the week while she was at work and you know what the elders say, many hands make light work. Spring time cleaning was different though, it usually started with a raising of all the windows as long as it was warm enough or even the first full warm day in spring and then someone cued the music (thank you, RNB Radar for this cleaning house playlist) and the work began. 

For Spring cleaning, everything that was old, broken and unable to be mended or re-purposed was released and given away or delivered to Goodwill. These days, I do NOT  recommend sending clothes to Goodwill or Salvation Army (yes, it has everything to do with the harm it causes to the environment and ‘third world countries’) but instead find other uses for them if they are stained, soiled or unable to be worn by someone else. As the music would play (often church music) we would clean each of our rooms and the common areas of the house from top to bottom, front to back and when we finished dusting, sweeping corners and vacuuming, we lit a candle in our rooms or incense. I never knew this was an ancestral practice and way of clearing stagnant energy in a space until I was much older but I knew how it made me feel when things were cleaned and organized. 

Even while living off-grid, my family and I make and intentional effort to clean our RV from front to back and top to bottom before lighting incense to seal the space. 

Making Florida Water

Not everyone across the diaspora used Florida water or knew what it was. In fact, I remember as a kid mixing multiple cleaning products to try to get the best cleaning combination in the hot bucket of water. This meant we sometimes mixed a bunch of chemicals that should have never been used together. With my family having auto-immune issues and toxins being in most ‘cleaning products’, I make the majority of our cleaning products and add a lil Florida water to it. 

The cleaning products I make are the same ones my elders and ancestors used before Fabulouso and Pine Sol were a thing. They regularly consist of some combination of lemon or orange peels, distilled white vinegar, water, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Now about this Florida water. 

Florida water is a mixture of citrus fruits, herbs and typically vodka that has been steeped and made into a wash. It is added to spray bottles for cleaning or even some buckets of water not only to cleanse a space but to freshen it and add a layer of protection. This is one tool many Africans used in their southern folk practices.

Now this is for certain not an extensive list of ancestral practices to do for Spring but these are ways I have learned to incorporate my ancestors and their wisdom into spring and breathe some new life into our home and living space.