If you already selected an element and want to get its parent, you can call find(:xpath, '..') on it.
To get the parents parent, call find(:xpath, '../..').

Example

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Read more Show archive.org snapshot

Find a link which contains a twitter icon and check that it links to the correct page:

<a href="http://twitter.com/">
  <i class="icon is-twitter"></i>
</a>

link = page.find("a .icon.is-twitter").find(:xpath, '..')
link[:href].should == "http://twitter.com/"

There is a good overview on xpath syntax on w3schools Show archive.org snapshot . But as xpath expressions can get quite complex and hard to understand for fellow developers, it's best to keep them short and simple.