The long last pilgrimage post 1

Been thinking it's time to wind up my travel posts as a way to move on to (the already advancing) new stage.

My last post told the story of our ancestor feast, which marked -at least- a kind of pinnacle of my pilgrimage experience. All that happened before was a gathering - of resources, intentions and knowledge - which lead me to feel I was prepared to speak to my ancestors with the proper respect, diligence, care and clarity required. I think, with Jim's help, I managed at least our first contact well. It will get better and easier, I think, as contact becomes more habitual. That's what Sal said, anyway..."speak to them like you're speaking to me."

A few days after our feast, Barack Obama was elected President and it was an extraordinary time to be an American and in America. The collective sigh of relief was almost audible and the dark and foreboding mood that had shrouded the country for years lifted in an instant.

Before I left, Jim showed me some bronze plaques imbedded in the sidewalk at the Ft Collins bus station. They seemed particularly poignant. I am ready for home. My wanderer's soul needs the soothing comfort of my own backyard. My mother's soul needs to wrap itself around her (grown-up) boy.

The last few lines of poem I wrote when Max was young sums it up:

The challenge:
to walk both the undulating
dance of my own life and the embracing
stride of a mother. Can I do both? I

travel on with you. Holding
pieces of our attachment in
my pocket. My longing for the sweetness of your scent
close to the surface. My loneliness for you
a bruise. My love for you
a home to which we always return.

A feast for the Ancestors...my first!

With the stone in place and my confidence bolstered by our visit with Sal, I felt ready to prepare our first ancestor feast - to be held at the traditional time for ancestor remembrance, All Soul's Eve and All Hallows Day, October 31st & November 1st. Jim, Kathy and I talked about what we should serve and I did some research about traditional Ancestor Feast and Day of the Dead Foods. On Feast days, it’s traditional to serve the ancestors their favourite foods, however most of the menus I found listed foods like tamales, candied pumpkin, & sugar candy skulls. I’d love those foods, but I’m pretty sure most of our Tolstrup-Moller-Ruggles-Tanner-Adams ancestors would have loathed them...the foods I remembered from childhood were hearty and delicious, but – as good New England (Irish and Norwegian) cuisine is – very, very plain. There’s nary a spice to be seen in most cases: the most exotic food I ate during my childhood was Norwegian Christmas Bread (Yulekaker) which featured cardamon seed. So we talked it over and decided to serve Roast Chicken, roasted acorn squash and potatoes and jellied cranberry sauce. In a gourmet shop downtown, I'd found some beautiful chocolate truffles shaped and coloured like little pumpkins, and other favourite special sweets: Turkish Paste for my mother, caramels for my father, marzipan for my Nana Tolstrup. And Jim poured a small glass of Irish Whisky (for George Tanner, I think).

While the dinner cooked, I set about creating an ancestor shrine in one corner of the dining room. Jim brought out a beautiful batik tablecloth, covered with Celtic symbols and the tree of life and we draped it over a table and backing board to create the setting for a series of photos and markers for all of our ancestors – starting with both my parents and Jim’s mother – and going back 5 generations on each line. Where I didn’t have a photo of the person, I substituted a photo of their gravestone. Where I had neither, I made a name marker that listed my ancestor’s name and birth-death dates.

On the table below the photos, Kathy placed some beautiful framed photos of her parents and grandmother and Jim placed a wooden tray, scattered with autumn leaves, that held a smaller wooden bowl of stones and candles. To it I added some quartz (Irish and Viking sun-stone) I’d picked up at Odiorne Point, as well as stones I’d brought with me from from the Hedrum Jernwerks (Norway) and Maeve’s Mound (Ireland), as well as, some wrapped birch twigs I’d carried from Larvik. Then, I added the sweets I’d bought for Mum, Dad and Nana. In a burst of inspiration, Jim added the magnetic “In Search of George Tanner” sign that I’d made for our Irish adventure and, finally, a photo of Loughcrew.

I’d somehow assumed that when ancestors are honoured at a feast, they should be set a place at the same table as the living, but during my conversation with Sal, I came to realise that some degree of separation between worlds was – at the very least – prudent. He’d been quite clear - unusually adament, in fact - that when Flo prepared feasts for the ancestors, she'd set a separate table for the ancestors – somewhat removed, even, from the one set for the living. I didn't entirely know why (and still don't), but intuitively, this felt right - so we set out our ancestors' feast on a low table next to ours.

Jim carved the chicken and placed the first serving of each food – chicken, squash, potato & cranberry – on a small plate. Beside that he put a cup of tea and the glass of whiskey. Also on the table, Jim placed a photo from the Strokestown Famine Museum (Ireland) and a copy of the Griffiths Valuations 1848 (Irish census).

Then we served ourselves and sat at the table. Before we ate, we spoke to our ancestors. For me, it was the first time I had ever formally addressed them and I felt that I needed to introduce myself and apologise for having neglected them for so long. I spoke directly to each of the photos, addressing that ancestor by name and said that I’d never learned how to pay proper respect, nor how to take proper care of our relationship, but that I was learning (and would continue to learn) and promised to do better. I couldn’t help myself: several times as I spoke, I felt a flood of emotion and tears of gratitude, relief, sorrow, joy, hope, regret and love flowed freely.
Jim asked for the ancestors to help us and to help our descendants (mentioning Julia, Ella and Max, by name) He spoke about this being a pivotal in time in the history of the earth and said that we need the ancestors help to set the planet right again.

We ate our delicious dinner, then talked about our memories of particular people – Nana and Grampa Tolstrup, Nana Adams, My Mum and Dad and Jim’s Mum. Jim sang his Ballad of George Tanner and then went on to sing other traditional Irish songs.

When we were finished, we took the ancestors’ foods outside and placed them in front of the petroglyph, where we also burned some sage and lit a candle. Then we went to bed.

But I couldn’t sleep. I felt moved to say more, so I sat up in my bed and addressed my ancestors one by one – starting with my mother and father and working backwards to my great-great grandfathers George Tanner, Thomas Edward Ruggles and Mathias Tolstrup. To those, I'd known in this life, I spoke about our living relationship, about letting go whatever unresolved issues there might be, telling each that I was now ready to let them be spirit. To each of my ancestors, I said what I thought they'd given me, said “your blood is in my blood” and told them that I loved them.

I told my Mother that she gave me my capacity for joy; My Dad that he’d given me my sense of integrity and honour and that he’d taught me how to love with quiet constancy.

I told Nana Tolstrup that she’d given me a sense of being loved absolutely for who I am; and thanked Grampa Tolstrup for championing any of my childhood displays of bravery or courage. I spoke at length to Grampa, telling him that I was sorry to have misjudged him in my misinterpretation of the past. But I also said that by letting me hold him to blame for my hurt, his spirit had allowed me to give reason and shape to a deep depression and had helped me through a very hard time.I spoke also to Nana Adams and told her that I’d always admired her quiet strength. I said I wished I had known her better and had had the opportunity to show her the depth of my love, gratitude. I thanked her for raising such a loving son – so that he could be such a perfect father for me. I spoke to Grampa Adams and told him that he is the first of my ancestors that I did not know, but that I now felt driven to find out more about him. I said that his blood runs in my veins and he is a part of me.

I then spoke to Magnus and Louise (Moller) Tolstrup– I told Magnus that I felt deeply connected to him – that I’d walked where he'd walked, sat where he’d sat – had walked down the street where he’d lived and seen the mailbox that bore his name. I said that I felt I knew something about his spirit and how his spirit had formed me: the sense of adventure – being drawn so strongly by the unknown and by the potential of something ‘other’ that you almost don’t have time to be scared. There’s something of the starry-eyed in him, I think that is also in me. I spoke to Louise saying that I was only coming to know her and want to know her better.

Next, I spoke to great-grandfather (Thomas M) Ruggles and told him that I got the sense he was a bit misunderstood. He was, perhaps, an adventurer in the midst of homebodies and had been judged somewhat harshly for it. I told him he was a handsome devil and that I thought that had caused him some trouble, but that I thought I could understand his need for adventure and for exploring the unknown.

Then I spoke to great-grandmother Harriet (Tanner) Ruggles: I told her that I could see that not only do I have her blood, but that I might look a bit like her, too I thanked her, in fact thanked both Harriet and Thomas, for raising such an extraordinary daughter – my grandmother whose love was central to my sense of worth.

Next I spoke with Mathias Tolstrup – telling him that I’d stood on the ground of his family farm, walked on the ground where he’d grown up. I told him that his sea-faring blood coursing in my veins had helped form my sense of adventure.

My heart lightened as I spoke to my great-great grandfather Thomas (Edward) Ruggles . I never knew him, but from the stories Uncle David told, I know that I would have liked him (and he, me) I told him that I feel that his blood in my veins is what gives me my inclination towards optimism and well-being: I told him I appreciated his vision of his experience of life as ‘salubrious’, that I loved his humour and playfulness.

I spoke last to George Tanner and said that I felt a great empathy, not only for the hardships his family had endured, but as well their experience of a new land: I said that his story resembles Max's story. Both were 11 years old when they were brought by their parents to a new life and a new home in a brand new country. I told him that I wanted to know more about his life in Ireland and wouldn't give up the search until I could stand on the same Irish ground where they'd stood.

I cried again. I’m not sure why – but I think that it’s, in part at least, that I wish I could really know these people; that we could speak together and that they could tell me who they were, what they dreamed, what mattered to them. Perhaps they will somehow. Flo told me to listen for them in my dreams – that they’d tell me what to say/sing to them, what I need to know, what they have to tell me. I hope she’s right.

George Tanner meets Jim Tolstrup

There are still more adventures to unfold for you here, but the truth is I've been back in Fremantle for a couple of weeks now and the intensity of re-adjustment has my writing temporarily stymied. I can feel myself slowly catching up to myself - so, I'll return to the story soon, I promise.

Part of catching-up has entailed re-reading a number of emails that arrived during my travels. With often dodgy internet connection, I was only able to give many of them the most cursory glance (and no follow-up) - including one that came from Jim in early September. He sent a copy of the song lyrics he wrote for our great-great-great grandfather, George Tanner. They're really quite wonderful. This is the very song Jim sang for me, for his new Irish friends (and for our ancestors) on Tara Hill. Here they are:

George Tanner’s Lament

Oh my name is George Tanner from Ireland I come
Escaping from hunger with my wife and my young sons

With one inspiration in our hearts and our minds

The hope of a good life leaving sorrows behind

Well we lived for a while way up in Portland Maine

But after a while long we were moving again

We come down to East Boston with one thought in mind

To look for a good life leaving sorrows behind

Now Boston’s a fine town and they call it “The Hub”

But it’s “No Dogs or Irish” in all of the pubs

And an Irishman’s wages are meager you’ll find

When you look for a good life leaving sorrows behind

Young George, James and William fought in the Civil War

For a country that’ll take us is worth fighting for

Homeless and hungry and what did we find?

America’s sorrows leaving sorrow behind

Then we wandered so long we forgot whence we came

We forgot our green country, forgot our own name

Though we’re no longer hungry we lost ties that bind

us to good life leaving sorrows behind

I would ask my grandmother but she’s many years gone

But I feel she’s still near when I’m singing this song
And her memory’s imprinted on my heart and mind

She’s gone to a good life leaving sorrows behind

After many long years I’m returning once more

To taste all the joys and the grief our folks bore

To feed their hungry spirits and for my own to find

I come looking for a good life leaving sorrows behind

But now the Earth’s changing, the water and air

Old grievances don’t matter if there’s no future there

When we care for all beings and learn to be kind

Then we’ll find a good life and leave sorrow behind

What to say and how to say it. Who to ask and what to ask them.

Intuition is one thing, but right from the start I’ve known that this work was too important to leave to the whims of my intuition. Without my own cultural traditions to fall back on, I’d combed the anthropological literature for resonant beliefs and practices. Through my travels, I sought counsel from others who recognised that working with the ancestors meant calling on forces that can have powerful influence on both the spiritual and physical well-being of the living; forces my culture barely recognises as real and seems not to fully understand. Along the way, much of what I’d come to intuitively had been fortified: countless others – like me – have felt inspired to leave messages in stone for their ancestors; countless others have spoken, or sung invitations, acknowledgements and apologies to their ancestors to establish a habit of interaction and attention (and to make amends for past neglect); countless others celebrate their relationship to their ancestors via a ceremony or feast.

Creating a feast, seemed the right thing to do. Jim and I decided, that once the stone was in place we would dedicate it with a feast held for our ancestors. The timing seemed auspicious: I would finished carving the petroglyph just a week before Samhain/All Souls/Day of the Dead. The night of Oct 31st figures largely in many traditions, so we decided it felt right for us, too. I set about planning the event – though felt something was missing: I wanted to speak to my ancestors, but I didn’t know what to say...or how to say it. While I’ve felt a deeply driven longing to connect with the spirits of my ancestors, I have also felt a degree of fear about unleashing forces or mis-managing forces I don’t completely undertand. I wanted to speak to my ancestors, but unclear about what I should say...or how I should say it. Much of what I’d heard or read about talking with the ancestors had to do with placating them – so as not to arouse their capricious anger - or asking them for help in the day to day affairs of the living. Neither resonated with me. I hadn’t felt victimised by ancestral pranks, nor was there anything I wanted from my ancestors, I wanted only to say, “Here I am. I am your descendant and this is my son. I’m sorry I haven’t properly acknowledged you before now. I promise to do better.” I just didn’t know how. I’d also come to consider whether there was a proper way to draw the ancestors to me... and as well, to lead them away again.

I thought again about Sal and Flo Yepa and felt – more than ever – a need for their wise and practiced counsel. Sal and Flo are two of the gentlest, most generous and most graceful people I’ve ever met. Their understanding of the sacred nature of the world springs directly from their Puebloan culture and is honed through daily practice and attendance to the spirits in everything around them. I called them and Jim and I headed off to visit them in New Mexico.

When we arrived, Sal was alone. Flo had gone to Albuquerque for an appointment she'd had to keep. We sat down in their kitchen and Sal offered us breakfast –coffee, fresh tortillas and fried eggs with the most delicious chile I’ve ever eaten. We chatted while he cooked, then he sat down and asked me what I’d been doing. I told him briefly about my research and my questions: How should I talk with the ancestors, what should I say? Sal’s cousin came in and our talk flowed naturally to other things – daily life, struggles, gratitude, evolution - what changes and what doesn’t.

After his cousin left, Sal said that he wanted to take us somewhere. We drove up along the side of a steep canyon and Sal pointed to a mountain where his ancestors had lived thousands of years ago until they’d been driven out by an enemy tribe. Sal then pointed to another mountain that had been their next tribal home - one that had lasted until the Spanish came. Sal told us that there were still the remains of structures and numerous artifacts scattered across the mountain top. I was struck by the power of living in a place where the landscape around you was one that illustrated your ancestral story: how different my experience of place – and of home – that is. We came to a waterfall and Sal told us to stop. He said that this place was very special to him. It was the place where he and Flo had fallen in love and where they'd often come when they were troubled and felt the need for guidance. It was a beautiful place of deeply cut red rock and powerful, rushing water: a sound that always quiets me. Jim scrambled down to the river's edge and Sal sat down on a large boulder overhanging the canyon. He motioned me to sit next to him and helped me over the rocks. We quietly sat for a moment and then he simply turned to me and said, “Just talk to your ancestors the way you talk to me. Tell them what’s in your heart. It will be right” I was struck by how simple and matter-of-fact his answer was. I asked him how I should call the ancestors to come to me and he said that when it’s time for their annual ancestor feast, he and Flo travel to the highest point in the Pueblo at dawn with offerings of corn seed and pollen (traditional sacred offerings in Puebloan culture) and simply invite their ancestors to follow them home. Once home again, the ancestors are invited to sit at a special table Flo has prepared for them and are served the first portions of favourite foods. I told Sal I was concerned about calling the spirits to me without knowing what I should do after that and he nodded his head in approval. He told me that the feast table is left overnight, but the next morning all foods are removed and that the table and settings are stored away. A mixture of cornmeal and honey is then prepared and used to lead the ancestors away and back up the mountain again where they are thanked and bid farewell. Sal’s advice made me feel calm. That my questions had clear and practical answers, let me know that they were the right questions to ask and that my intuition was still serving me well – both in regards to what I should ask and where I should go to find the answers.

On our way back to Ft. Collins, we stopped at a quite amazing place - The Garden of the Gods (in southern Colorado near Colorado Springs).

The Globaloness Project

Jim put me on to this organisation and website and I’m incredibly grateful for it (you can find the link in my 'Favourite Websites' list on the right of this page). I spent a day (when I’d meant to be writing) caught up in watching one video after another. Each one a little miracle along the way towards my understanding of how the Sacred exists next to us; how we experience and express it; how simple it can be; how it connects all things.

I highly recommend listening to Max Duramunmun Harrison, Dr. Rangimarie Turuki Rose Peri and Bob Randall. The piece that struck the deepest chord in me however was one in which poet and social justice activist Drew Dillinger reads his poem Ancestors and Angels. I, too, pray to become a conduit.

Here it is.

Messages come from the most unexpected places

I spent the several days in Ft Collins, stuck in a sense of aimlessness – perhaps because so much had happened and I desperately needed the rest (not to mention some time to synthesise something of what I’d gathered, learned and experienced on the journey thus far), but from the outset my plan had been to carve a 2nd petroglyph here – for Jim – knowing that of all my family he is the one most likely to get what I'm trying to do and to take my efforts - and the task of attending to the ancestors - seriously. I’d gained some valuable knowledge and skills from my work on the 1st petroglyph and knew that I needed to give careful consideration to the design and layout of the images I would carve into the stone. I wanted to rework the design – not only for clarity’s sake but also to add to the depth of its meaning. In working the first petroglyph, I’d realised that overlapping the different graphic images (the crows and sun symbol overlapping the boat) made them difficult to read. I also realised that I wanted to add representations of both my living family and our ancestors to the glyph.

I spent a few days playing with some new designs and also practiced carving them on some red sandstone Jim and Kathy had left over from a patio they’d built. Though the sandstone carved easily and beautifully, none of the pieces were big enough to have real impact when set into the landscape of the yard (not that there are rules about the dimensions of such things) and it seemed clear that Jim wanted a stone with a bit more heft and presence. We searched through a number of landscaping stone yards until we found the perfect stone. It had a beautifully flat and even surface on one side (perfect for carving) and was craggy, beautifully mottled & covered with lichen on the other. I spent the evening plotting the scale and layout of the glyphs and began carving it the next day. I’d mistakenly thought the stone to be some sort of reddish sandstone, but it turned out to be something much harder – ironstone, I think. The hardness of the stone meant that the progress of the work was very slow, but this allowed for the ‘occupied monkey-mind’ reflection time that seems to be the key factor in all the artwork I choose to do. The hardness (and texture) of the stone also meant that though the lines took a fair amount of effort to inscribe, they held a very clean, crisp and clear edge.

My efforts were a bit tentative at first, but I quickly developed a feel for the stone. I settled in to the work with a sense of confidence and a steady rhythm that allowed space for me to think deeply about my reasons for doing this work and to imagine ancient others - perhaps even my own ancestors - who had engaged in this very activity: somehow, I’d assumed that the images the ancients had chosen to inscribe in stone must have reflected the ‘big’ concepts of their cultures, but as I worked, I had time to reflect and felt like I was coming closer to understanding what it might have been like for the ancients to do this sort of work – the whys and hows suddenly seemed much less mysterious/much more accessible. Perhaps they, like me, carved their glyphs as simple messages, simple prayers – for connection, belonging, in gratitude and in hope. As I worked, I felt like I was (almost) one of them..

For the next two days, I carved from morning until evening. Jim had been away at a conference and when he came home he was surprised at the progress. He sat with me as I worked and asked me about the meaning of the symbols I’d carved: On the upper right were two human figures – one right-side-up and the other upside-down (representing the living and the dead, us and the ancestors). On the ancestor figure there were 5 lines inscribed for our five preceding generations. In the upper left, I’d carved a sun/circle symbol – with 3 incised lines creating (as Jim pointed out) 5 sections. Though we're no longer clear on its precise meaning, the sun symbol seemed to represent renewal & regeneration and had held significance for both our ancient Norse and Irish ancestors while, for me, the circle held the significance I'd learned (and felt moved by) at the Kearsarge Indian Museum. It is what binds and connects all things: once we know our place in the circle, we know where we belong. Lastly, I’d also begun carving the first of 2 boats: one to represent the physical journey of our ancestors from their homelands to America, as well as our own journey to to search for and reclaim them. The other to represent the metaphysical journey of their souls to the afterworld; to return to us; and to return to their homelands. As I was finishing up the day’s work, Jim and I also talked about a number of specific ancestors, including my mother, and we both agreed that it felt like she was with us as we talked. It occurred to me that a significant piece of this work might occur in it's potential to shift my relationships with the ancestors - specifically, those ancestors with whom I had a living relationship and who have passed away during my lifetime - from operating on a predominantly practical/profane plane to one that is something more spiritual/sacred. It occurred to me that this was an avenue well worth exploration in terms of how this same idea might be addressed and manifested in other cultures.

I would liked to have continued to work at a similar pace, but by the end of the second day, I could barely lift my arms or close my fingers around the chisel. I didn't really mind, I felt a glorious kind of tired.

I rested few days then worked again. The third day’s work consisted of finishing the boats and plotting where I might carve a few crow figures. I scratched the faint outlines of two crows into the rock surface, but felt a degree of hesitation about proceeding any further – I wasn’t sure if it was because I lacked confidence that I could carve them well (the crows I carved in the Malden granite had not come out as well as I’d hoped) or felt somehow that there was something unresolved about their inclusion, but suspected (knowing my process) that it was the latter. I knew I had to think it through before proceeding, to determine not only what the crows represent, but how many there should be: 3 might represent past, present, future; 5 might relate to 5 generations; 2 (as there were presently scratched into the surface) might represent the living and the dead, or the physical/metaphysical. One day, Jim told me about a young Native American man he’d met at the conference who'd told a story about a time when he was unclear about what he was meant to do and whether he was following the right path. He went to the mountains to ask his ancestors for a sign – and said to them that if he was on the right path he wanted them to show him a green arrow (!). He said he'd been praying hard for an hour or so when suddenly the clouds parted and the (green) northern lights appeared over a mountain across the water, gathered themselves into an arrow shape and flew across the water towards him. (Nice to get clear signs!) As I listened to the story, it occurred to me that I not only have no idea how to pray, but absolutely no idea who to pray to. I also felt astonished to realise that in asking (or praying) for a sign, it would never have occurred to me to specify what I wanted the sign to look like (which, on reflection seems entirely practical. If you ask for a green arrrow and a green arrow shows up, you don't have to wonder if you've imgined anything). There seemed a lovely kind of familiarity and trust inherent in the story and it left a kind of Aesop's fables impression on me: something along the lines of "clear signs come from knowing who to pray to (and how to do it)". I realised that I’ve never felt any clarity about how or why I might pray, but felt somehow that in my current frame of mind (and heart) any prayer I might engage in would quite naturally be directed towards my ancestors (who else would care to listen?). I felt inspired to explore the hows, whys and to whoms of prayer with the people I know who already seem to have a clear sense of their ancestors and a habit of attending to them: Sal, Flo, Sam and Wanda. This train of thought felt good, it felt like a breakthrough – I finally knew another piece I needed to learn and had a fair idea where to begin. I felt happy.

I carved the first crow and the second, then a couple of cold, wet & windy autumn days passed giving me plenty of time (and the perfect excuse) to consider the ‘crow question’. One evening, I mentioned to Jim that I was wrestling with whether I should carve a third crow into the stone. A little while later, he called me outside, pointed to the sky and said ‘look’. I looked up in the tree above us, saw two crows and said aloud, “Okay, I get it. Two.”Jim asked, “Why two?” and I answered, “Because there are two crows.” To which he said, “No, look, there are three.” When I looked again, the third crow rose up, and flapped his wings and I said, “Okay, Three”at which point they all started cawing loudly and flapping their wings at me. I laughed and said, "Okay. Okay. I get it now. I’ll get back to it as soon as the weather clears!” They scolded me some more and then all three flew away. I spent a final day carving the third crow and every now and then would look up to see whether my crows were sitting in the tree, watching. I even called to them, inviting them to come and take a look. But no one came (at least not while I was working.) I could here them though – not far away – calling to each other. They did come back, however...one more time and in the most impressive display yet. Jim and I had planned an ancestor feast for Halloween night and while Kathy and I were out buying what we needed to make the dinner, Jim erected the finished petroglyph in their front yard. Just before dusk, Jim said, “Come outside and see this.” I walked outside and a half dozen or more crows were swooping low over the house and yard while dozens more cawed from the nearby trees. I was transfixed and realised that I’d come to see the crows as ancestors.- or at least as their messengers. I asked one after the other, “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?”and even listed several names, “Are you Ed? Are you Marge? Are you Harriet? Are you Magnus?” It didn’t matter whether there was an answer. I’m overwhelmed by the thought that it’s ancestors come to tell me that this is right and that they’re here.

Grateful we are here

A lot has come clear in the last few weeks. I’ve wrestled with certain questions about what I am doing. Not the least of which amongst those was ‘How do I do this so that it has meaning?’ I guess part of my hesitation comes from the fact that I have – I have been taught - no process by which I am confident that I can/will feel the presence of the ancestors in my day-to-day life; to establish an easy relationship with the sacred. I know that I have experienced certain moments in my life that seemed to exist outside of profane space and time, but still I have lacked the confidence to embrace my own perceptions and experience of the sacred. I live within a culture that (largely) distrusts the very word and have found it interesting (sometimes ironically amusing, sometimes sad) that my culture doesn’t know how to coexist easily with the word...or the concept. It says a lot about us.

So, in looking for what is sacred, I have also been looking for a way to establish an easy relationship with how the sacred has/might manifest in my own life. I want not to feel like an outsider to – not simply and observer of - my own sacred experiences.
In case this all sounds hesitant and sad, this search has been anything but that. It’s been filled with a growing sense of clarity, connection and belonging. My journey has been – as it had to be – motivated and guided entirely by intuition: I don’t even know where most of it has come from. I do know that most of it has been clarified, solidified, verified along the way. That’s pretty astounding when I think of it.

So here it is. I left Fremantle to look for the trail of my ancestors hoping that along the way, I’d find out where I belong. Lately this quest has felt akin to Dorothy’s search in The Wizard of Oz: the search for something I’ve always had, but never knew – or learned - to recognise; to honour; to appreciate or to cherish. I know now. What’s left is to create a daily context of interaction/attendance to what I have acknowledged, discovered and gathered over the last few months. I have established and re-established relationships with a number of the scattered living members of my tribe and have forged new relationships with many who have passed. I’ve followed my instincts and asked advice from the people I’ve met whose traditions recognise the power of ancestors not only in defining our place and solidifying our sense of belonging, but more as a reminder to be grateful that we are here, as ourselves – the unique and perfect amalgamation of all in our lineage who have come before us – and to be thankful.

I can do this.