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.
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.
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.
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 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.
We went first to Everett Cemetery to find the grave of George Tanner and looked up and down several rows before Dave suddenly came upon it. I'd brought along my stone from Maeve's Mound and had meant to justlay it on the top of the grave, but both Uncle David and Dave had suggested that if I simply left the stone on the grave, the maintenance staff would likely remove it. So, I buried it instead (along with a little piece of quartz) then whispered a wish that the stone might help George and all his descendants find connection to his Ancestral Irish homeland. 
Though I'd forgotten, my parents are also buried at Everett Cemetery, so we visited their grave, as well. Their grave felt oddly disconnected to me: we'd buried their ashes together after my father's death as a way to console my grandmother Tolstrup. Their choices - to be cremated and their ashes dispersed - without a wake and without a gravesite had left Nana without the comfort of the death rituals she'd always known. There was no place to go to for quiet contemplation and grief; no where to place wreaths and flowers. When Dad died, Uncle David asked me if we could bury the ashes in a plot at the cemetery so that Nana could gain some semblance of a sense of closure. Knowing that my parents never meant their funeral arrangements to cause my grandmother any distress, we agreed. Nana's gone now, though and standing at their grave, I wondered if my parents might now want me to disinter their ashes and dispose of them as they'd originally wished. There could be no compelling reason to keep them here: not only did their consignment to this place contradict their desires, but the places themselves and the rituals of burial here felt sanitised and abstract compared to what I felt at Loughcrew and Bear River. There is, it seems, a difference between burial grounds and sacred spaces; funerals and ancestor ceremony. 
We continued on to Forrestdale Cemetery and quickly found Magnus Tolstrup's grave. We had a moment of laughter when I read the inscription: George Tolstrup. Uncle David had continually been telling me that his grandfather was George, not Magnus, and indeed Magnus himself had called himself by his middle name, George from the time he came to America. (He's still Magnus to me). Buried with him was his wife - my great-great grandmother, Louise (Moller). 
I began to dig a little hole for the stone I'd brought from Norway and it suddenly dawned on Uncle David what I was doing. Uncle David is an old rock-hound (and gemologist) from way back and I'd already shown him the Rekkevik rock (because it is unusual) and also that I had picked it up at the ancestral Tolstrup farm. As I was burying it, Uncle David asked, “Is that the stone from Norway?” I answered that it was and that I was buring it there as a way to connect Magnus back to his homeland. To which he smiled and said, “That’s good.” 
With it, I also buried a piece of quartz and whispered a wish for Magnus' easy passage to his ancestral homeland.
Nana Adams (and Aunt Laura)
Grampa Adams
and Great-grandmother Ruggles. For each of them, I left pieces of quartz.
Like Everett, Forrestdale Cemetery - while more peaceful, and certainly more beautiful - is an oddly empty place: unlike the cairns I’d visited in Ireland, there’s no sense here that death relates to life; there's no sense of continuity; no magic. 
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