Be a Good Ancestor Now

I’ve been doing my own genealogy for years, and recently I have begun to help others search for their ancestors. I have literally seen the lines, uninterrupted, of parents and children, and parents and children, stretching out and down from the past into our waking present. I cannot see that without also being able to envision my parents’ names at the top of that tree, with the unknown generations who will stretch out past us. But what world are we leaving to those who will come after?

I can no longer think of the future without wondering which generation of my family’s children will run out of fresh water. Do I care? Should you care? After all, I won’t be here. Yes. Yes I should. Yes you should. Anything else is selfish and human selfishness is killing the planet.

Human selfishness is killing the planet. Which means it’s also killing us. We need to cultivate the mindfulness that the planet we walk on is part of us. Our blood, bone, and tissue evolved from the life that crept out of the oceans. We carry the earth within us. We are not separate from it.

The way Western culture lives is not sustainable. Most of the people I know work hard and get little in return for it. I know they often decide not to care, because they don’t think they can make a difference, and if no one else is sacrificing, why should they?

Big Corporation wants us to think that. They want us to feel like we can’t make change. That’s part of the problem. We all need to make hard choices or the places we love, that feed us, will keep disappearing.

Make choices like your decisions will decide the fate of the next seven generations of your descendants. Because they will. This week I am sharing some photos of my favorite places in nature, places I hope those who come after me will be able to experience for themselves. Included among the photos are quotes on sustainability

The supreme reality of our time is ...the vulnerability of our planet.

- John F. Kennedy

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?"

- Rachel Carson

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

- Henry David Thoreau

We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.

- Terri Swearingen

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something.

- Carl Sagan

One planet, one experiment.

- Edward O. Wilson

There is a great need for the introduction of new values in our society, where bigger is not necessarily better, where slower can be faster, and where less can be more.

- Gaylord Nelson

Reducing our levels of consumption will not be a sacrifice but a bonus if we simply redefine the meaning of the word 'success.'

- David Wann

Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

- Kurt Vonnegut

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

- Cree Indian Proverb

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

- Albert Einstein 

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

- Native American Proverb

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.  

- John Muir

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.  

- Edward Everett Hale

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.  

- Archibald MacLeish

Again and again

Some people in the crowd wake up.

They have no ground in the crowd

And they emerge according to broader laws.

They carry strange customs with them,

And demand room for bold gestures.

The future speaks ruthlessly through them.  

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Quotes Contributed to:

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) was the 35^th President of the United States of America. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American marine biologist. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. Terri Swearingen, a nurse from Ohio, was the 1997 Goldman Prize winner. Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and author. Edward O. Wilson (b.1929) is an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist, and author. Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005) was an American Democratic Senator and Governor from Wisconsin. David Wann is an author/speaker of sustainability. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) was an American writer. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher. Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was an American author, historian and Unitarian minister. Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was an Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist.

Talking Trash for Earth Day

“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”

~Paulo Coelho

I take daily walks around my neighborhood, often playing Lisa Gerrard’s “Sacrifice” or Deva Premal’s “Gaté Gaté” low in my ear buds as I wove through the neighborhood. I keep the volume just high enough to drown out the street traffic, but not so loud as to drown out the natural birdsong. The ice and snow have melted in my residential area, unveiling the layers of litter, clothing, red Solo cups, broken bottles, and pieces of furniture long gone to the curb.

People walk by it every day and don’t see it. It happens. The garbage becomes part of the background, or maybe people get depressed by it and they stop seeing it. Where I live, it’s a mixed bag. One block to the west of us is made up of quiet residential homes and the streets are nearly cleaned up post-snow melt after just a couple of weeks.

One block to the east of us is mostly rental apartments. The difference in the condition of the yards and streets is tangible. There is a sense of “I didn’t put that garbage there. It’s not my garbage. It’s not my yard. It’s not my job.”

Just a quick walk around the corner this morning revealed an old sweatshirt, a small plastic child’s pennywhistle, chunks of broken liquor bottles, a rusty metal bedframe in pieces, old plastic bags with soupy dog shit, candy wrappers, a warped phone book, a car gas tank cover, three empty dime bags, a baby shoe, a row of abandoned plastic cups, a plethora of cigarette butts of varying ages, and a deflated basketball. I picked up the garbage, wearing a pair of kitchen gloves, and put it to the curb with my trash.

Side note: As a general rule, I only pick up trash between the sidewalk and the curb, or from vacant and abandoned houses. I don’t go into people’s yards without their permission. I did learn, while walking around and snapping pictures, that other people may not see or want to pick up their own trash, but they sure get persnickety when they realized that I saw it and was documenting it. I guess blinding yourself to something sad only works if everyone is in silent agreement to do the same. I have also learned that most people are more than willing to let me pick up the trash in their yards. Only a few get suspicious that I have ulterior motives… that there might be treasure in their trash that I am lying about. I couldn’t possibly just be doing it because it needs to be done.

I rent. I don’t own my apartment. I don’t own my house. I don’t own my yard. I don’t own my street. But I care what the yard looks like. I care what my home looks like, and what that message says to others when they come to visit. I think the way people live is a reflection of what they think they deserve. I may not have the money to move into a nicer neighborhood, but I can keep my home clean. I can steward myself to the earth that holds me. I can care for it. I can do that much.

It doesn’t matter if it is my trash or not. It doesn’t matter if I was the one who threw the garbage to the ground or not. It doesn’t matter if I own the yard or not. The Earth belongs to everyone and I am a part of it, walking with my eyes open. The garbage is there. Someone has to clean it up.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

~Mahatma Gandhi

I don’t want to live in a home full of trash. I don’t want to come home to a yard full of trash. I don’t want to park my car on a street covered in trash. It makes me sad to see the spring crocuses and daylilies choking beneath so much garbage. We all need a little breathing room. 

Spring Cleansing & Home Blessing

Equinox is upon us, mid-point between the longest night of the year and the longest day and we bask in the warmth like turtles on a log, like snakes on the rocks. Winter mostly behind us, we throw open our windows and curtains, letting the first of the warmer air blow through. Light hits the corners of our darkened caves.

If our bodies are the temple of our spirits and deserve the best of our attentions and care, our homes are the temples our bodies depend on. My home is more to me than wood and flooring, than roof and wall. It is not my property but it is my sanctuary, my resting place. It is sacred.

Spring is the best time to scrub your house of its dark corners. House cleansings and home blessings can be done to simply rejuvenate the space, as well as more specific reasons like moving into a new home or after a remodel, a traumatic death in the home, the loss of a loved one, haunting, feelings of being watched, etc.

I like to teach people how to do it themselves, because no one is better suited to build the temple of their home than the ones who live in it. Set up an altar in the room that you consider to be the heart of your home. All you need on it is a candle, to serve as a hearth. You can add items that are personal and meaningful for you, anything that warms your heart. Personalize it to suit your preferences and tastes. Intention is the most powerful magical tool.

Step One: House Cleansing

The purpose of the first step is to cleanse, clear and empty your home of unwanted energies. Start at the back of the home and sweep towards whatever door you use as your main entrance and exit. Use a broom to stir the air. Go through every room, pushing towards the main door. When you’re done, open the door and sweep it outside.

Now that the energy is stirred and moved, grab rattles, drums, pots and pans… anything that makes noise. Start at the back again, make some noise, and move towards and out the front door. This will chase out anything lurking in your home that wishes you harm or ill, be it an entity or a repository of negative emotional gunk. If you have trouble moving the energy it may be helpful to chant “bad energy out of my house” while you’re working.

To finish off, you can burn some white sage, commonly found in smudge stick forms (mind your smoke alarms). You can also use copal or camphor if you can’t find sage. Both of them are strong herb and resin purifiers.

Step Two: Resting

This is optional, but it adds a substantial boost to the cleansing. Burn a candle made with real cinnamon oil and walk it through your home. It’s not just for baking. Cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylanicum, is the dried bark of the laurel tree. It’s native to Sri Lanka and was originally the only place it was grown. Most of the cinnamon we use today is Cinnamomum cassia, and comes from the cassia tree.

Step Three: House Blessing

            The blessing is the most important part, coming full circle, closing and sealing the gaps. It is about sacredly blessing the portals where energy comes in and out of your house. In doing it, you create a protective filter. Your altar candle is burning. You can set the cinnamon candle, if you used it, on the altar as well.

You will also need a bowl of salt water, a small dish or vial of oil (olive oil works fine). If it is just you, you will use each of these one at a time. This is a good excuse to invite some friends over and, sharing their love for you, to fill your house with warmth.

Work room to room and anoint every portal with a tiny dab of water, oil, and then smoke from the sage. By portals I mean electrical outlets, heating grates, windows, doorways, televisions, computers, faucets and drains, toilets, tubs and showers, etc. Do not stick your wet or oily fingers in the outlets- for the love! I just run a dab along the outer casing.

While you’re doing this, speak words to the effect of: Protect my home and family from harmful energies.

Be mindful while you are working the magic but do not be somber. After all, the intention is to fill the house with light and warmth. When you are finished, pour the remains of the salt water across the bottom threshold of your porch of stoop and ask the Ancestors to watch over you.

May it be so. Ase.

[A combination of “Home Cleansings and House Blessings,” originally published September 21, 2011 and “Spring Equinox Cleaning,” originally published March 19, 2014.]

Spring Equinox Cleaning

Equinox is upon us, the mid-point between the longest night of the year and the longest day. We already feel the effects of the lengthening days and we bask in the warmth we finally feel from the light. We’re itching to throw the doors and windows open and air out our living spaces, to shake out the cobwebs and clear out dust.

In our lives we are constantly shedding skins and starting over. Shedding skins and reinventing ourselves. Shedding skins and letting go of what is no longer needed. Every year, at spring equinox, I tackle a room or two of my house, going through my possessions and furnishings, culling out what has gone unused or forgotten. It invariably also becomes a spring cleaning of my emotional house, as I evaluate my attachments to the items I consider letting go of. This year it was my office, my nest. Included in that room was the dreaded storage closet of doom, filled with boxes that haven’t seen the light of day in over a decade.

I re-organized. I put hands on everything. I stopped to read through old letters and cards from specific places of my life revived memories I had previously left to whisper and rest. I am at a crossroad, roughly halfway through the years I expect to live. Sorting through that closet, my life unfolded behind me, mementos of everywhere I have been and everyone I have loved.

I smiled joyfully through most of it, as the memories rippled through me. What a treasure it was to remember, in my body, the friendship and love of such innocent times. It helped buoy the box of painful things that had been tucked away. But those memories didn’t sting so badly this time. Even that box held lessons for wiser eyes, ways to not repeat those mistakes. I read and I culled, and as I culled, I re-organized.

I found the hole the mice were using to get in and sealed it. I found the alien spider’s secret corner of egg sacks. I found a box of crafts and stories I thought had been lost. And I found the last card my Grandpa gave me before he died. Which made me pause again.

He’ll be gone 10 years this Monday and I find it hard to believe so much of my life has been lived without him, when he is such a firm part of my identity as a grown-up. I still have so much more life left to come. I will never stop missing him. I am aware that part of my flurry of cleaning each spring is related to the uselessness I feel in the things I have no control over, like when someone I love dies. Cleaning- the wiping, the scrubbing, the scraping- delivers instant gratification. And it gets things done.

I closed that closet door, covered in grime and feeling elated. It wasn’t just spring cleaning and de-cluttering. It was time travelling. I walked through who I was and the choices I have made, making more decisions about what to hold onto and what to let go of. I shed skins, old versions of me that no longer apply.

I learned more about the person I am now. I learned that I can’t regret the path I took to get here, because I like who I am. I like where I am. It’s another Equinox cleaning come and gone. I’m standing at the crossroads, looking back over my shoulder, while prepping what is needed for the next move forward, weighing the roads ahead of me. Wondering what awaits in the next turning of the year.

Thinking and Buying Local for the Holidays

In a holiday that has become largely commercial, we should all endeavor to support our own communities and artisans by buying local, especially at this time of year. How does this topic apply to Ancestor Work? It’s simple. We are the catalyst for the change we wish to see in the world. We make choices every day that shape the world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren, for our nieces and nephews. And that includes everything our dollars support. Every single dollar bill. Every cent.

Where do you spend your money? Independently owned businesses or chain corporations? Where do you shop? Where do you eat? If you spend your money on chain stores and franchises, do you know where *they* spend their money? What political causes do they fund? What humanitarian causes do they give money to? For all you know, you are spending all of your money in a store that funds everything you despise and disagree with.

When you buy food and gifts from local stores and artisans, you feed your hard-earned money into your own economy. Which is good for where you live, as it keeps that money circulating locally. It also keeps the carbon footprint of your dollar down with little to no expense for shipping and packaging. Peeling back another layer into this mindfulness, where do the products you buy come from? Why send money to China when there are artisans and craftsmen in your own city who need your support?

I know, I know. But this is *exactly* what I wanted. Sometimes, it shouldn’t be about getting exactly what you want or need. Sometimes, compromising on your vision due to money or geographic constraint is the lesson. And it’s usually where you start to work outside of the box and the magic happens. Anyone can buy a gift off a list or registry. But who else is going to get them that custom mug made just for them? Or that glass wind chime custom colored to match their house? The hand-forged kitchen knife with a handle made of wood from their favorite tree?

Do you want a mug poured in a mold that looks just like every other mug in the box? Or do you want a mug hand-thrown and glazed, with all of the artist’s energy and concentration poured into its creation? Which of the two do you think will feel better in your hands? In the hands of your loved ones?

Supporting artisans over corporate stores is first and foremost of importance to me. If you’re buying on-line, look into sites like the Etsy shops, where craftspeople sell their own items. I am blessed to have good friends who are jewelers, potters, bladesmiths, metalsmiths, candle makers, herbalists, visual artists, carpenters, seamstresses, poets, etc. I love giving them business and I love sending them business because I know where that money goes; it pays their rents and mortgages. It pays their utilities. It buys them more supplies to create more wonderful items. It means they can also have a good holiday with their spouses and children.

Being able to do that and/or buy items locally is of secondary importance to me. If I can’t find an artisan who can make the gift I need, I at least try to buy that gift from a smaller independently-owned store versus a chain. Take a drive around the yellow pages and see what little stores are tucked away in your community that you haven’t visited yet. Check them out and see what treasures they have to offer. If I have to buy from a chain store, I buy it from the one whose beliefs are most in accord with mine, based on what they do with their own money. We vote with every dollar we spend. I believe that.

This year, instead of trying to find gifts to appease people, buy them a unique item no one else would or could have (if you are capable of it, craft one for them). Find them that treasure that makes you think of them, so that they’ll see your heart in the gift of it. And if you are a potter, a toymaker, a dressmaker, a knitter, a felter, a jeweler, a carpenter, a bladesmith, a writer, a visual artist, a glassblower, a baker, etc… thank you for taking a risk. Thank you for sharing your gifts and your energy. Thank you for brightening my world.

Canning Autumn Applesauce

At Russell Farms, 2013.

Autumn is my favorite time of year to live in the Northeast. Even though I have always lived in the Northeast, I don’t take the changing of seasons for granted. Red, yellow, and orange leaves crunching underfoot, and apple cider. We are lucky to have multiple apple orchards around us like Russell Farms, Lone Maple Farm, Apple Hills Farm, and Torto’s.

Autumn belongs to the apples: Gala, Honeycrisp, Gingergold, Golden Delicious, Macintosh, Macoun, Empire, Pink Lady, Granny Smith… Through the winter, spring, and summer months, I forget what apple tastes like until I pluck one from the tree and bite my teeth into that firm and crisp flesh for the first time. I eat fresh apples daily when they’re in season, because I know it won’t last. Spiritually, I am growing an appreciation for impermanence. It makes you appreciate things when you have them more. After all, our very lives are an exercise in impermanence.

Even so, it is nice to be able to carry a bit of this season into the ones that will come after. When the apples are their ripest, I make and can applesauce to get me through till next harvest. My mother canned. My grandmother canned. I don’t do it as much as I’d like to. I do it because I know that when I open a jar this February, autumn’s harvest flavor will be there. That taste of the first bite of a ripe apple will flood my mouth. No chemicals. No preservatives. No added sugar. Just apples, and a small stick of cinnamon.

I find the prep work is the hardest. You have to wash all the jars in warm soapy water. Fill them with hot water and place them in the canning pot. Add enough water so it sits above the jars by an inch. Cover the pot and bring it towards a boil over medium-high heat. When it is almost boiling, reduce hit to a simmer. Keep it covered until you use the jars. [This part took me an hour.]

Then, in a small saucepan, pour two inches of water in the bottom. Add the lids and heat on low until it reaches a simmer. Cover the saucepan and take it off the heat. Set it aside until you’re ready to use them. Now, you’re ready to make the applesauce, which is fairly easy.

I had a small retinue of apples for this batch. Normally, I might add a splash of water for every four apples I use, but I have found that fresh apples rarely require extra moisture. I peel, core, and cut the apples into slices. Everyone does it different, I’ve found. No matter how you cut them, it’s important to keep the pieces of even size. Add as many cinnamon sticks as you desire to taste- a dash of ginger is always a nice complement, if you want a little tang.

Place everything in a saucepan, cover, and heat on medium for fifteen to twenty minutes. Use a fork to see how easily the tines pass through the fruit. If it passes through without resistance, you’re done. Turn the heat off, remove the cinnamon sticks and mash away. I have a potato masher that I use because I like to make chunky applesauce, but for smooth applesauce I whisk it after it’s been mashed. Now, you’re ready to can!

Remove the jars from the canning pot, carefully, and empty them of their water. I dry them out with a clean cloth. Fill the jars with applesauce, leaving a half-inch of headspace. When the jars are full, gently shake the jars back and forth to release air pockets. You can also slide a clean knife around the edge of the jar to help release them. Wipe the rims with a clean cloth. Use tongs to pull a lid out of the saucepan and set it on the jar. Screw a band in until it’s just tightened.

When they’re all done, place the jars back in the canner (beware of hot water). Make sure, again, that there is at least an inch of water covering the jars. Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil. When the water starts boiling, process the jars for fifteen minutes. Turn off the heat and remove the lid. Let the pot stand for about five minutes. Remove jars onto a clean towel on a table or counter. My canning pot has a basket that I can rise to lift the cans above the water line. But before I found my canner at the thrift store (for five dollars), I used a large stock pot and heavy-grade canning tongs.

Give the jars twelve to twenty-four hours to cool, depending on their size. You may hear a strange warpy, metallic, pinging sound. That’s good. You want to hear that sound. It means the seals are locking and the canning worked. Don’t fret if you don’t hear it either, though. That’s happened to me. When the jars are cooled, press lightly on the seal. If it doesn’t give, it worked, and you can safely store them for up to a year, just in time for the new crop! If the seal gives beneath your finger, it didn’t take. That just means you can pop them in the fridge and eat them right away. 

Calling the Dead on All Hallow’s Eve

At this time of year, the air is cooling, the garden beds have been put to rest, cider is mulling and apples are transformed into a myriad of treats, whether candied, cobblered or sauced. Crisp autumn leaves fall and dry, skittering across sidewalks and pavements when the winds lift. In the Northeast, the green world is dying and we feel the approach of winter’s arrival. In this time of in-between our connection to the Dead is strongest.

My Ancestor Altar stays up year round as my ancestor work is every day of my life. They walk with me always. My altar lives on top of a bookshelf and holds a photo tree with pictures of my deceased grandparents and great-grandparents. I have a special glass I use to make oblations, liquid offerings, to the ancestors and a candle holder I light to act as a beacon. It is also decorated with pieces of petrified wood and fossils. I add items and take some away during the year but this altar is my working altar.

Samhain night, Halloween, is the time of year that you don’t have to be a sensitive to communicate with the dead. Just as in our world, it would be hard to call your friends without a phone, spirit work is no different. There are tools that help strengthen those connections: names, candles, personal objects, and offerings to entice them. I make another altar specifically for this holiday, decorated with items appropriate to the season, like petrified wood, bones, tree bark (I’m partial to birch), little pumpkins, festive candles, and autumn leaves. It pulls the energy of the outdoors inside my dwelling for those nights when the idea of being indoors feels stifling. It’s a means of opening our personal space; the spirit world does not take much notice of walls, but we do.

This time of year prompts many people to remember the loved ones no longer with them. The visual loss of leaves on the trees stirs an introspection from deep within and we emotionally feel each person we have known who no longer breathes reflected in the dying of the natural world around us. I refer to them as my Beloved Dead, and it is specifically this group I reach out to communicate with on Halloween. I place photos of them on my altar, though I do not include photos of anyone living, for superstitious reasons. I use post-its to cover the images of the living when I have no other photos, so as not to get them confused with the dead.

I have personal items that were passed down to me after loved ones died, as well as items gifted to me by them that I add to my altar. I strengthen the connection with objects the spirits are familiar with and might have a lingering attachment to. It also helps me focus my intent more strongly. I have a glass ring that my Great-Grandma Elsie gifted me when she began her decline into Alzheimer’s that I place on the altar every year. I also put out our cat Luna’s food bowl, with her collar and her favorite patchwork mouse toy, into which I’ll sprinkle some of her favored catnip treats, in hopes that she too will return for the night.

On Halloween, when the veil between worlds is thin, light a candle on the altar and call in your Beloved Dead by name. Invite them into your home. Pour a drink for them. I leave a glass of water for the wandering spirits to quench their thirst, an emotional memory from their living years. I also pour a cup of Blackberry Tea for Elsie, a cup of coffee for my Grandpa, and a shot of rum for my more spirited ancestors, as a treat. Our memories are made up of sights, sounds, tastes and smells. Our spirits can still access them even as the ability to touch fades.

Allow yourself to sit in the silence of the evening, interspersed with the giggling hordes of lively trick-or-treaters. Be open to the impressions that come from the balancing energies of life and death. Once the doorbell has stopped ringing, attend to your altar. If you sense that you are not alone, speak gently to the room about you.

This night is the time to say the things you need to say to those who are no longer physically with you. It’s important for our own lives, for the ones we live here in the world, that we not feel the weight of things left unsaid holding us back from moving forward from our grief. Just because a loved one dies, doesn’t mean we are silenced. This night is also the perfect time to honor those who came before you, to remember them and to keep their memories alive for your children and grandchildren. It’s the perfect night to reminisce and share some of your favorite stories of those who are gone. What is remembered lives.

I light a candle for my Beloved Dead, calling in their names individually, inviting them to my home for a visit. And then I put out tea lights, one for each person I know who passed since last Halloween. This year, I have five spirits to light candles for, five souls who have passed within the last twelve months, five Newly Dead. I will ask nothing of them but speak prayers for them to be at peace, and to reassure them that those left behind will be all right.

As part of my larger work, I will unroll the names of ancestors and dead I have gathered from the multiple shrines I’ve tended over the last year. I will read each one aloud and burn them in a Samhain fire, sending smoke out into the thinning veil, sending prayers from the living who remember them still. To Those Who Have Gone Before, be at peace and travel well. Until we meet again. Ase.

Summer Solstice, Sunning Stones

It is the first day of summer. Gardens are growing, blackberry blossoms are opening, and strawberries are ripe in the fields. The green is unfurling into splendor and its heraldry is prompted by the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice. The natural world around us still holds that yellow-green hue of energy and growth.

In my childhood, summer meant the arrival of my Great-Grandma Elsie, who we called Grandma-from-Florida. She spent every summer with us, sleeping in the small spare room with the white chenille bedspread. I have memories of sitting in her room in the morning while she dressed, running hands over the raised pattern of the bedspread that only she used. Summer for us meant Great-Grandma’s sweater sets and culottes. I remember my fascination over how she put on her knee-high stockings every day before slipping on her sandals.

Elsie was born on June 21, 1904. If she was alive she’d be 107. The way her face lit up when we enjoyed the first fresh strawberry shortcake of her visit was a joy that could outshine the sun itself. Every strawberry I eat in-season tastes like that memory. It tastes like Elsie’s joy.

Summer was family time and the warmth that comes with it. Summer was the wild abandon of playing fantastical games with neighborhood friends for days on end, called to enjoy the heat while we could. We were like moths dancing around the sun.

The ancestor work that I do is as much about the living and the now as it is about the ones who came before me. Those layers of memories that I am lucky to have of what family means, with both my blood family and the chosen family I build around me, are the energy source that propels my genealogical research into uncovering the ones who came before. And I do it all so that the ones who come after will know the names and the stories.

Family matters. It’s not always easy or painless. We’re not all lucky enough to have it in our formative years. But finding it, creating it, birthing it, is at the core of what we do and how we survive.

When I think of that feeling, that energy, I think of the futhark runes Cen (aka ken or kenaz) and Sigel (aka sowilo or sol). Cen is the internal warmth and fire. Sigel is the sun, the outer heat. Cen is the heat of the hug that you give and receive when you are truly happy to see someone. It is the inner sun. The inner warmth. Moving from your internal hearth fire outward. Solstice is the perfect time to recharge your inner joy, using the heat of the sun above us, at its height as an energy source.

Make yourself a simple talisman for carrying that energy into the waning days of the year. Place a stone outside, where it will catch the rays of the day. It can be a special stone that has other meaning for you or it can be a stone you find in your yard or at the park. Charge it under the full height of the noon light and leave it outside until dusk finally sets in. As Solstice officially begins at 7:00 pm today, I will be setting my stone out tomorrow.

 Keep the stone inside your house during the year, in whatever room becomes your hearth, your nesting space. My stone becomes my talisman through the winter, through the other solstice with its longest night. When I have need, I hold it in my hands.

Beneath the cool exterior lies a flicker of heat. I can close my eyes and feel the warmth of the summer sun caressing my skin. I can hear the laughter of children at play. I can taste the juice of fresh, ripe strawberries. I can see the joy on Elsie’s face and I know she walks with me still. I know the ancestors stand with her and I know they stand with me from longest day to longest night and back again, turning on the wheel as the living world moves forward.

The Story in the Life

Painting of Lockport NY, 1839, artist W.H. Bartlett

 For the last few weeks I have been writing out what I know about each of my ancestors into a chronological timeline. I have been doing historical research into the towns they lived in, as well as what was happening in the world-at-large. I enjoy the repetition of writing out information. It’s how I learn. It’s how I remember, puzzling names and dates into history. Their history is my history.

Slowly I am building flesh onto bone and adding tissue and shading where the information is weak or lacking. There are so many names and so many lives that stretch out behind me, so many human beings with dreams and wishes, hopes and regrets. People like me.

I am weaving the moments of their lives that are known with moments from history we can’t forget. I’ve been plugging in world events: wars, natural disasters, new discoveries, etc. I am witnessing the generations that saw the introduction of the telephone, or the first commercial airplane use for travelling. I am seeing the generations that survived or succumbed to plague and lost children to warfare. The emotional context is thick and rich and I can almost reach through the layers and touch them, hold their hands.

The World of Bailey and Ordelia Whitcher

Bailey Harrison Whitcher, my three-times Great-grandfather, was born in 1799, at the turn of the century, in Danville, Vermont. At the time, America was comprised of 16 states and John Adams was our second President. In 1810, Ordelia DeLozier was born, daughter of a man who survived being held hostage at the Battle of Tripoli, a man who owned a cabinet-making business in Lockport, New York.

During their childhoods, at the end of the War of 1812, after the eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia, in 1815, the world knew a year without a summer, where frosts and snow in the New England area through July and August devastated crops. New York declared that all slaves must be freed by 1827 and Mary Shelly published her work Frankenstein.

Bailey’s father died in 1817, and I assume this is when he began his trek to the West, seeking his own life in a new frontier. He was the third son of 12 children. The next time we see him is as an apprentice of Peter DeLozier, the cabinet-maker in Lockport, a town along the Erie Canal.

In 1821, Dr. Isaac Smith settled in the village as its first physician. Construction began on the locks that would master the 60’ drop in the Erie Canal in 1822 and a riot of lock workers resulted in the very first murder in town of a man named Jennings. A year later, the village of Lockport recorded its first earthquake, and two slave hunters from Kentucky came to town to arrest a black barber named Joseph Pickard. Instead, a mob of Irish canal workers drove them out of town empty-handed. The Quakers had a strong anti-slavery hold in Lockport.

Bailey was working as an apprentice for Ordelia’s father, which is where they must have met. They were married June 13, 1825 when he was 25 and she was 15 years of age. The year of their marriage, construction ended on the Erie Canal and the first boat went through the new lock system in October with great fanfare. Lockport was a stopping-point for General LaFayette’s tour, and he made a four hour visit to the village where he received a hero’s welcome for his part in aiding the colonies struggle in the Revolutionary War. In 1832, an epidemic of Asiatic cholera swept through the village.

By 1835, the small village had a population of 6,000 people and had bought its first fire engine, which held a barrel and a half of water. Its first hospital was constructed around the same time as, elsewhere in the country the Cherokee were being forcibly relocated from Georgia to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. The village population went up to 9,000 in the next five years. Elevated water tank toilets were commonly found in homes, not just hotels, and the world saw the first mass-production of vulcanized rubber condoms. Niagara County had it’s only hanging, after the first murder conviction of the County occurred in Lockport.

In the first thirty years of their marriage together, Bailey and Ordelia had sixteen children.  Their son Albert Tracy died at the age of 7 in 1836 and the twins, Edward and Edwin, died the same day they were born in 1838. My Great-great-grandmother, Emma Angeline Whitcher, was born in 1845. She was the twelfth of sixteen children.

The year of Emma’s birth, a telegraph office opened in Lockport and news of the Great Irish Famine was spreading. The famine killed a million people and led to the emigration of 1.5 million Irishmen. Soon after, the California Gold Rush boomed and Ordelia’s father and Bailey’s former employer, having abandoned his family to return to the sea, died of Cholera in Clinton, Connecticut, his birthplace.

In the 1850 census, Bailey Whitcher is listed as a shoemaker. During this year over 30,000 boats passed through the lock system to finish their journeys to Buffalo. The Village of Lockport had a population of 12,000 people and made use of gaslighting. A great fire swept the town in 1854, destroying 26 buildings and 10 acres of land. One of the buildings that burned was Bailey’s store, the first brick building in Lockport. Bailey was 55. His wife Ordelia was 45 and my ancestor Emma was 10. Lockport was a center of industry, thanks to the canal.

In the larger world, the first dirigible was invented by French engineer Henri Gifford and the first packaged toilet paper was sold right around the time that construction of Big Ben was finished in London, in 1858. The next year, Charles Darwin published his controversial work, On the Origin of the Species.

In 1859, Birdsill Holly, famous patent-holder and inventor of municipal tap water, fire hydrants and steam heating, moved to town. He was a friend of Thomas Edison, who visited Lockport often. In the 1960 Census, Bailey, age 61, was listed as a retired shoemaker. His mother-in-law, Lucy DeLozier was living with the family. His daughter Emma was 14. Susan B. Anthony spoke in town at the Universalist Church against slavery, while elsewhere in the world Louis Pasteur was proving his discovery of bacteria, of germs. Things were changing.

Then my forebears saw the start of the American Civil War. Lockport became the first official volunteer regiment to answer Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers. The same year, unrelated yet in tandem, the first condom advertisement appeared in the New York Times newspaper. Bailey and Ordelia’s son George Harrison Whitcher, joined the Michigan 7th regiment. Their son Orville Bailey Whitcher joined the New York 8th regiment. In 1862, Emma exchanged letters with Capt. Charles Johnson, George’s brother-in-arms, mentioning that the town’s first dead soldier returned home. It resulted in the first funeral procession through Lockport, with the fire engines draped in black fabric as they accompanied the body on a hero’s welcome home through town.

On July3, 1863, George Harrison Whitcher died at the Battle of Gettysburg. His body was never recovered. Lockport had grown enough to become the first city in Niagara County the following spring. A year after his brother’s death, Orville Bailey Whitcher died as a result of wounds he received in action in Virginia on July 14. Bailey and Ordelia lost two of their sons to the war.

Four months later, Emma Angeline Whitcher married Hiram King Wicker, a man who would become a prominent merchant and citizen in Lockport. 1865 saw some major changes. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth and the end of the Civil War came. Two months after the last battle, Bailey Harrison Whitcher died at the age of 65, having seen the death of four of his children.  

In the last 23 years of Ordelia’s life, her children and their families were flourishing. Her son-in-law Hiram King Wicker, my Great-great-grandfather, owned a Flour and Feed Store with his brother, served as Fire Chief for the city and was a high-ranking Mason in his lodge, denoted as a Past Eminent Commander. Ordelia’s mother died in 1874 at the age of 84. She had still been living with her daughter. Two years later, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

In Lockport, Birdsill Holly used his own home to prove his patent of central steam heat in dwelling spaces and was able to build a boiler large enough to heat 50 homes and one large school building. The City Council decreed an end to segregation in the school system. In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, the Nestle chocolate company formed and the first motion picture camera was invented.

Before her death, Ordelia remarried a man, surname Niles, as his fourth wife, but he died a year later. Lockport was wired for the use of incandescent lights, electric street lights were installed and the first door-to-door mail delivery began. At the other end of the state, construction on the Statue of Liberty was completed. Ordelia died two years later at the age of 77, in 1888. She outlived her first husband by 23 years. Neither Bailey nor Ordelia lived to receive the letter about the bit of rifle that had been dug up in Gettysburg belonging to their son, George Harrison in June of 1889. At the time of Ordelia’s death, there were 38 states ratified and Grover Cleveland was the 22nd President of the United States.

Relevant Post:

Emma’s Letters (published February 22, 2012)

Spirit World: A Haunting at White Street

What follows is a true story that happened to me in college after the house I was living in had been empty for a month. I’ve tried not to embellish. It’s not a horror story. It’s just my story.

I was living in a house off-campus with friends. It was winter break and I was at home with my family. One of my housemates called me late at night. She’d gone back to school early and was alone in our house. She was downstairs watching television and heard someone walking down the hallway upstairs. She was spooked enough that she called me to tell me she wasn’t going up there until it was light out. She was not someone prone to moments like that. So when she said she heard footsteps, while she was talking to me, I believed her.

The next day I went back earlier than I had planned only to find that she hadn’t stayed. I walked into an empty house late at night and took my groceries into the kitchen. I put the stuff that needed to go in the fridge away and left the rest in the paper bag on the counter until morning. I loved that kitchen. There was a small pantry space with floor to ceiling wooden doors, like small ornate cubbies. And then in the kitchen proper were the normal cabinets and sink and, like every good college house, a stove whose pilot light had to be re-lit every other day.

I went upstairs to my bedroom, fell asleep, and had a weird dream… my landlord brought a work crew into the house to install a security system that was really like spyware. He didn’t think anyone was home. In the dream, the installation woke me up and I went downstairs to see what was going on and chased him out of the house for being there without permission.

Our landlord wasn’t the kind of person to actually allow himself into the house like other landlords I’ve had, but he did drive by every day, out of his way, to make sure we weren’t burning the place down. (One time he did wake us at 7 am with the soothing sounds of a table saw in the basement, which he had designated as his personal storage room.) So it wasn’t the context of the dream that was strange. It was the realness of how it felt, more like déjà vu than a dream.

I woke to the sound of the television on downstairs, blaring the studio audience from Jerry Springer or Jenny Jones- some show like that. Maybe my housemate had come back, I thought. But I knew that if she had she would have woken me up to tell me so. I bolted out of bed, reaching for a nearby hammer.

As soon as my feet hit the floor I woke up. But the sound of the television was clearer and louder, not fading into dream world. My heart was thudding in my chest and I went to my bedroom door trying to calm myself down.

I opened the door and the television was blaringly loud. I took a breath and stepped out into the hallway and the house became utterly still, pin-drop silent. Now I was confused. I stepped back into my bedroom and the television sounds blared back to life in the living room beneath me. I hopped back and forth a few times but it was consistent- silence in the hallway, sounds of life downstairs in my bedroom. In one of those screw-your-courage-to-the-sticking-place moments, I hefted my hammer and crept downstairs slowly through the quiet that met me when I passed through the bedroom doorway.

The house was empty. The first thing I did was check the front door but everything was locked up as I’d left it the night before. The second thing I did was check the television. It was cold, not even remotely warm. I held my breath and turned it on to some morning news program. I relaxed and laughed at myself a bit, then moved to check the other rooms to be sure all was well.

Inside the kitchen, every single cupboard door in the pantry was standing open, including the ones none of us could reach. The fridge door was hanging open. The freezer door was open. The kitchen cupboards above the sink were wide open and all of the cupboard doors below the counter and sink were open. The items I had left in the brown grocery bag were outside of it, lined up on the counter in a row.

I ran to the door leading down into the basement assuming there’d been a break-in. But it was still double-locked, insuring no one could get in from the other side. I left everything where it was and went back up to my bedroom, with my hammer. I locked the door behind me and called another friend to talk through what happened. Four hours later she was at my door, also back to school earlier than planned.

She saw the kitchen and we went to my room so I could pack a quick bag. She was sitting, facing my doorway, when I heard footsteps in the hall. So did she. I saw her face drain of color as the footsteps passed by the doorway. My friend saw a shadowy shape. We both listened to the footsteps going up the attic stairs. We left quickly and I stayed away until my other housemates came back and the house was full again.

There was nothing afterwards.

Looking Back

I think it’s important to note that at the time, I never felt unsafe or that my life was in danger. It was still a little too close to the line of “unexplainable” and that’s what scared me. That’s what I didn’t want to be alone with. Any doubt I had disappeared in the shared experience with my friend. It happened. I can’t explain it, but to erase it from my history, for that reason alone, would be a worse tragedy.

What I think now, is that he was a lonely spirit, still attached to his humanity, who got restless when the house was empty. Maybe it was too clear a reminder that he existed separate from the living world. Once the house was full again he was quiet. I don’t know if he was attached to the house or drawn to our energy, or just passing through.

I think about that moment often as one I can’t explain away, and one I don’t need to. I’m not afraid of things that go bump in the night. I only want to know their stories.

Crossroads: Spring Equinox

A crossroad is a place where two roads meet, where two planes intersect. It’s where dark and light find neutral ground. Where balance is born.

At the Spring Equinox, our days and nights are of equal length. We have successfully survived the short days and long nights of winter and we can smell spring in the air as we head towards the longest day of the next Solstice. For my practice, the Equinox is symbolic of the crossroads. It is at the point where they meet, where the breathing world joins with the spirit world. It is the place where the gateway exists. That gateway lives inside you.

We have the chance to touch the other side without walking through it, as the point of balance floats over our land like fog, obscuring lines and blurring edges. We stand in the tipping point, the grey space. Equinox is a time for feeling and reflection, a chance to catch our breath before moving forward. Around us, the world is waking.

Outside my kitchen window the flock of sparrows that winter in a wayward bush fill the air and the day with cheeps and chirps and silly songs, as they take turns at the bird feeder. They warm their wings in the sun and carry twigs and hair and roughage to fortify new nests for new life. After such a mild winter, my tiger lilies have sprouted early in the spring warmth and have risen four inches from the soil. The peppermint has begun to bloom and stretch and already must be chastised into staying in its corner of the garden bed. I spent Equinox morning enjoying the sunshine on my skin and the smell of warming grass in the air.

Sensation blossoms full as bulbs prepare for birth. My hands long to touch skin, fur, scales, dirt, worms and seeds. The soft breezes carry hints of fragrance and perfume across my senses- I may not know where from, but I know what’s coming. The wild is waking, heralding its return in the creak-clacking of the grackle’s birdsong in the morning sun. If you quiet yourself you will hear the sounds of creatures stirring.

            I have begun to shed the layers of winter, to cull my home of clutter and items unused so I might pass them on to others in need. The winter altar has been cleared of its evergreen bowers and turned over to spring with purple flowers. The windows will be opened and the house will be aired. The floors will be swept free of dust bunnies and house gremlins. The garden will be planned and the necessary seeds will be ordered.

            The world outside us is waking. And the world inside us is stirring, too.

            In mythology, at Equinox, Persephone rises from the Underworld, from her home with her husband, and in return her mother Demeter allows the trees to bud and flowers to bloom, her grief abated. Inanna resurrects in her sister’s domain below the earth, having passed through death to attain knowledge, and she returns to the world changed. Stories of transformation, of spiritual alchemy. It is the time of doorways, gateways, thresholds and promise. What dream do you bring with you from the darkness? How will you manifest it into reality in the lengthening days?

Stitching in Time: In Step with Minnie



Crafted by Minnie Estelle (Wicker) Ruston 1890-1964.

One of my favorite childhood books was Halfway Down Paddy Lane by Jean Marzollo, the story of a 15 year old girl who takes a bad fall and wakes to find herself in 1850s America, in the home of an Irish immigrant family, all of whom work at the local cotton mill (who she later discovers are her ancestors). One scene in particular has always stayed with me. One night, after working a long day in the factory, the matriarch sits out on the porch with her daughters, making lace. Not darning it, but making it. It was the first time I realized in my childhood that even the things I thought were complicated to make were, in fact, once crafted by human hands.

I am reminded of that book when I take sewing work into my lap at night. I love to hand-stitch. I enjoy the discipline of learning to sew in a straight line without a guide, and the body memory I learned that ensures my stitches will be of even size and space between them.

In the bin of my father’s family belongings, I pulled out a small quilt sampler. Based on the other mail-order patterns addressed to her, my best guess is that the sampler was made by my Great-Grandmother Minnie Estelle (Wicker) Ruston. It was loose in the bin and has some color-bleed from basement water damage over the years, but besides suffering two pinprick moth holes, it is otherwise perfect and the stitches are unmarred.

I turned the sampler over in my hands to see how it was sewn. Such tiny stitches stared up at me and I was momentarily overwhelmed. I was holding a piece of family history that spoke to something I do to calm my thoughts, something I enjoy in my time. To better reach out and connect to Great-Grandma Minnie, I set out to recreate the pattern she made, to walk in step with her.

I tried to keep to her pattern without undoing her piece, imagining that her fabric choices were probably made up of leftover scraps she had from other projects. The small pattern I drafted was made up of a circle in the center, 12 inner petals and 12 outer petals. Ten of the inner petals were paired, two of the same with two extra individual ones. I kept the same pattern for mine, with scraps I had in a drawer. Minnie’s color scheme was more white, linen and brown, while mine was white, purple and green.

There were 25 pieces in total. As I worked them together, stitch by stitch, I quickly grasped that there is artistry to this kind of piece-work. After sewing, my pieces seemed smaller than Minnie’s and it is far from a perfect replica. But the spirit of the design holds true and the intention of sharing her work ended in creating a thing of beauty I might not have endeavored to make otherwise and might never have learned how capable I was to undertake it.



Crafted by me, February 2012.



What was more wonderful was finding that the areas I had to fudge due to my inexperience were almost twin to her own sampler, ways of pulling the fabric in when there is a tad too much. And my center piece was smaller than I intended it to be, but in the making of it, I remembered how a dear friend used to make quilt circles during our U.U. services and once that memory bloomed, I figured out how to make it work (and that I should have cut it much larger).

Hand-sewing is a meditation I love, folding fabric, like time, and binding it together in the shape you desire. Hands have been stitching longer than we can remember, where men at sea and soldiers were often more capable darners and menders than wives and mothers, before sewing was ascribed a gender role. These meditations through time layer the past onto the present. I am sewing a pattern that my Great-Grandmother sewed. I can feel her hand over mine, more sure, more used to the rhythm of it.



Minnie (left) and me (right), folding time in one pattern.



To create my sampler, I used the same stitch that my Great-Grandmother used. That her Great-Grandmother used. That all those who have come before and taken a needle into their hand have used. The needle separates the edges of threads and weaves in, through the threading, the fabric, and weaves out to take breath on the other side, before diving back down again, into the earth. I am sewing and weaving the earth and sky together. I am creating.

Working on my family tree, I realized that I was meditating on the backstitch in my head. Emma Whitcher was born and died. I slid the needle into the fabric at her birth, and moved it to the left, slipping out at her point of death, life’s beginning and end. But then I move the needle back to the right, halfway, to the place where Minnie, Emma’s daughter, was born, sliding the needle in at her birth, and then all the way to the left to Minnie’s death, coming back out of the fabric. And then halfway to the right, when her daughter Ruth was born, then out to the left, where Ruth died and halfway back to where my dad was born. The rhythm repeats, through those still living and those who are yet to be, so that someday a descendant- though not mine- might find my sampler and wonder at the stitches and endeavor to step into my shoes and take a needle into their hands.