The Mothers That Bore Me

Whitcher sisters Ellen, Harriet, Emma*, & Frances.

Across the country today, women are standing up and stepping forward and being seen. In my heart I am thinking of the women who paved the way for me to be here, walking this earth and living in this beautiful world, fighting to be seen as a person wearing female skin. My thoughts are with the generations that came before me. My heart lives in the daughters and son of my sister and brother, who will inherit this world after me.

The First Generation above me is my mother, still living. She sacrificed a lot to give us a childhood free of worry, no matter what circumstances we found ourselves in. She’s the reason I believe in Santa Claus still. She always encouraged me to dream big. She is a deep well of conversations and dreaming, and she inspires me constantly in the ways she manifests her own dreams into action and gives them life. She instilled in me that the worst thing that can happen is you fail and have to try again, but if you never try, you’ll never win. She’s one of my closest friends and our summer time visits sustain me.

My mother’s mother is still living and my father’s stepmother is still living. Both women have had long, often difficult lives, and have courageously battled cancer. I have seen such bravery and quiet strength in the women I have known, especially my Great-Grandma Elsie. She was a guiding force for me as a child and she continues to be one for me through my dreams. I have to believe that spirit is embodied in some way in the women I never met. This is how I honor them.

Those Who Have Gone Before Me

Second Generation

maternal father’s line

Donna MacDonald (1938-2001) age 62

paternal mother’s line

Ruth Emma Ruston (1916-1959) age 42

Third Generation

maternal mother’s line

Margaret Loretta Burke (1899-1938) age 35

maternal father’s line

Elsie Elizabeth Durant (1904-1994) age 89

paternal mother’s line

Minnie Estelle Wicker (1890-1964) age 73

paternal father’s line

Hattie Eva Smith (1882-1969) age 86

Fourth Generation

maternal mother’s line

Eliza Conners (b.1866)

Katherine S. Pils (1871-1946) age 74

maternal father’s line

Emma Louise Burnah (1869-1939) age 69

Frances Gillette (1877-1963) age 85

paternal mother’s line

Emma Angeline Whitcher (1845-1929) age 83 [*photo above]

Ruth Ireland (1861-1940) age 78

paternal father’s line

Hattie Eva Dutcher (1857-1882) age 24 in childbirth

Theresa Cordelia Tenney (1850-1930) age 79

Fifth Generation

maternal mother’s line

Ellen unknown (b.1836)

Mary Dowd (b.1834)

Mary Burzee

Katherine Maria Schmeelk (d.1901) –or- Ana Catherine Blume (1833-1901) age 68

maternal father’s line

Jane Berry (1841-1901) age 59

Rosella LaValley (1843-1921) age 77

Sarah Clickner (1830-1876) age 45

paternal mother’s line

Ordelia De Lozier (1810-1888) age 77

Cynthia Lusk (1819-1888) age 68

Phoebe Lenton (1826-1887) age 60

Anna Richardson (b.1822)

paternal father’s line

Eliza Marsh Bird (1837-1926) age 88

Sophia Sears (1829-1909) age 79

Malvina H. Targee (1829-1852) age 23

Hannah Ann Treadwell (1817-1884) age 66

Sixth Generation

maternal mother’s line

Wilhemenia Wernersbach (b.1798 GER-US)

Ann unknown

Betsey unknown

maternal father’s line

Esther LaLonde (1811 PQ-1894 US) age 83

Rosella LaRoche (1805-1871) age 65

Elizabeth Ann Hill (1825-1899) age 73

Mary Ann Boots (1825-1899) age 73

Mary Ann Hayner (b.1793)

Abigail Chaffee (d.1829)

paternal mother’s line

Lucy Raymond (1789-1874) age 84 [**photo below]

Dorcas Kittredge (1774-1828) age 53

Rebecca unknown

Chloe Morgan (1792-1850) age 58

Mary Wilson (b.1785)

Jane Brooks (b.1794)

paternal father’s line

Irene Pond Marsh (b.1803)

Cynthia Ann Feagles (1814-1890) age 75

Clarissa DeBois (1806-1873) age 67

Betsey unknown

Ellen S. unknown

Esther unknown

Fermicy ‘Fanny’ Peters (1798-1875) age 77

Lucy Gould (1777-1840) age 62

Seventh Generation

maternal father’s line

Marie Amable Langevin (1795-1840) age 44

Gertrude Dixon (1783-1855) age 71

Harriet Gower (1806-1886) age 80

Abigail Hannah (b.1780)

Elizabeth Weager (d.1844)

Engle ‘Angelica’ Coonradt (1746-1833) age 87

Deborah unknown

Mary/Polly Thomas (b.1760)

paternal mother’s line

Lucy Richmond (1755-1841) age 86

Eleanor Erkells (1767-1789) age 22

Mary ‘Molly’ Bailey (1730-1815) age 85

Elizabeth Dow (1735-1776) age 41

Mary A. ‘Polly’ unknown (1795-1895) age 100

Susannah Parker (1750-1825) age 75

Elizabeth Wright (b.1748)

paternal father’s line

Mary ‘Polly’ Coleman

Jane “Jennie” Palmer (1762-1815) age 52

Abigail Andrews (b.1776)

Abigail Darby (1765-1837) age 72

Delilah unknown

Anne Arnold (1752-1833) age 81

Hepsibah Skiff (1733-1800) age 66

Eighth Generation

maternal father’s line

Amable DuClos (1766-1795) age 29

Marie Agathe Charland (1751-1800) age 48

Nancy Machet (1767-1844) age 76

Margaret Anthony (1773-1819) age 46

Mary Glyde (1760-1812) age 52

Mary Calhoun (1732-1798) age 65

Julianna Merchant

Rhoda Cady (1739-1799) age 60

Rebekah Moulton (b.1742)

paternal mother’s line

Hannah Caswell (1729-1756) age 27

Elizabeth Blackmer (1716-1765) age 49

Fytje Sophia Zabriski (b.1707)

Sarah Fowle (1696-1739) age 43

Martha Hanniford (b.1721)

Jemima Davis (1706-1753) age 47

Jane Pearson (1724-1811) age 87

Abiah Washburn (1726-1812) age 86

Elizabeth unknown

Elizabeth Porter (b.1715)

paternal father’s line

Silence/Celenia Lyon (1755-1821) age 65

Jemima VanDeusen (1744-1831) age 87

Helena “Lina” Eleanor Van Deusen (1713-1769) age 55

Susannah Townsend (1740-1782) age 42

Lucretia Cleveland (1736-1824) age 88

Mary Bingham (1734-1821) age 87

Tabitha Luther (d.1746)

Elizabeth Brooks (1731-1815) age 84

Elizabeth Hatch (1697-1743) age 46

Elizabeth Parker (1700-1739) age 38

Ninth Generation

maternal father’s line

Marie Agathe Bourgault (b.1745)

Marie Madeleine Coulon (1732-1799) age 66

Katherine Coe (1700-1732) age 31

Margaret unknown

Mercy Smith (1720-1793) age 72

Abigail Lee (1703-1782) age 79

Jemima Chadwick (1686-1759) age 73

Rebekah Walker (1717-1802) age 84

paternal mother’s line

Elizabeth Barney (1691-1757) age 66

Mehitable Deane (1697-1745) age 48

Mary Mercy Brickett (1698-1725) age 27

Deborah Balch (1693-1717) age 24

Antje Terhune (1681-1758) age 77

Tryntie Catherine Slote (1671-1708) age 36

Susanna Blaney (1673-1711) age 38

Hannah French (1664-1755) age 91

Jemima Eastman (1677-1760) age 83

Mary Hoyt (1664-1723) age 59

Jane P. Noyes (1704-1773) age 69

Sarah Lillie (1702-1775) age 73

Hannah Johnson (1694-1780) age 86

Rebekah unknown

Sarah unknown

paternal father’s line

Lydia Perry (1729-1763) age 33

Lena Vosburgh (b.1714)

Rachel Fowler (1702-1780) age 78

Jacomyntje VanSchoonhoven (1678-1777) age 79

Jannetje Hendrickse Bondt (1677-1721) age 44

Huldah Hopkins (d.1731)

Desire Tobey (1707-1781) age 74

Dorothy/Deborah Hyde (1702-1769) age 67

Elizabeth Spaulding (1698-1770) age 72

Ruth Post (1711-1796) age 85

Abigail Wood (1700-1776) age 76

Ann Coggeshall (1699-1726) age 25

Mary Bateman (1696-1726) age 22

Priscilla Bateman (1687-1730) age 43

Amy Allen (1663-1709) age 46

Hepsibah Codman (1658-1696) age 38

Thankful Hemingway (1668-1736) age 68

Lydia Gay (1679-1748) age 68

I am that they were.

**Lucy Richmond, married DeLozier, my 4x great-grandma and one of the oldest generational photos we have.

Ask Your Family for their Stories

The Wicker Cottage.

My mind is swimming with the new information I acquired while home after my Uncle’s death. There were so many stories I hadn’t heard before, unknown to me and my parents. My maternal grandmother, 83, was especially chatty, sharing stories about her own grandparents, who both worked for a local wealthy family in Lockport. Her grandpa was the groundskeeper for the Kenans and her grandma was their cook.

My grandpa’s cousin shared information about my mom’s father’s family that we didn’t have, solving the mystery of way my great-great grandfather was an only child. He was not an only child, just the only one who survived. My Uncle, older than my father and the brother they just lost, shared a letter full of memories of my grandparents, including the mother my father never knew and the grandmother I never met. My heart is full of joy at fleshing out her character and sorrow at never having known her.

This morning, in the wavering heat of the summer air, her ghost is almost tangible. My great-grandparents, the Rustons, grew vegetables during the war and Grandma Ruth and her sons helped with the weeding and growing. I can almost hear her laughter as I work on the neglected garden I abandoned while visiting my family.

I learned that the Rustons also had a cottage at Olcott, a small town on Lake Ontario. Where it used to sit is now a garage, attached to another cottage sitting beside two more. The trio used to belong to the Wicker brothers Hiram, William, and Frank. Hiram was my great-great-grandfather, and his cottage is still standing.

In my sadness, I am overwhelmed by the history. Standing at the edge of life, time is irrelevant and much that is unknown feels within reach. If I hadn’t asked, I’d never have known. I am grateful for the stories my Uncle Dave told me about his stint in the Navy during the Cuban Missile Crisis this past Christmas. And I’m grateful that I was old enough to understand what a gift it was to receive all these stories I now hold.

I am a storyteller. And I am a storykeeper. They are swimming in my head and I am waiting for them to settle until they are part of my known histories.

Ask your parents and your grandparents and your great-grandparents how they met. What was their favorite music? Song? Book? What was the first film they remember seeing in a movie theater? What church did they attend? What were their first jobs? Who were their first heroes? What hobbies did they have or enjoy? Or wish they’d taken up? What do they say is the most important thing they learned about life?

Don’t let time and distance stand between you and knowing your history. Don’t be afraid to ask. You may be surprised to learn what you discover. This morning, I feel closer to a woman I never thought I’d have the chance to get to know. Today I am thinking about my Grandma Ruth and her son Dave, and hoping that they have been reunited in whatever comes after this life. 

Genealogy and Health Histories

Roy in uniform, Elmira NY.

One of the side benefits to genealogy work is discovering how your ancestors died, and what that might tell you about your family genes. Three years ago I had an accident. In the course of getting treated, my sugar was discovered to be startlingly high. The next day, when my dad and I were distracting me by going through some family stuff, he was talking about his Grandpa Roy, who was a prison guard at Auburn NY. My great-grandpa Roy was injured in a small prison riot. But his official death lists that he died from complications to his injuries due to his pre-existing condition of diabetes.

And it was like an unwanted lightbulb went off. I changed my diet. I changed my lifestyle, hoping to avoid a similar diagnosis, but just before Christmas, thanks to finally having health insurance, I found out that I am also diabetic. Thanks, also, to the concern Roy’s story prompted, I have/had already done the majority of lifestyle changes, and those changes saved me from being sicker than I was.

I know that my Grandpa Mark, Roy’s son, died of cancer that was so advanced when they discovered it, it had already spread to his bones and throughout his body. He was 67. My Grandma Ruth died of cervical cancer at the age of 43. My Grandpa Dick died at 72 of lung cancer caused by asbestos from his stint in the Navy.

I know my great-grandpa Harold Lafayette Riddle (1903-1975) had a heart attack at age 72 and his wife, my beloved Elsie Elizabeth Durant (1904-1994), died of old age at 90. My great-grandma Margaret Loretta Burke (1899-1938) died of renal cancer at 39 and her husband Robert George Art (1892-1974) died of bladder cancer at age 82.

I’ve discovered other stories along the way of my other various levels of great-grandparents that lend themselves to more research:

• 3x Bailey Harrison Whitcher (1799-1865) had become deaf and was hit by a train crossing the railroad tracks when he was 66. His wife Ordelia deLozier (1810-1888) died tragically after falling down the stairs at age 78.
• 4x Peter de Lozier (1786-1849), Ordelia’s father, died of cholera at age 39, after abandoning his family to return to the sea. He was a Prisoner of War at Tripoli.
• 9x William Blackmore (1640-1676) was “attacked by Indians” in Scituate MA and killed at age 36.
• 10x Sgt. William Pond (1622-1690) died “unexpectedly” at age 68.
• 10x Robert Sallows (1626-1663) drowned at sea at age 41, while living in Salem.
• 11x James Chilton (1562-1620) and his wife died the first winter aboard the Mayflower. He was 58 and the oldest man on board. Her age and name are unknown. Their 12 year old daughter Mary survived them.
• 11x Thomas Rogers (1572-1621) died the first winter on the Mayflower at age 49.
• 15x Sir Henry Norreys (1491-1536) was beheaded at the Tower of London for an alleged adultery with Anne of Boleyn. He was 45.
• 23x Sir Edmund Fitzalan (1285-1326) was beheaded at age 41.
• 25x Robert of Artois (1216-1250) died at age 34 “leading reckless attack on Al Mansurah.”
• 28x Frederick Bararossa (1122-1190) drowned at age 68 while on crusade in Silifke, Turkey.

In my research, I pay homage to my ancestresses who are known to have died in childbirth, for their mortality and their sacrifice in birthing those who made me possible:

• 2x Hattie Eva Dutcher (1857-1882) at age 25.
• 10x Ruth Lee (1602-1642) at age 40.
• 13x Anne Walgrave (1495-1530) at age 35.
• 19x Agnes Daubeney (1307-1335) at age 28.
• 19x Aubigny Creake (1335-1355) at age 20.

On a happier tone, I also made note of twenty-nine of my known ancestors who lived to me more than ninety years old:

• 3x Ammi Smith (1824-1918) age 94. 
• 5x Desire Tourgee (1752-1845) age 92. 
• 6x Patience Thomas (1732-1822) age 90. 
• 6x Thomas Boots (1761-1852) age 91. 
• 7x Mary Smith (1701-1800) age 98. 
• 7x Nicholas LaSueur/Lozier (1668-1761) age 93. 
• 8x Lydia Starr (1652-1744) age 92. 
• 8x Elizabeth Williams (1671-1771) age 100. 
• 8x Hannah Latham (1651-1750) age 99. 
• 9x John Bird (1641-1732) age 90. 
• 9x Thomas Andrew Hovey (1648-1739) age 91. 
• 10x Richard Sears (1590-1696) age 106. 
• 10x Anna Reeve (1590-1685) age 95. 
• 10x Mary Clark (1590-1681) age 91. 
• 11x George Dyer, weaver, (1579-1672) age 93. 
• 11x Sir Edward Bishop (1601-1695) age 94. 
• 11x Capt. Richard Walker (1592-1687) age 95. 
• 11x Jean Fafard (1598-1696) age 98. 
• 11x Elizabeth Franklin (1570-1671) age 101. 
• 12x William Jackson (1585-1688) age 103. 
• 12x George Raymond (1538-1632) age 94. 
• 12x Humphrey Pinney (1588-1683) age 95. 
• 12x Maria Hatton (1573-1670) age 97. 
• 13x John Whicker (1452-1556) age 104. 
• 14x Richard Elwin (1555-1647) age 92. 
• 16x Edward Morris (1455-1556) age 101. 
• 17x Katherine Wallcott (1368-1460) age 92. 
• 24x Eleanor/Alianore de Gorges (1270-1375) age 105. 
• 25x Petronella de Gresley (1147-1249) age 102.

A Gift from Mother Crane

Part of my ancestor work involves being present in the world now. I honor and remember my ancestors. Someday I will be a part of that ancestral energy. I know this. I think about how I want those who come after will think about how we left the world for them. And I try to spread joy and peace and kindness. I try to make that who I am in the world today.

We spend our lives trying to find ourselves, trying to find our place, trying to find a way to be of use. Or we spend our lives just trying to survive. We are each a strand on the larger web, and there are crossroads where our paths converge. It is when we open ourselves to these moments that we build layers to the web. We become the web. We see our interconnectedness. We see and we are seen.

This past weekend I attended the New York Faerie Festival in Ouaquaga, NY, a place of play where Renaissance Faire meets Fae and other world beings like goblins, dryads, mermaids, trolls, fauns, elves, unicorns, dragons, and fairies- both local and visiting- are interspersed with human travelers. All meet in a sprawling wood along a creek. It’s a place thick with magic, whatever that means to you.

One of my favorite encounters over the weekend was with Mother Crane, her arms laden with brightly-colored papers as she walked around, engaging passersby. I found her reading a poem for another guest and waited my turn. When it came, she looked at me a moment, then down to her papers. With a quick nod of her head she plucked one out.

It was perfect. It encapsulated the sweetness of what summer means to me. Taking a breath in, Mother Crane looked me in the eye and began to read the words of Wendell Berry:

The cherries turn ripe, ripe,

and the birds come: red-headed

and red-bellied woodpeckers,

blue jays, cedar waxwings,

robins—beautiful, hungry, wild

in our domestic tree. I pick

with the birds, gathering the red

cherries alight among the dark

leaves, my hands so sticky

with juice the fruit will hardly

drop from them into the pail.

The birds pick as I pick, all

of us delighted in the weighty heights

--the fruit red ripe, the green leaves,

the blue sky and white clouds,

all tending to flight—making

the most of this sweetness against

the time when there will be none.

Enjoy the summer. Enjoy the sun. Take in the brightness. Remember the light in the darkness. Become the light. Be a beacon of light during darker times. May that light birth joy. May the world be a brighter place because you were part of it. May we all walk towards peace and togetherness.

A Prayer for Hope

When my ancestors found themselves in darkened places, where did they turn their prayers? To their god(s)? To their own ancestors? I think it’s safe to say that, despite your religious persuasion, everyone has turned to prayer in their lives.

You turn your face to the skies for an end to the snow or a beginning to the rain. To your car for just 100 more miles on those tires. To the gods of score that there’s one more skein of yarn from the right dye lot so you can finish your project. To the universe for a clean bill of health and a tumor to be non-cancerous. For miracles to happen, for time to turn back, for those who are dead to open their eyes.

What forms do your prayers take?

My Prayer for Hope

When I am knocked down and it feels like every turn holds another piece of bad news, may my feet keep moving forward. When I am teetering on my feet and the floor keeps getting snatched out from underneath me, may I hold my head high. When I can no longer see the light before me, may my heart remember love and a thing called hope. May I not be afraid of the darkness.

I call on Harold Lafayette Riddle and Elsie Elizabeth Durant, who lived and suffered through the financial hardships of the depression, and grew much of their own food. May I find the means to put food on the table. May I learn to be without extras. May my hands grow food from the earth. Their blood runs in my veins.

I call on Silas Parker Smith, Hattie Eva Dutcher, and their daughter Hattie Eva Smith, who came into the world as her mother left it. May I embrace the joy in the sorrow and know that life continues. Their blood runs in my veins.

I call on Charles Evan Ruston, the son of a wealthy landowner, and Ruth Ireland, a maidservant, who trusted in love over everything. He was disowned from his family and they came to the new world together. May I be courageous enough to stand beside my beliefs and heart. Their blood runs in my veins.

I call on Bailey Harrison Whitcher and his wife Ordelia Lozier, who saw their country turn on itself in Civil War and lost two sons to the cause. May I know their fortitude to continue on despite the grief. Their blood runs in my veins.

I call on Peter DeLozier, kept as a Prisoner of War in Tripoli for 30 months and the spirit that kept him alive so that he might survive the ordeal. May I understand that we are forever altered by our experiences. His blood runs in my veins.

I call on Alice, her own family name unknown, wife of John Eaton, known to “have fits” of unknown cause. She handled the household in a time when it wasn’t a woman’s place, much to the respect of the townspeople. Her simple husband was easily swindled by strangers and she often took them to court. May I know such strength to do what needs to be done. Her blood runs in my veins.

I call on Mary Chilton, crossing a long and grey ocean to an unknown place at the age of twelve, to be left without any family after winter came, foraging anew on her own. May I keep one foot in front of the other, always moving, no matter what unknown lies before me. Her blood runs in my veins.

May it be so.

Family Treasures: The Harvester

Over a year ago, my father and I sorted through an old tote of photos and collected articles from his maternal side of the family. His mother, Ruth Ruston, died when he was five of cervical cancer. The items in the trunk belonged to her mother, Minnie Estelle Wicker, and Minnie’s mother, Emma Angeline Whitcher.

Among the assortment of natural beauty tips and recipes cut from the newspaper, I discovered that my Great-Grandma Minnie was a local singer, as well as an amateur photographer. There were dozens of photos taken on family camping trips of lakes and woods. I found a piece of birch bark, collected and kept as a memento. Was it something that spoke to her? For I also have a fondness for birch.

Beneath those layers we discovered older portraits and a hand-sewn quilting sample. There were also unopened envelopes of patterns that Minnie had sent away for; a doll pattern and an apron. Pamphlets from church events became brochures for the Order of the Eastern Star meetings, a spiritual group with no religious affiliation; it was a fraternal order that both men and women could belong to.

There were recipes from the US Department of Agriculture, explaining the correct nutrition for your children in 1917. Still yet came recipes scrawled out for danish pudding, baked apples, cauliflower pickles, suet pudding, cabbage salad, marmalade, olive oil pickles, molasses layer cake, chicken croquettes, homemade catsup, and canned beets. It’s unfortunate that most do not have clear instructions. They seemed to be recipes often used. At some point the handwriting changed and dated back to the turn of the century where my 2x Great-Grandma Emma had written down how to brine pork in a barrel, placing the separate cuts at varient levels and taking them out after different lengths of soaking.

At the bottom of the tote was a water-soaked book. One book in the whole trunk and it was like gold to me. I am an avid reader and I always have been. My mom helped me get a card to the adult section of the public library before I was of age as I had read through the children’s library. So, to find a book that had been saved over time, and set aside with other personal things, was a treasure to me.

I’ll never know if it was a favorite book, or if it had any sentimental meaning to an ancestress. I’ll never know if it was purchased or borrowed from a friend and never returned. I’ll never know if it was the book someone was reading at the end of her life or if it was a favorite book to bring along on vacations. But it speaks to me that there might have been another reader in the family who had fond memories of curling up with a book against a window in the afternoon light.

The book has a red cloth cover. It is water damaged and misshapen. The spine is cracked and bent and the book sits at an awkward slant. There is an old bug on the inside, where the cover seems to have been used as a means to its death. It has definitely seen better days.

Illustration by W.L. Jacobs

It is a first edition from 1911, called The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter, published by Grosset & Dunlop in New York. I was surprised to discover that the author was a woman, born Geneva Grace Stratton (1863-1924), who achieved commercial success with her writing in her lifetime, during which she wrote over 20 books. She wrote her fiction to support her non-fiction; she was an amateur naturalist.

A biographer stated that, “Readers who are completely in tune with nature and who find fulfillment through its healing qualities are easily absorbed into the characters of her novels.” Gene herself wore men’s clothing, wading into the swamp and woods, writing about the wildlife around her. She included her findings within her novels.

The Harvester is a syrupy love story. But the love the author had for the wilds comes through in her details. The information in using natural herbs for remedies alone would have been invaluable to most readers, caught up in the story of the Medicine Man who prepares them. The main character has a mystical vision and moves mountains to manifest that vision into being, the truest kind of magic.

I curled up with the book, tenderly turning old and worn pages. I stepped back into a time when other hands, not mine and yet with similar blood, touched the same pages in turn. Despite the impossible speeches, I found myself drawn into the Medicine Woods that Stratton-Porter described, transported to a space once also visited in the mind of an ancestor:

 “The forest is never so wonderful as when spring wrestles with winter for supremacy. While the earth is yet ice bound, while snows occasionally fly, spring breathes her warmer breath of approach, and all nature responds. Sunny knolls, embankments, and cleared spaces become bare, while shadow spots and sheltered nooks remain white. This perfumes the icy air with a warmer breath of melting snow. The sap rises in the trees and bushes, sets buds swelling, and they distil a faint, intangible odour. Deep layers of dead leaves cover the frozen earth, and the sun shining on them raises a steamy vapour unlike anything else in nature. A different scent rises from the earth where the sun strikes it. Lichen faces take on the brightest colours they ever wear, and rough, coarse mosses emerge in rank growth from their cover of snow and add another perfume to mellowing air. This combination has breathed a strange intoxication into the breast of mankind in all ages, and bird and animal life prove by their actions that it makes the same appeal to them.

            “Crows caw supremacy from tall trees; flickers, drunk on the wine of nature, flash their yellow-lined wings and red crowns among trees in a search for suitable building places; nut-hatches run head foremost down rough trunks, spying out larvae and early emerging insects; titmice chatter; the bold, clear whistle of the cardinal sounds never so gaily; and song sparrows pipe from every wayside shrub and fence post. Coons and opossums stir in their dens, musk-rat and ground-hog inspect the weather, while squirrels race along branches and bound from tree like winged folk.”

Read my blog post about the Quilt Sample from March 2012.

Read my blog post about birch trees, featuring the found birch bark, from December 2012.

What the World Needs Now is Love

In my city, a young Egyptian boy at the high school has been harassed every day since the Boston bombings. It’s not local news, but his older sister is heartbroken for him. Someone even wrote “terrorist” on his locker in permanent marker, because he looks different. Because people are afraid and that fear trickles down to their children. But this boy and his family fled Egypt because it was no longer safe for them to be there. What happened in Boston was their every day. And an innocent boy is being asked to bear the brunt of our fear because they think he looks like someone else who did an awful thing.

This is what happens when we feed our fear. We create more. Fear breeds fear.  You would think that a city with such a large refugee population would be more tolerant of its diversity. We become strange creatures when we feed our fear instead of our love.

I saw the same thing happen in 2001, when I started my first day of work in a new city on September 12, at a grocery store catering largely to veiled women. I watched an older customer scream when a Muslim woman entered with her three children. She left her cart where it was, grabbed her purse, and ran out of the store. I listened to a woman rant for twenty minutes about how you could never know if it was a man or a woman “under there” and how that wasn’t fair to Americans. The more people fed into their fear, the uglier it became.

We always try to make this about those who are other than us. But Timothy McVeigh, who was responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995, was American. He was born in my hometown and raised just outside of it in my working class, All-American blue collar corner of the state. This isn’t about 9/11, Oklahoma City, or the Boston bombings. It’s about the horrible things that happen every day and the tools we use to bear them. It’s about truly believing, beneath the skin, that we are all relations.

If I trace my genetic DNA back far enough, what strange soil might I find their lines journeying through? I know, right now, that there are men and women in Poland, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and the Netherlands who can trace themselves back to the same ancestors as me. These men and women are my cousins. However distantly, we share blood. We are all relations.

I see the eyes of cousins in the eyes of strangers in the street. I smile at them and wish them wellness and happiness like I would wish it for a loved one. I would not forcefully take anything from them, whether I am in need or not. I deny no one their humanity or personhood.

I see you and I wish you happiness.

We are each responsible for our actions, and for how we respond to events in the world. We are not our race or our gender. We are not where we live or what job we take. We are magic-makers, capable of changing the world with acts of simple kindness. The easiest thing you can do, in times of great stress, is to feed the world your love, instead of your fear and hate.

It is easier to lash out at others from our fear-place. History shows that we have done it and we will continue to do it. We forcibly relocated native tribes, who had already been living here, because of the few tribes that even they were in battle with, who held different, more aggressive beliefs. And we wanted to claim ownership of their land. We held all the indigenous people responsible for a few. We mustn’t forget that. We were wrong.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, we responded in fear to the large Japanese-American presence on the West coast. In 1942 the government rounded up 127,000 Japanese-Americans and put them in internment camps. Their crime was having Japanese ancestry. Two-thirds of them had been born here and they were forced to sell off their lands, homes, cars, businesses, etc in order to comply with the government, hoping they could reclaim them when the scare was over. Ten relocation camps were built in seven states. Those families lost everything they had because of choices our government made from a place of fear. They were held for up to four years in inadequate housing with poor food supplies, like prisoners.

I only learned about that when my Interfaith youth group spoke to a man who had grown up inside one of those camps. It was hard for my naïve mind to believe. When I returned home and pulled out my Global Studies text book, I could only find one sentence that said, and I have never forgotten, “For their own safety, some Japanese-Americans were located to camps during the war.” That was it.

In this current time of crisis and fear, it would be easy to segregate ourselves from the unknown things that scare us. It would be easy to jump into the trust-no-one pool of thought. What would be brave and courageous, would be to continue to believe that people are good people, and that people want to be good people. I choose to believe that one smile or one kind word make a difference to someone on the edge of choosing to feed their hate.

I am afraid. I see that you are afraid. We are afraid. Let us not be afraid of each other.

To best honor my ancestors, I will learn from the mistakes they made from their places of fear. I will feed my love and give that to the world. I will ask questions before I assume or accuse. I will be patient and tolerant with the differences between us while working towards a way of living together harmoniously. I choose to be brave.

Read actor George Takei's blog post about growing up in a Japanese-American camp.

My Grackle Friends

photo shared by Factumquintus

Five years ago, a group of birds woke me on an early spring morning, their piercing croak filling the space outside my bedroom window. I had never seen them at our feeder before, the brown-black birds with iridescent green and purple heads. They were substantially bigger than the house sparrows and cardinals we were used to feeding and they did not seem to be able to manage the cedar feeder without almost knocking it over. They were so flashy in the sunlight that I later had to look them up on the Cornell bird identification website. They were my first grackles.

Of the nine grackles that frequented our yard, only one figured the bird feeder out. He was a little larger than the other ones and he found a way to hook one foot on the side of the feeder and a second foot just underneath it. He bent his body slightly sideways to balance his weight, with his tail wrapped around the side corner. From there, he would use his beak to scrap the seed off the side, down onto the ground for his friends, feeding below.

I watched them every morning when they rolled through for breakfast. I would sit quietly and after a while, they didn’t even startle when I slid the window curtain to the side. My friend, the grackle acrobat, slowly learned some more skills with balancing on the feeder. When he spied me through the window, he would run through all of his tricks and land on the clothesline, staring at me. After a while, he even started calling to me in the morning from the feeder if it was empty, which was one thing the other grackles picked up. Still, above the din, I was able to discern his fuller rusty hinge croak from the others.

When they moved on in the summertime, I was sad to see them go, but grateful for the time I was able to spend with them. The next spring, they returned, my friend front and center, and I was overjoyed. We picked up where we had left off and shared our morning times together. Two years ago, when the grackles returned, my friend was no longer among them. Even though none of the others could manage the feeder, they kept returning, and I spread seed out on the ground to encourage them.

A week and a half ago, I knew spring was finally here when I woke to a sharp grackle cry outside. It is a small group this year, but strong. There is one among them who figured out the feeder first, a smaller female. I found her hunched over the landing strip of the feeder, tucking her tail underneath it for counterbalance, skipping seed down onto the ground for her grateful friends. She unabashedly jumped up onto the clothesline and looked through the window at me.

Over the days, others have mastered the feeder, each in their own way. There is a large pair of males who discovered that if they each land on a side of the feeder at the same time they can keep it from swinging wildly beneath them. I don’t claim to know anything about bird genetic memory, but even still, I allow myself some musings. I know that in the wild, grackles can live eight to twelve years. Maybe there will come a spring that they don’t return. And maybe the grackles will keep coming long after the ones who came with my old friend are dead. Maybe they’ll keep coming long after we move away from where we live now. Maybe the fact that our lives intersected at all have linked our journeys somehow.

I wonder if the young grackles in the group knew my old friend, or if he passed before they were born. I wonder if they remember, and if they do, if they remember him. And then I realized that it doesn’t matter whether or not they do, because I do. These grackles are here and I remember the first grackle that brought them here and found them food. These grackles are living their lives in the moment, eating sitting and throwing up leaves in the dirt. I am bearing witness to the larger journey of their small group. Their lives come and go and I remain.

It is like that with our world, we come and go and the trees in their lengthened years bear witness to our passing. Watching the grackles outside my window, I am reminded that the whole pattern I am watching unfold is what my ancestor work is about. I hold my hand to a thread of ancestral energy that is the pattern of birth, life, and death we humans keep marching through. I hold my hand to that thread, keeping it present and connected to the action of living my life now. That energy is there for all of us to connect into, waiting just on the other side of the curtain, hiding beneath the rusty creak-song of an early spring grackle.

A Funeral in 2004

I have attended a lot of funerals in my lifetime, which has not been nearly as long as should warrant that statement. But I tend to see that fact more as the result of all the people I have known whose lives have touched mine. Each funeral is double-edged. There is grief in the loss of a loved one and simultaneous gratitude for the friendship that created the grief.

My first experience with attending to the details of the dead came with my Grandparents, who died three years apart. I admit that the detail-planning was a lot to take in amidst the thickness of the grief. When my Grandma died I was more of a spectator, learning the process of death for the first time. With my Grandpa, I was more invested.

My Grandpa died in the hospital at 9:03 at night. The nurses told us to take all the time we needed, and asked who we wanted them to call. My mom gave them the name of the funeral home we were using. When we left, my Grandpa’s body remained at the hospital for the Funeral Director to pick up. My Grandpa and my mom had decided to use the same funeral home as we had used for my Grandma but other than that, little arrangements had been made ahead of time.

My Grandpa had been fighting his cancer. He thought he was winning. But when the doctor told him that the treatments weren’t working, and he was looking at weeks, not months, my Grandpa slipped into unconsciousness that same night. I will always believe it was a choice he made to be done. To stop fighting. He was in a lot of pain. By the next evening, surrounded by loved ones, he was gone. He never regained consciousness.

When we went to meet with the Funeral Director the next morning, he was kind, walking through the checklist of choices we needed to make and information he needed to retrieve. He took down the details for the obituary; names of living relatives, work history, local groups he belonged to, etc. He told us he would send the obituary into the local newspaper for printing.

When asked if we wanted to have a viewing, we said yes. The Funeral Director said that we’d have to have the embalming then, and added it to the sheet on his clipboard and we moved on. We walked into the show room and picked out a casket.

            When we picked out a casket for my Grandma, he said whichever one we wanted for her, and we picked one of Oak. It was pricey, but compared to the caskets in the showroom, not ridiculous. When we entered the same showroom for my Grandpa, money was an object. It’s something I’ve been hearing from a lot of people about the choices they’ve made for their own loved ones. Often finances have to come before what they would want to do for their loved one. Which speaks to the industry that death has become in our culture.

            For my Grandpa, we chose a Pine casket, which looked very much like every other wooden casket in the room. Not that any casket is less than another. All wood is sacred. And it only matters in the moment of purchasing it. No one is going to see it when it’s in the ground. It is kind of set up to make you feel like if-you-loved-them-more-you-would-show-it-by-picking-a-better-casket. It must be hard and overwhelming for those trying to make these choices from a place of extreme grief. We didn’t need the fancy linings or the fancy pillows, or the secret compartment in the casket for belongings and we were all in agreement on that. If you knew my Grandpa, he would have approved of the simple and classic choice we made.

Then we picked out a vault, which can be required when a body is embalmed in some states. I have also learned that some cemeteries will require the use of a vault whether the person is embalmed or not, and whether the state requires it or not. Using a vault assists with the ease of their ground maintenance, as vaults help keep the ground from shifting too much as the casket settles.

We planned the dates for the viewings with a simple service at the funeral home through the use of their retired minister. My Great-Grandparents were Roman Catholic but my Grandpa never claimed any religion as his own. What the funeral home could offer seemed the best option. The funeral home made arrangements with the cemetery for opening and closing the grave site for us, but only because we were using them for our service.

Then we waited until the viewings, sitting in quiet, sharing stories, cleaning to keep hands busy. We called family and friends and received them at my parent’s house. The viewings at the funeral home were a blur. Lots of reunions with people I hadn’t seen since childhood. It was an unfortunate circumstance and yet I thought my Grandpa, who enjoyed his alone time as much as he enjoyed socializing, would have approved at how much laughter filled that cold and somber room.

The morning of the service was a joke. I know the retired minister meant well, but he couldn’t remember my Grandpa’s name and he used the opportunity to throw every Bible story he had ever been fond of into his eulogy- and that is me being kind. I wish I had been a bit older. I wish I had anticipated the end was coming. I wish I could have stood up there and spoken to the awesomeness that my Grandpa had been made of. Still, the comical eulogy served as the source of much laughter during the afternoon.

We divvied up the flower arrangements, deciding what would go to the grave site. The plants we separated up for family to take home to grow and renew. It was touching to see the flowers come in from people we didn’t really know, whose lives my Grandpa had touched. The webs we weave in life are far larger than we can perceive.

It was a warm spring day, just after equinox in the cemetery. Standing graveside was the most natural part of the entire experience for me.  The sun was shining. Birds were singing. The ground sat open in wait. The strangest part of the morning was deciding who would ride in what vehicle with whom to get to the cemetery.

I don’t know how it is in large cities, but in my hometown we still ascribe to the funeral procession. The hearse takes the lead, with family cars behind it, and other cars behind them, safety lights flashing. It’s a slow crawl through red lights and stop signs. Life paused in breathes as we wound through town, picking back up in our wake.

Afterwards we gathered at a family member’s house for food and conversation. When my Grandma died, we gathered together in their house, filling the new void with friends and company. But with the second loss, we let someone else hold that part for us. I think it would have been too much, to see so many people populate a house whose future emptiness we were still coming to terms with. At the same time, I can see how it would have been healing, to bring life back into the house.

And then it was over. We stayed up late and talked. We shared stories and family secrets together at the kitchen table. A few days later my mom and I went back to his house. We walked through an emptiness that suddenly felt massive. The gravity of reality hit us, but now we had time.

We didn’t really know what Grandpa would have liked or would have wanted if he’d been able to choose, but we knew him well enough to make the best choices. And it prompted us to sit around the kitchen table and begin to discuss our own desires after our eventual deaths. It’s important to know what you want, what you don’t want, and what you don’t care about one way or the other. It’s important to share that with the friends and family that may be left to take care of those details. Both because it’s smart and because it’s kind.

What do you want done to best honor the temple that was your body? You might not care, and that’s all right. Don’t feed into the industrial machine death has become, simply because you think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Question everything. And then call around to your local funeral homes and see how close you can get to what you want. 

The History of Embalming

Embalmed bodies on display for services during the Civil War.

Many funeral homes will require you to embalm the body of your deceased if you want an open casket viewing. And, like many industries, when they ask you if you want a viewing, they just add on the costs to the bill, stating that you will need to have the body embalmed, as if it is a fact. It is true that the funeral home may require it. But with some forethought and research, you may just be able to find one that doesn’t. Refrigeration is a valid alternative.

Western Civilization has lived on this American soil for almost 400 years and embalming has only been widely performed for the last 80 years. The embalming process disinfects the body from the inside out, preserving it, and dyes mixed in with the formaldehyde restore a life-like tint to the skin of the dead. I am going to come clean by saying that after my research, and given my spiritual proclivities, I am against the push of embalming for many reasons. Our bodies are our sacred temples, and I have spent the last two years cleaning out my temple, and ridding it of toxins and illness. I do not want it sewn closed, plugged up, and filled with chemicals after I die.

There is a natural order to the world. Our bodies, if buried, should be allowed to naturally decompose, without the potential of leeching toxic chemicals into the earth. If I am to become food for nature, why should I poison it? And, in my opinion, in a culture where we are already removed from the intimacies of death, making your loved one appear more life-like could potentially remove us more from its reality. For some people, seeing a life-like corpse could make it harder for them to accept the loss.

Embalming does not save the population from diseases associated with death. If that were true, morticians and undertakers themselves would carry a high mortality rate. The truth is morticians are at a greater risk of health threats due to exposure to embalming fluid than they are to all of the bodies that cross through their doors. In just the last ten years, OSHA has lowered the number for low level exposure with side effects from 3 parts per million to 0.1 parts per million of formaldehyde. What was deemed safe before, no longer is. What will we learn in another ten years? We are so keen to push for growth, that we often do so before the consequences can be weighed.

So why do we do it? Where did it start?

The ancient Egyptians perfected the art of embalming and mummifying the dead over 5,000 years ago, an art which was later lost to time. But the idea of embalming saw itself through many cultures, with varying degrees of success. During the Crusades, there are scattered reports of the alchemical process performed on fallen knights in order to return their bodies home for proper Christian burials. Many of the attempts to embalm during the Crusades were unsuccessful. My ancestor Saher de Quincey was not embalmed, but was buried in Palestine. His heart was returned home and interred there. We know the Egyptians practiced mummification as did the indigenous peoples of Peru and Chile. But many archaeologists believe that the reason they were so successful in preservation had more to do with the harsh and severe drying climates than the process itself.

In America, it was a war that divided our country that changed the funeral process. Embalming was developed during the Civil War as a means of preserving the bodies for transportation back home for burial, and was a practice only known to have been applied to Northern soldiers. Dr. Thomas Holmes experimented with preservative chemicals in his job as a coroner’s assistant in New York. He received a commission as a captain in the Army Medical Corps in Washington, D.C. during the War. He embalmed over 4,000 soldiers and officers for return home to the North.

A crop of “embalming surgeons” sprouted up in the battlefield. Some of these men embalmed unclaimed bodies to put on display in order to show off their work, which other soldiers found disgraceful. It was an expensive process and only families with wealth could afford to pay. Those who could afford it would then hope the surgeons could find their loved one among the dead on the battlefield. Along with good surgeons like Holmes, charlatans gauging grieving families for money emerged, too.

After the War, Holmes offered his services to the public for $100 a body, but eventually embalming fell into disuse due to both a lack of demand for its expense, and too few people able to perform the procedure. The classes for studying embalming consisted of a couple of days and the purchase of a gallon of formula. Embalming was originally a process of alcohol, arsenic, creosote, mercury, and turpentine, until the German chemist August Wilhelm von Hoffmann and Russian chemist Alexander Butlerov discovered formaldehyde in 1866.

In the 1920s, the funeral industry became highly profitable due to the physical losses of WWI. The industry began to involve the sale of caskets, embalming, grave vaults, funeral clothing, and other various paraphernalia. Embalming licenses were not universally distributed until the 1930s.

Embalmers are required to wear a respirator and full-body covering by OSHA while they work for their own safety. Yet, often in funeral homes, waste is flushed out into the sewer system or septic tank. Where does it go then? Shouldn’t that matter? Refrigeration is a valid alternative to embalming if a wait is required, even if the funeral home tries to deny it. Not all funeral homes have facilities for refrigeration, but many hospitals do. Other options are out there.

Embalming does not preserve the body forever. Embalming allows the body to decompose via dissolution and oxidation, as opposed to putrefaction and rot. The blood is replaced with a disinfectant and preservative solution, fixing the body from the inside out. After embalming, the body can only be attacked by airborne bacteria and molds. What it does do is allow for people to take some time in the planning of the funeral.

The main three purposes of embalming are disinfection, preservation, and restoration. In my mind, the last two steps remove us from the reality of what the death of our loved ones mean. Muslims and Jews consider embalming to be a desecration of the body. Hindus and Buddhists choose cremation instead of burial. Embalming is only a common practice in Canada and the United States.

Many funeral directors will not allow a public viewing without embalming, but a private viewing by family and close friends without it can be arranged. Modern funeral homes are forbidden by law from embalming your loved ones without your permission. There is absolutely no legal requirement for embalming. Some cemeteries have special requirements for the bodies interred there, but there are no universal legal laws.

Just for a bit more information, here are the ecological costs of burying embalmed bodies in the States. According to the website for Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve, a green burial cemetery in Ithaca, NY, each year 22,500 cemeteries in the U.S. bury about:

• 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid
• 30-plus million feet of hard woods for caskets
• 90,272 tons of steel for caskets
• 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete for vaults
• 14,000 tons of steel for vaults
• 2,700 tons of copper and bronze for caskets
• On average, one cemetery buries 1,000 gallons of embalming fluid, 97.5 tons of steel, 2,028 tons of concrete, and 56,250 board feet of high quality tropical hardwood in just one acre of greenery.

One of the reasons we bury sealed caskets in concrete vaults is so that the chemicals of the embalming process cannot leak into the soil and water tables. The way we dispose of our dead requires us to waste more resources. The numbers are staggering to me. If it is our future we are concerned for, I cannot help but see the resources we would be saving if we returned to simpler burials of untouched bodies in simple wooden boxes, if boxes are used at all.

Be Good Ancestors Now

Those of us who do Ancestor Work, who take time to research those who came before us, do so with the idea that our lives are one focal point on an energy ribbon that stretches out behind us and weaves a path before us, disappearing from view on the horizon. We fade as all time fades but our lines will continue onward. But that notion, that fluidity is important.

In this lifetime I chose not to have children, but I don’t believe that relieves me of my responsibility in what world I leave behind for future generations. I want my nieces and nephew to have a better world to live in, like my parents did for me and my siblings, like their parents did for them. Much of my work, looking backwards, involves being able to stand in ‘now’ and see the world for what it really is, to be able to stand here and hold myself accountable for my personal impact on this planet.

What will our children say in five generations, or more, or less, when they look at our names on their trees, when they look at this time period and ask why we didn’t try harder when we had the chance? I can imagine a world of abandoned steel and concrete cities and polluted drinking water. I can all too clearly see the finite resource that is the Ogallala Aquifer. What will we do when our farmlands turn to dust?

It’s not a world I want to leave for those still to come. I am already a Great-Aunt and I look at that little boy’s face and I want everything for him. In thinking about this work that I do and what I am trying to impart, it comes to me that we need to start thinking seriously about the fact that someday, someone will be looking at our names in their family history and wondering why we didn’t do more. Because those who come after us will have much less resources than we have now.

All children belong to all of us. We are all responsible for the welfare of the generations yet to come, not just our own. We are all responsible for changing the world to reflect what we wish it to be for our children.

We all feel lonely. And the way we go about solving it is to close ranks and do for ourselves because the world is too hard. It’s a pattern we repeat, like beating ourselves against a brick wall. It’s a pattern we need to change. We may be animals of skin and bone but we have evolved to be better than that. We are all struggling our way through this world.

My family has made some hard choices for our lives, which puts us at the outskirts of our society’s culture. We don’t have cell phones, we still have a land line. We prefer our technology second-hand. When everyone is updating to blu-ray dvd players, we are happily taking their old ones. We struggle really hard to consider the difference between want and need, and we watch which one we feed.

Over the years we have made small changes in our day-to-day lives and the choices we make with what little money we have that make us feel better that we cannot impact more change in the world. We try not to buy anything in a package that cannot be recycled as our city has a good recycling program. We buy most of our groceries from Wegmans, a grocery store which supports equality and has a lot of programs to benefit the communities around us.

We buy local as much as possible and support the small business owners. That way, our money goes going directly into our community and if we don’t want our city to become another ghost-factory town, it matters. A lot of the changes we made were because we had to, not because they were easy. But we survived them and found we felt better, and they have become the way we live.

Some Simple Steps to Start Change:

• Cultivate a relationship with the natural world by starting your own garden, even if it’s one potted tomato plant. It puts you in tune with the land you live on as you watch the effects of weather, or lack of weather, and blight.
• Be aware of the garbage you produce that we all expect someone else will take care of. Here’s a way of being mindful of how much garbage you produce on a regular basis. Carry a bag with you every day for a week, and put all of your garbage in it, instead of the nearest trash bin. Take a hard look at how much waste you produce a day (i.e. straw wrappers, candy wrappers, empty pens, scraps of paper, etc…). How much of that garbage can be recycled? How much of your garbage is unusable again? Think about what will happen to that stuff when our landfills are full.
• Carry a bag with you to pick up garbage you see littered on the ground and dispose of it appropriately. Someone has to and it might as well be you. Teach your children to pick trash up off the ground.
• RECYCLE. Look at what garbage could be recycled, whether you have a recycling program in your city or not. Is there a place you could take it where it could be recycled once a month? If not, could you search for products with less packaging than what you currently purchase?
• Be kind to people around you. Let your children and peers see you holding doors for people behind you. Don’t have an expectation that anyone should notice or even say thank you. Do it because you would want it done for you. I know I do it because I am trying to live my life the way I wish the world was.
• Stand patiently in retail lines instead of huffing, tapping your foot and having private conversations publicly on your cell phone. Everyone has somewhere else they would rather be. Look people in the eye when you’re at the register. Connect.
• Look into composting your organic waste, instead of throwing fruit and vegetable matter or coffee grounds into the garbage (the nitrogen in coffee grounds is good for compost). Items like egg shells can be crushed up and put in the bottom of holes when planting your vegetables, as the calcium they add to the soil is beneficial.
• Turn lights off in the rooms you aren’t using. Turn off your appliances when they aren’t being used. Turn off all of the electronics in your home and listen to the difference in the sound.
• When gift-giving, get creative and recycle brown bags as wrapping paper.
• BUY LOCAL. Put your money into boosting your community’s economy. Buying on-line is sometimes necessary when you need something specific, but do it thoughtfully. Shipping products cost gas and money, which your local shops have already paid for.
• In the summertime support farmer’s markets. The carbon footprints are smaller and the local farmers need your support.
• Buy clothes made of natural fibers, which will breakdown over time when you discard them (polyester is forever). Shop at thrift stores. When cleaning out your closets, organize a clothing swap day with your friends and family.
• Learn to love receiving homemade gifts. A jar of jam made by a friend is better than the television box set you’ve been hoping for. Think of the energy your friend put into crafting that item. Every time you enjoy it, they’re sharing that energy with you again.
• Walk, because it’s good for you. Walk, because the commercials for how many diabetics are in America are heartbreaking. Walk, because you will live longer and spend less money on gas. Ride a bicycle if you have one for all the same reasons. And when you can’t, car pool with friends.
• Drink water. Allow yourself one sugary beverage a day but try replacing your other soda or juice drinks with a glass of water instead. As my friend Joanna said, “The only thing that tastes like not thirsty, is water.” Have gratitude for the clean water you drink. Someday it will be gone.
• When you go out shopping, bring canvas or muslin bags with you instead of bringing home more plastic bags. Most stores are starting to carry reusable shopping bags.
• Be mindful and try to buy items made in America. If you don’t *need* it and it’s made in a foreign country, leave it on the shelf. Stores won’t start changing what they buy until they can’t sell what they have.
• In the summer, save on resources and put a clothes line up to dry your clothes outdoors.
• Be aware of your reliance on technology. Remember that our ancestors didn’t have these luxuries, and yet they survived.
• Be aware of how often you have private conversations in public spaces. Turn off your cell phone when spending time with friends and family. Don’t let it interrupt your time connecting with loved ones (they were meant to be for our convenience, not the world).
• One day a week (or more), unplug. Turn off the televisions. Turn off your phone. Get off the computer and do something in nature.
• Be grateful for what you have instead of worrying about what you don’t. 

Sometimes we feel like our choices won’t make an impact or change, so we don’t try. We feel overwhelmed at how large the world is sometimes, which just means we need to narrow our focus. In one summer my family cut our garbage refuse in half by being more mindful. Now we only put garbage to the curb every other week.

Bring change into your community and let your community’s change show the world. Every one of us matters. Every one of us can be a beacon of hope.

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.

As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”

~Mahatma Gandhi