Autumn Crossroads at Equinox

We are turning into autumn and the last of our tomatoes and beans are fruiting. The morning glories herald the dawn in vibrant hues of violet, periwinkle, and fuchsia. The white moon flowers are twined around the rail, their buds thick and strong. They are ready to burst open and hail the darker days of the year. Silence stills the land here, one year into recovering from the horrible flooding that made headlines in the news. The first of the geese flying north to south in migration have trumpeted across the sky.

Smells turn crisp and quick as leaves dry, drop and decay, crunching against the bottom of our feet as we walk through the brush. Garden fruit and vegetables that missed their harvest will rot and fall. They become mulch and nourish the earth for sowing in the spring. In autumn, layers of bone, earth and leaves cover the world, dulling the sharp piquant of summertime. We bed our gardens and add bulk to our bodies against the funneling twist of leaves lifting in chillier winds. The beauty of life is migrating onward, disappearing into the earth and ether. The world outside us prepares to sleep. The world inside us softens into rest, too.

We have toiled through the languid heat of our longest days and the changing landscape heralds the lengthening dark that will descend soon upon us. The Equinox is my favorite time of year, symbolic of the crossroads. It is at the point where the breathing world joins with the spirit world. It’s a place where two conflicting truths can stand equally as firm and where balance is born. It is the place where the gateway exists. It is a gateway that lives inside you.

As the point of balance floats over our land like twilight fog, obscuring lines and blurring edges, we have the chance to touch the other side without walking through it. On Equinox, I pause to catch a breath. I stand between the long days of light and the long nights of dark. I stand at the crossroad and pay homage to those who have stood here before me, to the pause in the passage of time, and to those who will stand here long after I am gone. On this day I can see into the future as far as I can see into the past.

We stand in the tipping point, the grey space, the limbo, the in-between. Equinox is a time for feeling and reflection, a chance to catch our breath before moving forward. This is the time of year when I pause my search for more lines of my family tree. I wrap up my current work and make notes of where to look next. I will spend the winter months researching what names I have, reading old tomes and histories so that I might discover what I can about who my ancestors were and the places they inhabited.

The genealogical research is easier for me to do in sprints, following one line through till I hit a wall, then fleshing out that line, giving it form and story. In this way the act alone is a study in my own history and I am the eternal student. By using this method, the names and dates imprint on my memory with context. Every winter my living knowledge of my family grows stronger. In my dedication, the threads between me and my ancestral dead grow thicker.

We are about to enter the labyrinth, going underground like the mythological Ariadne, under and inward. I have been practicing my embroidery, in remembrance of my Great-Grandmother Minnie, and her mothers, whose scraps of sewing craft I treat as sacred objects from a line of women I never knew. In my nightly meditations I have been embroidering labyrinths, moving into the dark to come out of the dark. It takes two full lines, two lengths of needle and thread, in at one end and out at the other, to create the full labyrinth, which is made up of two roads, crossing at the key. In this ancient tool, duality and balance snake into forms that do not lose their symbolic origins.

If I unwind the labyrinth, the four arms of the equinoxes and solstices spread before me. We stand at the crossroad, facing autumn, knowing that as we step onto the road it is already turning towards winter. The crossroad lies near the heart of the labyrinth. We turn inward to find center at Solstice, and roll outward, retracing steps to find the sun again next Equinox. In walking the labyrinth, we move like the waters of our body move to the currents of the ocean, rolling in and out, each turn in moving us closer to healing and wholeness. As life continues through the shorter days and my body moves daily through the world, I carry the peace of the labyrinth inside me, as an anchor of stillness, walking it quietly within while the world moves loudly around me.

As the leaves dry and fall, I find some of this peace in the act of showing honor to those long gone. I walk the local cemeteries, picking up trash and litter. It is such a small offering made to the memory of those gone before. They may not be my ancestors but they belong to someone. These dead shaped the town that I live in and they had lives filled with hopes and dreams, just like mine. To me the cemeteries feel most like parks, with spirits wandering here and there. They are some of the quietest spaces, full of the grace of those who lived and those still living who remember their names.

Experiencing Death V: Suicide

This week is National Suicide Prevention Week. In this time when our society is still laden with bullying and inequality, it’s important for us all to recognize that for some people, this door may feel like the only help left to them. I don’t say that lightly. Suicide is a choice that has touched the lives of most of the people I know. It’s a choice we don’t talk about. It darkens our days and we hold it at bay, unwilling to face the truth of a decision our loved ones made.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is a wonderful organization that attempts to aid those left behind in the wake of such a misunderstood choice. Choice… decision… action… it feels hard to pick the right word on this subject. Bear with me while I navigate through this. In my own life I have lost nine friends to suicide. That’s nine family, friends, and classmates over the course of twenty years who have chosen to take their own lives. Three more who have passed from shady drug overdoses that may or may not have been purposeful, but that answer was lost with them. Some days, that is too many for my heart to bear.        

I have tried to write different posts on this topic but it is such a dangerous one. I cannot speak specifically to any suicide that has touched me, for the others who have been left behind still feel those wounds deeply and I would not cause them more pain. The things we cannot face become sharp instruments that wound us in their memory. And to those of you who understand that sentiment, I say from my own experience, face the memory and see its truth. Once through the pain, there will be peace.

The first suicide I faced was when I was 14. One of the reasons I exited the institution of the Catholic Church was because the priest could give me no comfort. I was trying to understand the mindset of my friend, who sought me out after months of no communication just before he took his life. I didn’t understand and I blamed myself. What I thought was him reaching out to me was him putting affairs in order. Not that either of us could have known that at that age. But the priest gave a young girl who needed guidance dogma, and buried the hilt deeper into my chest.

There is always anger with suicides. There should be. But for me, under the mountain of loss, I come back to compassion. Anyone who has known their own darkness, anyone who has stood at the edge of such madness and felt the desire, even for a moment, to drop over the edge, must be the shepherds of compassion in the wake of suicide. For we have all been there. But those who take action are those who fell over the edge of madness into despair.

On the other side of that line, what we see as rational is colored differently and changes shape. I believe that some suicide is chosen out of a wish for peace, for quiet, for relief. I don’t believe suicide is about anyone but the person who takes that road. It’s not done to hurt anyone left behind. At the point of falling over the edge, it’s not about anyone else. I imagine it’s like tunnel vision. The people I have been close to who took their lives were all in a spiral of chaos beforehand. Even if we couldn’t see it until afterwards.

I believe that if they thought of us at all, that they believed they were doing us a favor by removing their chaos from our lives, so that it wouldn’t touch us anymore. But more importantly, I think to their sickened minds, it was the only door left to them that promised a measure of peace. It’s what I hold onto at night, when the darkness comes. In the silence of the night I wish them peace.

There is no way to ever prepare yourself for the loss of a loved one to suicide. I think the best thing you could do is accept that there wasn’t anything you could have done. Don’t torture yourself with what you could have/should have done, for we can never go back in time and change what has occurred. Honor their memory and their struggle against their darkness. Love them. Move forward in your own life and live. Each breath you take is for them. Each joy you feel is in their honor.

According to the AFSP website’s recent statistics, a suicide occurs in the U.S. every 14.2 seconds and almost a million people attempt suicide every year. Men commit suicide four times more than women, yet women will attempt suicide three times more than men. They occur most often in adults between the ages of 40 and 59.

Reasons for suicide can include a known psychiatric disorder (depressive disorders, schizophrenia, alcohol or drug abuse, post traumatic stress disorder, and personality disorders), a past history of attempts, a family history of suicide, and individuals with impulsive behaviors. There can also be a state of suicide crisis, where there is a precipitating event, like some kind of severe loss, whether personal or financial. There can be a sudden and abrupt change in behavior including things the person says, actions, and the loss of their ability to function.

Warning signs include consistent low moods, pessimism, hopelessness, desperation, anxiety, psychic pain, withdrawal, sleep problems, increased alcohol and drug use, a rise in unnecessary risk taking, wishing to die, giving away prized possessions, and unexpected rage or anger. According to their website, the AFSP says that most suicidal people have some form of depression, which can be described as severe and consistent sadness. It can also be described as a withdrawal from things that once brought the person joy.

While one statistic said that a majority of people who commit suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric condition when they take their life (of which depression is included), another statistic says that most people being treated for a diagnosed mental illness do not die in suicide, insinuating that with proper care and treatment the suicidal thoughts will go away.

If you believe a loved one is in danger, get help. Talk to them if you feel you can. Give them examples of behaviors that are concerning you. Let them be honest and don’t judge where they are emotionally. Try to avoid cliché statements like “You have so much to live for” or “Think of what that would do to the people who love you.” Anyone in crisis is in a fragile place and adding guilt and pressure to them could just make them shut down.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, tell someone. I would encourage you to be honest about where you are. Don’t be afraid. If those thoughts persist, get help. You are not alone.

·         If you or someone you love is in an immediate and dangerous crisis of taking their life, call 911.

·         If you or someone you love is having serious suicidal thoughts but is not in immediate jeopardy, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). It is available 24 hours a day, toll free and confidential.

·         Specifically for the LGBTQ community, call the Trevor Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386 to speak with a trained counselor. The line is open 24/7. All calls are confidential and toll free.

To those of my heart who are no longer with me because you took a door that only you could see, I may not understand, and I accept that I may never know why. My anger does not diminish the joy you gave me or the love we shared. I remember the good times and the laughter and the beauty in you that you might have seen if things had been different. I call on that light to outshine the unknown that clouded your mind and as I step into the world, I carry you with me, always.

May it be so.

Relevant Posts:

Experiencing Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)

Experiencing Death II: My Father’s Father (published June 13, 2012)

Experiencing Death III: Squirrel in the Road (published July 11, 2012)

Experiencing Death IV: The Body at Daggett Lake (published August 15, 2012)

Working with the Dead

My ancestor work doesn’t just involve honoring those who paved the way for me to be here. In times of hardship and trouble, I make petitions to my ancestors for guidance and aid, but most often simply to watch over us and shield us from harm. I work to keep my connection to them strong so that when I find myself in need, they are right beside me and sharp in my mind. I have always been sensitive to the spirit world. I have always known when spirits were about but not in a psychic way. I get emotional impressions, not factual information.

Fresh out of college, I attended my first Psychic Fair, full of doubt and skepticism, but knowing that I wanted it to be true. After several trips to the spiritualist community of Lilydale during my time in college, I desperately wanted to be a believer. After all, if I thought I could sense spirit activity, I couldn’t be the only one who could do it.

We’re always skeptical about anything we haven’t or can’t experience for ourselves. How do we know something is real if we can’t touch it or see it or hear it or taste it? Even though I was sensitive to spirits, if I couldn’t see them well enough to describe them or hear them say what they wanted, how could I be sure anyone else could? And that’s were faith always comes into play. If I believed I could, I had to trust that others could. If I believed I had a gift that others didn’t, I had to believe that other people could have a gift I didn’t.

I wandered the room, eavesdropping on readings and using my gut responses to feel out people whose readings sounded exactly like I expected them to sound. I know now that my own interpretations are so vague that I perhaps did some of the mediums a disservice by writing them off. But what was missing for me in their readings was the emotional context, the emotional connection to spirit world that I feel. And the people paying for readings were too eager, too open about revealing information that cold readers can use. And I was young.

To be fair, in retrospect, I have worked through the fear of revealing something that might be too personal or raw to people who are practically strangers to me. I understand why people trying to make money with their gifts might hold back from attempting to offer information that would upset a potential client. You have to be good with people, both living and dead to engender trust. When the dead have something to say and they find a doorway into this world they are not going to sugar-coat or tiptoe around why they’re here. And no stranger enjoys mediating family drama between the dead and the living.

Eventually I found a woman who was sitting patiently, not trying to get people to buy her time. She offered to do a reading for me, as she sensed someone coming through. If I felt she had made contact, I could pay her. It was the right way to woo a skeptic and I sat down. She was dressed simply in jeans and a sweater. Her hair was loose. She had a deck of tarot cards with a Native American theme on them in front of her, which she had me shuffle and then laid out.

Something about a mother figure, she said. But no, I said, my mother was still alive. She said it could be grandmother, but I shook my head no. All three of my grandmothers were still alive. Except for my father’s mother. I said so but she said no, it was my maternal side, connected to my mother. I sat expressionless, knowing a thing or two about cold reading. I watched her go into what I now know as a trance state and she began to talk about how this woman visits me and watches over me and sometimes I can feel her touching the top right side of my head and when it happens I wonder for a moment at the sensation and yes, she wants me to know that is her trying to contact me, letting me know I’m not alone.

I was sitting at the table. I remembered that feeling and with it, attached to a thin thread came the memory of sitting at my Great-Grandma Elsie’s knee when she stayed with us for the summer. Her hand was on the top of my head, and it was cool like silk paper. And with that memory the spot on my head began to buzz in the room at the Psychic Fair and the air around me smelled like baby powder, musty blankets, and lilacs. Elsie spent the summers with us and watched us when my mother went out. She was like a mother to me, to everyone who knew her and all of the senses I had learned to trust were trying to tell me she was present.

Me, Elsie, and my brother, 1976.

The woman across the table was staring at me, her eyes open, and she said “She loves you, and she watches over you.” I put my money on the table, thanked her, and walked quietly outside, where I promptly burst into tears. We all want to hear that the people we loved in the world are still with us when they leave it. I do believe part of them is still here, like an echo, like energy of love that was so strong it stays behind, ebbing through the time we have left. Our spirit is only form within our physical bodies and when we die, some of it moves on, some of it becomes something else, some of it becomes part of the energy of the world around us and some of it stays behind like an echo.

I knew I would do anything to reach my Great-Grandmother again. And I started on the path to where I am now. When I received confirmation that Elsie was with me, she had been dead for six years and I had healed my grief over losing her. So I was ready to call on her, to call her to me, to ask for help and guidance from her. She became a doorway to the rest of my ancestors. I consider them like an “intuition upgrade,” adding another sense to my repertoire.

I do not know the exact length of time before you should call on a dead relative for aid, and I think that the time is different for everyone. In the same way that we all handle transitions and transformations differently, some need more time than others. I believe and worry that some spirits need more time to cross over, to adjust to not being part of the material world. I worry that those who are called to stay here before they’re ready get pulled by what is familiar and become ghosts, stuck in between living and whatever happens next. At the same time, if a recently deceased spirit is the one trying to contact you, it would seem prudent to answer, for perhaps they will not pass over until their business is finished.

We need not fear the spirits around us. In my work it would be akin to be afraid of the ring of a telephone. When we open ourselves to accepting the call of our ancestors, we are opening a larger universe of sensation that can only serve to sharpen our experiences of the world we walk upon in our breathing lives.

Crafting Spirit Stones

Early in my practice, I relied heavily on the use of tools to connect with the larger natural world. Without them I wouldn’t have evolved such a deep understanding of the interconnected web. When I was learning how to trust my intuition, I used divination as a means to verify what I thought I was sensing. In the pagan world, we often use divination as a means of interacting with the spirit world to help clarify events and situations.

In our daily lives, it’s difficult to be in a situation and see it clearly, so we seek advice from friends or mentors to help us gauge how best to proceed. When we’re asking for guidance on the human plane, the best place to look for it is spirit world. For me it’s almost a therapeutic interaction. In Psychology, Cognitive Touch Therapy is used to help your body ferret out truths your mind is trying to keep you from. Your muscles betray your subconscious lies. Just like that, divination helps me tap into my intuitive body and see more clearly things I already know.

I am not psychic, not at all. But I have a high-sensitivity to the spirit world, which is why I have the interactions with ghosts that I have. The spirit world is active around us all the time and the more closely you vibrate in accord with the natural world, the more you will see some of what remains invisible to others. Divination acts like a translation tool between the energies you tap into and our own human language.

No one can say for certain if the energy used for divination comes from an external spirit world alive around us or whether it’s from an internal ancient knowledge that lives within our bloodstream. I believe it’s both. We humans are the conduits between earth and sky, the vessel that meets within and without. In my practice, magic and science are close relatives. I see divining as a gift of guidance, accessible when our intuition is finely tuned to the natural world.

I spent years looking into and studying different forms of divination: tarot, runes, ogham, scrying, obi, palmistry, reading tea leaves. The more help the divination tool used to speak to me, with the use of elaborate visuals or concrete definitions, the more unsure I was as to what I was intuiting versus what I was interpreting, so it was clear that for me, a simple casting method would work best. I began to understand that the way I was intuitively communicating with the spirit world was not represented well enough with any divining medium I learned. The spirit world I interact with and the work I do is not bound to a specific culture. My own ancestral lineage spans multiple cultures. I needed something with both an ancient history and a broad scope. I had to find my own language.

I found myself drawn to the form of casting lots. Many cultures throw bones as divination. It was a simple enough concept and memories of childhood games of Yahtzee made it an enticing one. As far as connecting to spirit, stone pulls me in best and helps me reach that vibration. To me stones are the bones of the earth, the layer where the ancestors are buried. It is that layer within and without I am trying to contact so I looked to throwing stones instead.

I chose to throw seven, as it is a magical number for me and one that resonates with my ancestor work. One stone would represent the intention, situation or question. Then I chose six stones, three of one kind and three of another, two sides of a coin. I used snowflake obsidian for my intention stone, which I used for meditations often, and snow quartz and black obsidian as the six vibration stones.

You can’t just get stones and cast them and expect answers. You have to create a relationship with them first. I spent a moon cycle with the snowflake obsidian, wearing it in trance as a means of harmonizing it to my frequency. I spent a moon cycle with the snow quartz, charging them with clarity, with yes, with light and harmony. I spent a moon cycle with the obsidian and charged them with confusion, mystery, chaos and caution. Then I spent one last moon cycle charging them with the energy of web and interconnectedness, dedicating them to my ancestors. I made them all equal parts of importance in a hive mind.

When I cast them, I ask yes or no questions. I chose to interpret them in a common way, similar to obi (divination with coconut or cowrie shells). The closer my question stone is to more white stones, the more favorable/true/positive the answer. The closer my question stone is to more black stones, the more unfavorable/false/unknown the answer, with all the myriad of uncertainty in between. It suits me and allows me to trust myself.

I make petitions of my ancestors, when I need guidance from them, when I need them to send energy to a specific situation, and I use the stones to speak to them. What do they need from me? What do they ask of me? Am I doing enough to honor them? Do they hear me when I can’t hear them? Just like my candle is the lighthouse I burn to call on them, the stones have become the medium I use to hear from them. It works for me, part of the path I have built for myself. It’s important to me that everyone finds their own way to meet and engage with spirit. It is the experience of working on your spirituality that builds trust within yourself, so that you may learn to trust in what you are experiencing.

Stones of the Earth

The human animals of the earth do not walk it alone. We share it with other animal allies, learning lessons on how to better ourselves through observing the ways they live in their habitats. It seems the more evolved our society got, the further from our primal connection to nature we moved. Our allies can help us rebuild that connection. There are more allies in the natural world waiting to teach us. We are surrounded by them: plants, trees, weather, minerals, gemstones, etc. My strongest natural allies are rocks, minerals and gemstones.
We walk across them every day. We kick them around, we dig them up, we build structures with them and we crush them down to be used in composite materials. Most people take little notice of them but stones vibrate for me. They have energy. They transform it. They act as a conduit for it. They store it. And sometimes they release that energy back into the world.

Predjama Castle in Slovenia contains a torture chamber that saw 700 years of violence. It stands now as a museum and is internationally known to be haunted. Employees and volunteers have heard the same voices repeating from the ether of the dungeon bowels. What was discovered beneath the fortress was a cavern of quartz, iron, salt and water, all of which are components for creating a quartz battery. They theorize that the combination of elements actually recorded sounds from when the dungeon was actively used. It is believed that the repetitive voices heard today are captured moments from a previous time, held within the quartz deposits.

Some world wonders are discovered accidentally. After pumping water out from underground in the process of mining for iron and silver, the Cueva de los Cristales, or Cave of Crystals, was discovered 300 meters beneath the Naica mountain in Mexico. The caverns are filled with gypsum crystals which had been submerged under water for 500,000 years. Under high temperatures and with the presence of mineral-rich water, the selenite grew to an awe inspiring size. The largest of the crystals is estimated to be about 600,000 years old and over 10 meters long. That’s 33 feet in length. Pollen removed from a water bubble in one crystal approximates that 30,000 years ago that desert was once covered in dense forest.

I haven’t been to either Slovenia or Mexico, but I’m fascinated by the world’s natural stone formations, especially caverns. Being surrounded by stone on all sides is an amazing experience, as was my trip to Howe’s Caverns in New York. At one point in the tour, we were adrift on a boat on an underground river in the pitch black… wonder-filled.

My experience with the physical world stretches as far south as North Carolina, as far north as Toronto, east to the coast of Maine, and west to Michigan, save for one flight to Texas. I am fascinated by caverns and also find myself drawn to the mountains over and over. I cannot stand on the mountain top and not feel the energy of the mass of stone beneath me. It sits beneath the soil, beneath the flesh of the earth. I am known for picking up random stones on my travels that speak to me through shape, color or feel. In fact, they’re littered throughout my home altars and outdoor garden.

Stones are the bones of the earth. I have stood on the spines of the earth where the smoky mountains meet the blue mountains. I have felt the pulsing heart of the mountain chain writhing above the lush green landscape. I have felt the firmament of planet beneath me, high above the other mountains and I have stood in that moment full of wonder at the world stretched out before me.

I have been to the shore of Maine, climbing over stone slabs that look like petrified wood, and I felt the calling of the ocean across its great expanse. The stones I stood on, slick with algae and years of seawater, were once joined to the Western bluffs of Ireland, before the plates split and shifted. I felt an ancestral stirring in my bones, beneath my flesh, standing at the edge. I wonder what the stone of the ocean floor feels like beneath all that water. The ocean is cradled by stone.

In the Narmada river in India, there is a place where seven currents converge. In this conjunction, the currents shape river stones into oblong spheres called shiva linghams. They are spiritually powerful stones, where the male shape is created by the female waters. I have found them to be wonderful stones to meditate with. I also have a preference for meditating with chunks of petrified wood, specifically for my ancestor work. The pieces I own are the bones of old sisters and brothers, the remnants and ghosts of long dead forests and groves, transformed into stone.

Our ancestors built stone cairns to mark their way, placing them on trails, mountain peaks and shorelines. Over the centuries we have covered the dead with stones and entombed them within it. Even now we use stones to mark the burial places of our dead. I use them to communicate with the spirit world. The simplest and most powerful ancestor altar I could imagine would be a small cairn built of a stone from every homeland my ancestors have known. Simple, no frills, but a structure emanating with the power of multiple landscapes, holding the memories of lands walked by those who came before.

Cueva de los Cristales, Mexico.

*Tune into my blog next week for a look at the stones I crafted to communicate with my ancestors.

Experiencing Death IV: The Body at Daggett Lake

This is the fourth installment in a monthly thread, where I am looking back at the early experiences I had with death and reflecting on how those moments shaped my views and fears of it. In order to change my relationship with the concept of death, I have to understand what shaped it to begin with. Our ideas and philosophies are meant to evolve and change, to grow as our own experiences do.

My family went on a camping trip every July for two weeks. We would do a different theme every summer, exploring the sights there were to see in our state: the Finger Lakes, the 1000 Islands, underground caverns and gorges, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, etc. The Adirondacks were one of the last theme trips we took, being the furthest away, and we fell in love with them. We discovered a campground near Lake George that was surrounded by mountain called Daggett Lake. We found ourselves returning there every year and we cultivated a relationship with both the place and the other people drawn to it every summer.

We had a site we liked on the water, where we could dock our little rowboat. We had made close friends with a couple from NYC, Andy and Mary, who camped two sites down from us. Right beside us was one of the best sites on the lake, with a bit of wood attached to it. This specific summer, a lone man was camping there in a pop-up trailer. He got up early each morning and took his boat out fishing, and came back at dusk. He was quiet and not unfriendly.

We had returned from the beach for lunch and a car pulled up to our neighbor’s campsite. A woman got out, not quite dressed for the outdoors, and knocked on the trailer door, calling his name. There was a feeling in the air of disconnection. It’s a feeling I have come to know quite well, one of foreboding that something is out of place. Perhaps I was the only one who felt the change. Maybe it was my high sensitivity, but it felt important. When she asked us if he was in, my father told the woman that the man had been fishing all day every day.

She thanked us tersely, clearly annoyed that he had known she was coming, and went down the little path in the woods to where he moored his boat. The air felt wrong to me, I can remember it clearly. My parents told us to eat and we all sat down with our sandwiches and chips. A few minutes later, the woman came back up the path alone. She began pounding on the door of the camper but it was locked. She came around the end of the trailer and asked when we’d seen him last. His boat was still at the water’s edge.

I think then, we all knew something was wrong. Something had changed. There was a presence in the air around us that was unfamiliar and all the same, we knew it.

My dad told us to stay where we were when the woman asked for help. She was a bit beside herself. She and her husband were in the process of getting a divorce and they were supposed to be meeting for the weekend to see if they could work things out. She was starting to panic. We had a pop-up of our own and my dad knew the canvas snapped onto the frame and he began to take up the end closest to the road.

I will never forget the shrill wail of grief that pierced the sunlit afternoon as the man’s bloody arm became visible. All at once, the woods were altered and we knew that what was visiting with us was death.

What I remember most was the sudden silence in the woods. The woman wailed, a banshee cry of mourning, and every bird on the mountain stopped singing. Every insect in the woods was still. Even the trees paused in their seasonal breathing. Even the natural world paused in the face of death.

Others came running from all ends of the campground at the sound of her despair. Like every mother, mine immediately put herself between death and her children. The quiet old man who had been enjoying his vacation alongside us had been diabetic. Whatever had happened, he had slowly allowed himself to bleed to death in the trailer beside us, quietly during the night. He had insulin in his trailer that he hadn’t used. There were bloody paper towels and rags strewn throughout. The coroner came and took him away and the owners of the campground sat with the woman until her parents folded time to get to the mountains from Rochester.

I knew when my dad was unsnapping the end of the trailer that the man inside it was dead. Maybe it was the absence of life inside that I sensed. Maybe it was the subconscious scent of blood that lit my animal instinct. But when my dad walked over to the other campsite, it felt like I was holding my breath, waiting.

Whatever it was, we had all sensed the wrongness of what was unfolding. Like when the phone rings for the fifth time in a row, but this time, this ring, sounds like bad news. And after you answer the phone, you discover that your gut response had merit.

Our friends Andy and Mary took us to the beach while they took the body away and went through the logistics of packing down the trailer and hitching it up to his vehicle. Andy put me and my sister in a boat and we took to the water, putting a little distance between us and the other playful children whose lives weren’t touched by the darkness that day. Andy usually called us by nicknames he had given us. I was the Professor and my sister, Half-Pint.

That afternoon he talked to us in quiet tones about death and how it just happens sometimes and we shouldn’t take it on for ourselves. And I knew as he stared at the water that he was thinking of the times he had faced death, and I suddenly understood that he loved life with the gusto that he did to balance out the darkness he had seen, which took shape in the water beneath us. Andy tipped the boat, passengers and all, in an attempt to distort the shadowy form and the moment was broken with squeals of laughter.

It was the first time that someone else’s death, someone unknown to me, had intruded upon my innocence and touched me whether I was willing or not. I wasn’t yet old enough to know it wouldn’t be the last. I don’t remember the man’s name. I don’t remember his wife’s either, the woman whose life-shattering moment I was witness to.

What I do remember is my physical response to death, whether you want to philosophize about it or anthropomorphize it. Sometimes, to process through it, we need to distance ourselves from death, but time will do that easily enough for us. Remembering that feeling has helped me sense it’s nearness in my adult life. When I remember that experience, I say a quiet wish for peace for both of them, the departed and the living, and I return from the moment to experience my own life as fully as I can.

Relevant Posts:

Experiencing Death: The Unborn Baby (published May 16, 2012)

Experiencing Death II: My Father’s Father (published June 13, 2012)

Experiencing Death III: Squirrel in the Road (published July 11, 2012)

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