Help Me Thank My Skin Donor

I can’t stop thinking about the man who helped save my life.

On October 31, 2015 I was in a freak accident. I was severely burned from the waist down and in a coma in the Burn ICU at Syracuse Upstate Hospital. The surgeon used cadaver skin to cover my legs which allowed my vascular system to heal and regenerate allowing me the best possible outcome for my graft surgeries.

It did. And my grafts have healed amazingly well.

I can’t stop thinking about him.

I know he was a biker. I’m guessing he died shortly before my accident. I don’t know how long cadaver skin’s shelf life lasts. I’m assuming he died near to Syracuse in a motorcycle accident. From the amount of donor skin they had I am assuming he was a large man. I have been told that the skin bore tattoos and that his tattoos wrapped around my legs for a while. They saved me.

His skin bought me time. Time enough to harvest my own to replace what the fire took from me. And I don’t know his name.

More than anything, I want to say thank you.

If he was your family, your husband, your father, your ex, your beloved friend, and you are open to speaking to someone whose life he saved in his death, I want to say thank you. And if nothing else, I want you to know that something more came of his life after his death, if there can be comfort in that for you.

I can’t stop thinking about the man who helped save my life. And what a gift he left behind. Or how his life touched mine without our ever meeting. I will not take it for granted.

When Death Settles in for a Long Visit

Our eldest cat is old. At 22 years she's roughly 98-102 in people years. That's the toll her long life has taken on her body. She has outlived two of her sisters. She still uses her litter box. She still prowls the house at night, even though it involves more yowling and getting lost in the dark. Her instincts to hunt are strong but her eyesight is not.

She has slight dementia. It's been a long three years of worrying over her, reassuring her, finding her, calming her, etc. We love her. Of course we do. But some days it's like having a stranger in our home. And death is a shadow fixated on her movements.

Even as I type this, I am prepared to change tenses. I am accepting of the reality that even in the few days before I post this Zami may pass. Every day carries the possibility that she may no longer be with us. And yet she might live another five years.

Who knows?

It's hard to live at that edge, that boundary. Anyone who has ever cared for a dying loved one knows this space. That place of difficulty when they get forgetful. When you have to get up during the night to check on them. When you haven't seen them in a while and you raw straws or play rock-paper-scissors to see who is going to make sure they're breathing. And you make deals with your deities for more time, longer days, and that they pass peacefully in their sleep.

There are days and moments where you will wish their ending to come swiftly. Because you're human and to be a caretaker is to be drained and running on fumes and unable to say fuck it when you need to because there is care to be given. We are human.

We're readying ourselves for a retreat to the mountain. We will tell her we love her before we leave. We will snuggle her and tell her what a beautiful girl she is and how much we love her. And we will tell her that if she is ready, we understand.

You wish kindness for their suffering, but what of your suffering heart?

Let the living care for you. We do what we must for those we love. Listen to your instincts. Listen to your heart. Listen to your head. They will not agree but if you look for the light, the way will become clear. Only you know the best choices for your loved o

The poet Mary Oliver has a piece called "In Blackwater Woods" that has a delicious ending that I cling to when death involves my loved ones. It's easy to be strong for other people. But it's hard when the potentiality of death is in our home. Every breath is precious.

"...To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go."

Disclaimer: I did not get to post this piece before I left on my retreat. Zami was gone when we returned yesterday, which made it feel all-the-more important to publish this as it originally was.

Celebrating Spirit with a Silent Supper

“And in one house they could see an old grandfather mummy being taken out of a closet and put in the place of honor at the head of the table, with food set before him. And the members of the family sat down to their evening meal and lifted their glasses and drank to the dead one seated there, all dust and dry silence…”

~ Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree, 1972

Dine with the Dead

Bradbury’s text was my first introduction to the idea of the silent dinner with the dead, also known as a Dumb Supper. This formal sit-down is traditionally done any night between October thirty-first and November third. I enjoy it most when we can set the table on Halloween evening, also known as Samhain (sow-in), which we are planning to do this year. This one is also special as it marks the first anniversary of the accident where I almost died.

My Ancestors stood at my bedside with me, helping to channel the healing energy. I was so near death myself that I saw them clearly. A few were faces I recognized but most were new to me, with eyes or jaws or mouths set in familiar slants and patterns. When I was closest to the other side, I was least alone. My wife and I will be celebrating life as we honor those who aided my healing from the spirit world.

It’s meant to be silent but it does not have to be a solemn or somber event. Hold the supper sacred and keep conversation on the experience at hand; it is not a place to chit chat about the workday or chores that need to be done as such mundane life can keep the timid dead away who no longer recognize the world-as-is. Perhaps there was a time when true silence was possible but for the scraping of forks and howling of the wind, but in this day, when our homes are filled with the not-so-quiet hum and thrum of electronics, appliances, traffic and plumbing, I try to use the electrical aids to entice the dead to visit.

We play some kind of music that might appeal to our invited guests. We often listen to the radio drama of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, which pulls the spirit energy into our home. I grew up sitting around the radio with my family, listening to music. A generation before us it was music and radio serials. The emotional sensation that fills our home when we play the radio drama is one of a joyous family reunion.

The event itself can be as simple or elaborate as your circumstances require. The intention is the magic. Welcome in any weary travelers from the other world and offer them an extra place at your table. Feed them before you feed the living. Allow them an evening of humanity on the night when the overlapping worlds bleed through.

What We Do

We use the dumb supper to open a space for the living and dead to dine together. We have greatly ritualized the evening, though we keep it family-style-casual. At the heart of the evening, it is about honoring Those Who Came Before. We may make a connection and touch spirit world, but that is just an aside. It is not about us. So imagine you are gently trying to lull spirits who have been in other world back into the familiar trappings of life. Think about it like you are starting at the end and moving backwards, like a mirror image of their last breath.

It may seem like a stretch, but apply that to the table itself. I think of the table and meal like a reflection, a photo-negative image of your mundane life. Whatever order you would normally eat dinner courses, serve them backwards. However you would place-set the table, set it backwards. Do you usually put forks on the left and water glass on the right? Reverse them. Whether it makes sense or not, it works, and is one of the oldest guidelines for hosting a supper for the dead.

Prepare the Food

Planning the menu is part of the fun. What foods will you serve? I like to make items that were meaningful to my family as well as items I find that hearken to the cultural heritage I am discovering in my genealogical research: German, Polish, Irish, Dutch, English, French-Canadian, etc. What lines live in your bloodstream?

In order to highlight what makes this supper different, it’s helpful to plan a series of courses. It ends up being a bit more formal than a meal we would normally prepare, but for us, this is a special occasion. It may be helpful to note that pungent and fragrant scents are more enticing to the dead who no longer eat.

Plate the Table

We set a chair at the head of the table and shroud it in black fabric to represent the Spirit Chair. A candle is placed in the center of its plate. This is the setting for all those who wander the night and wish the living no harm. During each of the courses, this chair is the guest of honor.

Then we each set out an extra chair for our personally invited spirit guest. It cannot be someone who has died within the last year. We write the name of our invited guest on a piece of paper and place it beneath their plate. Sometimes I actually write letters or ask a question I am hoping to gain spiritual insight on. If you do not have a particular ancestor you wish to invoke, you may simply write the ancestors of your name, your bloodline, your spiritual heart, etc.

A candle is placed on the center of the plate. I place my guest’s chair across from me, so that I may gaze into the space there, like divination, during the meal. Ultimately, where you place them is not important. What is important is that you serve the Spirit Chair first, your invited guests next, and then yourself. It’s the intention of hospitality that matters most.

Open the Door and Light the Way

At the beginning of the meal, we stand behind the head chair and invite our ancestors to come and dine with us. I even go so far as to open the front door and invite them into my home. We light the candle on the Spirit plate and pour a libation into the cup at the head of the table. I call in the Ancestors with this prayer:

To those who have gone before,

To those whose names live in our hearts and dance upon our lips,

To those whose names have been lost in the sea of time,

To those whose bones lie above and below the earth,

To those whose ashes have travelled on the winds,

We, the living, bid you welcome and entrance.

This action opens door for your personal guests to step in, too. We light the candles on our invited guests’ plates and call them by name. This year I am inviting my unknown-to-me-in-life paternal great-grandmother Hattie Eva Smith. She trained to be a nurse late in life after her husband died. She stood at my left thigh most of the time I was in the ICU.

Enjoy the Evening

A place set for our beloved cats.

The meal itself is also a reflected image of what the dead would remember. We start with the dessert course and sit down to enjoy it. Next, the main course, then the sides. Then the soup and salad, followed by any appetizers and pre-dinner cocktails. You should structure your meal in a way that seems appropriate to you, your heritage and your family traditions- just backwards from whatever that might be.

During each pause in courses, while we are eating, I focus on the space across from me and the multiple sensory impressions I receive. In years past, I have invited my Great-Grandma (known-to-me-in-life) Elsie Durant Riddle to dine with me. From the ether I have been chastised for not salting her meatballs or being stingy on the chocolate cake. I have also heard the gentle trebling of her voice and felt the cool paper of her skin as our hands brushed while I was serving her. I have found myself responding to an unspoken request from her spirit for another napkin. On this night, they can allow themselves the human moments they had in life and we can be reminded of them; Elsie did often need an extra napkin.

Bid the Dead to Rest

When the meal is finished, we express our gratitude to those who came and supped with us. That mostly consists of speaking our thoughts and feelings out loud. When the evening feels over, I thank my guest for coming and I open the front door, wishing them a safe journey for the rest of their evening. I put their candle out. (If I use tea light, I just let them burn out.)

I thank the Ancestors for dining with us and I snuff out the candle on the Spirit Chair. I carry the libation from the Spirit cup, usually water, outside and pour it on the ground:

To those who have gone before,

To those whose names live in our hearts and dance upon our lips,

To those whose names have been lost in the sea of time,

To those whose bones lie above and below the earth,

To those whose ashes have travelled on the winds,

We, the living, thank you for dining with us.

We, the living, bid you safe travels.

Ideally, the food would also be disposed of sacredly, either burned, buried or, traditionally, placed in running water. For me, it means leaving it out in the woods for critters, an offering of the bones of spirit-eaten food to other life in need. When I dispose of it, I do so with sacred intention.

Death is a part of the natural cycle we are all a part of and it’s healthy to find ways of acknowledging it as we celebrate the lives we lead. Our Dumb Suppers are portals that allow us, for one moment, whether we truly believe or not, to open up the part of ourselves that remembers the imagination of our childhoods. And we can believe that we might not know what comes after. And we can allow ourselves to speak words to the dead that would otherwise seem foolish.

            Many blessings to you and your family, both living and dead on this day. I have much gratitude to the Ancestors who lived, who opened the Way that we might walk this earth together. May we walk this earth softly, that those who come after us will speak our names in joy. May the peace and stillness of the season be with you. 

May the Ancestors walk with us, always.

[Article revamped from a post originally published October 31, 2012.]

The Shape of Spirituality

For me, concrete belief is the death of spiritual growth. We are students from the moment of our first breath until our last. And possibly beyond even that.

My personal spirituality has been a journey of trial and error, of accepting that what I thought I knew before was… not wrong, but not the whole truth. Multiple times, what-I-knew-as-true was altered by new expansive experiences. This was especially true in the wake of my accident last autumn. Our trials test us, not our deities or divinities. The world happens, and we fall victim to it as it unfolds.

Ten months of walking through pain and regenerating skin cells, of sitting and laying and reviving muscle tissue. Ten months of solitude and self-reflection, and the shape of my spirituality has shifted and grown once more. After a decade, I have finally stopped trying to label it.

Language can open our worlds and it can make it small. Spirituality should never be small. Our world isn’t small. And spirituality is larger than the world we see.

I may not know what it is, but I know where I stand in it. Fool. Witch. Shaman. Animist. Naturalist. Spirit Talker. Dream Walker. Word Knitter. Gardener.

In the beginning my work was all about ghost investigating and forest meditating. And still, the first time I heard the language of the trees, I freaked out. I hit a Wall of the Unknown. Yet instead of denying it, I took a breath, exhaled, and opened my world.

And then I understood that everything has life, even if we do not understand its language. And then I discovered the path to loving everyone, even if it’s from afar, and finding the way to a form of forgiveness that brought me healing. And I began to see the spirit in everyone around me. And my everyday became my spirituality. And when my head spun, when I hit a wall, I simply took a breath, exhaled, and stepped into a larger world.

I hit a wall the day I heard the voice of my deceased grandfather speaking to me in the forest. My heart raced and I broke out in a cold sweat. But I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to lose that connection just because I couldn’t understand it. So I accepted it as a truth I had not known before. And suddenly my idea of world was not limited to just the physical one. Every time I grow, the edges of my energy sphere stretch out more and I feel more immersed in the oneness of the world we live on.

That ability to surrender helped me in my recovery at the hospital. Others might have gone mad in the necessary-drug-induced fog of torture. It’s not that I didn’t fight against it. But when I realized I was smothering beneath it, I took a breath and sank in deeper to the horror of it. And then I saw it for what it was. Necessary. I did not give in to madness. I smiled at the spirits standing around my bed. I thanked the housekeepers for cleaning my room. I told the nurses what it was that made them special. We were all one team whose only goal was to get me better, even if the way there is more painful.

My spirituality shifts with every choice I make. The shape of me flows in to fill that space, like water, and I am forever, and momentarily, altered. And I am at peace.

The Practice of Hanging Names

When I created my first ancestor altar it was meant to be a place and space to honor those who came before me. I was only looking for a quiet space that could be made sacred, to light candles and say names. It was a good place to start and my ancestors became a meditation of names burned deep into my bones.

After a year of devotional practice and attendance to my altar, I had a firm foundation and I was ready for something less passive. I was prepared for the next step, to reach out to the names I had been speaking for connection and counsel.

My personal altar changed and the travelling shrines I created during the year did as well. I wanted them to be a space, whatever the place, for spirits and humans to meet, where I could speak to them with greater chance of being heard, and vice versa. But I wanted the shrines to be thoughtfully provocative to the senses, to help blur the line between the living and what comes after.

I had been doing research into my Slavic genealogy and then into early Slavic pagan practices, trying to bridge a gap from the last known-to-me name and their unknown ancestors. I stumbled across information describing how, when babies were born, a piece of earth was placed in their mouths as the first food they would ingest, as a means of keeping them always connected. Then, the umbilical cord was tied to a tree in the center of the village, where it would leather over time, swaying in the breeze with the cords of those who had come before them.

I had the thought that someday, when I had a home that had a tree, I would tie a natural ribbon on it for each of my ancestors, and let them decay away. That visual stayed with me so strongly, that I began to include it in all of the shrines I help co-create. I offer people the chance to write the names of ancestors or deceased loved ones on ribbons cut from natural fabrics, and hang them on an installation. When the shrine comes down, I roll the ribbons up and keep them until All Hallows, where we read the names on them out loud and burn them in our sacred fire, sending them up like prayers.

The unexpected layer of the magic for me came in the first shrine we created like this. I was sitting in it at dusk and the ribbons swayed gently in the evening breeze. And I peered through the veil they created. I peered through it and I heard a woman's laughter. On the other side of the ribbons, on the other side of water, two young women laughed on a floating bridge.

I remembered that one of the ways to truly honor the dead was to be alive in the world.

To Drive Away the Dark

When darkness finds you, the only way out of it is through it. You have to breath it in and push it out.

I've been talking a lot about love and forgiveness and interconnectedness, and all of that stuff is what I am bringing out of this darkness.

But it was still dark. I woke up on a vent and didn't remember what happened to me. And then in the next second I did. And I didn't want it to be real. I wanted it all to go away.

I woke up in the middle of the night in a darkened hospital and the drugs that kept me alive had me living the strangest, horrible things... One night I was on a leaky cargo freighter that was about to explode. I could hear the water dripping and I felt the damp splashes on my skin. I smelled the rusty metal and tasted the salty brine. I had ten minutes to get off the ship, only I couldn't move my legs! My heart was racing... I worked up a sweat swinging the unusable appendages over the side of the bed...

And then a nurse was patting my hand, reminding me that I promised not to try to get out of bed again, and I kind of remembered that, but I'd never seen her before and I didn't know if she was really a nurse or not. The night terrors filled me with a new appreciation for what the word 'terror' means and I hope none of you ever discover it. I held tightly to the call button each night, as the scene descended and I held onto the images of those I loved who were safe in their homes, thinking of me...

Every night was a different horror. Not that the day was better. Dressing changes meant five people pulling and flipping and debriding me as I tried not to cry, getting pumped full of fentanyl every ten minutes just so I didn't scream. And then they would want me to get out of bed on legs that didn't work and I couldn't believe them when they said it would come with time.

But I had to. I had to find faith. To get through.

At night I played Bach's concertos for the cello, as performed by Yo Yo Ma. I know each note intimately, using them to weave a tapestry of light, and I focused instead on building new skin cells, each a tiny filament blooming in the room and covering my skin until music and flesh created something new.

And the day came that I walked again. I am still walking out of the darkness, but every day the light I go towards is brighter.

Love is the Answer

It's so simple, it's often hard to grasp. Isn't it funny, that life's like that. The simplest things are the hardest to learn. But when I was in limbo, sustained by the heavy drugs and simultaneously tortured by the demons inside me, the only way to protect myself was to fall into love.

Who do you love? Who loves you? Who do you love so much that you hate them? Who have you pushed away that your heart aches for?

Because it's not too late. It's never too late.

Love wins. Love sustains. Loves heals. I'm going to be a broken record about it. In the aftermath of this horrible accident, I have watched love ripple out. Families have come together, and not just my own. People long separated have reconnected. Friends from different corners of worlds have met. Past hurts have been discarded in a choice to move forward... because the love was always there.

Love is the last to leave. In my darkest time, light is swelling and pouring out into the world. I carry the fire that tried to burn me and I have become that light in the world. Find your own way to be a light in the world. It's easy.

If you can love, you can be a beacon. You can be a change. We can all make the world a better place to live.

Edgewalking

I stood, an edgewalker, one foot in the living, breathing world, and the other foot in the unknown mist of whatever comes next. Some of you will know what I mean, because you've been there. It's a terrifying and powerful place.

I wasn't alone in my hospital room. Luminous beings gathered around my bed. They took turns touching me and praying... and guarding me against the demons created by the heavy drugs that were keeping me alive.

I wasn't alone, through the pain. I wasn't alone, in the foggy aftermath of seven surgeries. I was never alone, because we're never alone. This isn't just work I do. It's real. If you want to ascribe it to the drugs, feel free. You don't have to believe.

I saw their hands touching me while my parents worried over me. I saw them trading places beside me while my wife sat vigil. I was never really scared, because I was never alone.

The Rite of Passage in Trick-or-Treating

When I think of Halloween, my mind drifts to cups of mulled cider, the crunch of fresh apples, bright orange jack o’ lanterns, crisp leaves underfoot and the smoky breath in the evening air that foretells the coming of winter. The holidays of my childhood evoke memories of monster movies and spider webs, pillowcases full of candy, bobbing for apples, spooky houses and things unknown.

And trick-or-treating.

Once a year we had permission to, and were encouraged to, dress in costumes while travelling door-to-door, collecting candy in our pillowcases. Looking back, I understand that Halloween was a chance for an insecure girl to wear another skin, someone else I might be. Our parents would ask us, “What do you want to be for Halloween?” and the universe would open before me. When I didn’t have an idea for a costume I would raid my parents’ closet and come out some version of hobo, hippie or gypsy. Halloween, dipping us into darkness, was ripe with possibility for those among the living.

Halloween has its origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain, pronounced sow-en, eventually coming to America with immigrants in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Children went out into the night carrying lanterns lit with candles, called samhnag, made from turnips. The root vegetables were carved with frightening faces to scare away the spirits wandering the night. Children went from home to home, guised in supernatural costumes, where they were given offerings of food or coins. The gifts were meant to help the children ward off any spirits wishing to do harm on Samhain, the night when the dead walked again.

Some later customs refer to it as Souling, where children would offer prayers for the dead in return for a small cake. At houses where they were refused, they would batter the door with the butt ends of turnips. One of the earliest records of guising for Halloween comes from 1895 Scotland. A North American reference to it in a newspaper in Ontario in 1911, reports that children would go guising between six and seven on Halloween, spilling songs and rhymes and being rewarded for them with candies and nuts. Trick or Treating as we know it in America didn’t begin until the 1950s.

Our parents carried us door-to-door when we were children and later, when we could walk on our own, they would coax and encourage us to go up and ring the doorbell while they waited for us on the sidewalk after a whispered reminder of what we were meant to say. The walk to the porch was long to my short legs. The temperature in the air dropped in the space between my parent and the heat behind the unfamiliar door opening before me. After a hearty “Trick or treat!” and a piece of candy dropped in our pillowcase we would run back to our parent, back to safe, and on to the next home.

The first year that we went out trick-or-treating without chaperone- our own little gang of tricksters- was an early, and personal, rite of passage. Mom stayed home to mind the door and was busy making sheets of homemade pepperoni pizza so it would be hot and waiting when we came in out of the cold. We walked the neighborhood and then the same route we walked every morning to elementary school. Up one side of the street and home the other. It was familiar and known, but in the cloak of darkness it felt foreign. Landmarks stood in shadow and we needed new eyes to find our way.

We were being trusted to watch out for each other, to stay safe, to cross streets wisely and not to stray beyond the streets we knew, or the ones we were told we could travel. As children we didn’t realize how far the web of grown ups-who-knew-each-other spun and we were not hip to the fact that we were never in any true danger.  But that unknown is an essential element to the rites of passage that test our mettle and help us grow. The cold leaves crunched underfoot as we ran from porch light to porch light, pillow cases filling fast with candies my brother and sister and I would later sort through and trade (always setting aside some tootsie rolls for my dad).

There was one house that was always decorated fantastically for the trick-or-treaters. And then one year, the house was barren, the only decoration a scarecrow flopped onto the porch with a bowl of candy in its lap. A lot of houses that closed for the night would put the candy bowl out on the porch with a note. As we closed upon the porch, I felt a strange feeling in my belly and I stopped. That’s a person, I thought. I knew that when we got up there, the scarecrow was going to grab us.

We stood still, watching the scarecrow and debating whether or not it could be a real person. We dared someone to see what kind of candy was in the bowl so we could gauge whether or not it was worth it. The scarecrow didn’t move the entire time and was sitting at a strange angle. We approached in a group and as I reached into the bowl… the scarecrow grabbed my hand as we screamed and ran halfway back down the sidewalk. A familiar voice laughed, assuring us it was our neighbor. We stood our ground and made him show his face before we went back for the candy we had earned.

There was a thrill in being able to be brave without the need for a parent. On our own we had evaluated the threat, calculated a plan and supported each other in carrying it out, calling on the energies of our Other skins to aid us. On Halloween we stood in the shadow of no one. It was always light when we started our adventure and in the joy of running from porch to porch we would lose the subtle slip into darkness until we were cold and tired and our bags were heavy with loot. Often, home seemed far away. We would slip home and share stories of what we had seen on our travels.

The next morning’s walk to school, I was aware that the same-old route I had been taking every morning was different. It was bigger. The houses weren’t just landmarks anymore. They were also skins of homes with families and faces inside of them, containing other children who thought the world was no bigger than the size of their house. On that morning I understood the world was bigger than my house, my block, my route to school. There was more of it than I could comprehend.

As a child, on Halloween night I walked with demons and devils, witches, ghosts and ghouls borrowing human skin, along with superheroes and princesses. I dared to enter dark places and returned from them unharmed. In the turning of the world, I learned I could enter the darkness and return. Maybe not unscathed, but I could return and know the healing would come. Each year now, as I drop candy into the bags and baskets of little cows, superheroes, witches and pirates, I hope they will remember their fearlessness on this night. I hope they will remember how they learned to move from jack o’ lantern light to jack o’ lantern light as a way as a means to get through the darkness.

[Originally published October 26, 2011.]

The Bastard's Ball

Last week I talked about how to work with/around unwanted ancestors in your family tree. In a couple of weeks, I’m going to talk more about doing a bit of ancestor work at this time of year. But this week I offer another way to honor those unwanted ancestors without having to invite them into your personal space. I set it up before doing any kind of work, before calling on my full ancestral line. It’s simple and easy and it can take a myriad of forms.

I call it The Bastard’s Ball.

• Start with a space set away from where you intend to work. It can be a far corner of your yard, outside your home. It can be a small altar in the next room, a shelf beside the front door, or a folding table in a closet.
• As with most magic, intention is everything. It’s more important than props or aesthetics. If you set aside a space and you mean for it to be isolated, it is.
• First I light a candle. I call on the bastards, the drunks, the abusers, and the thieves. Some I call by name. But I concentrate on my family tree and I pull down those whose energy echo is dark and murky. And I light the candle, drawing them to it.
• Then you need to entice them to stay. I leave a variety of vices out, like alcohol, cigarettes, candy, coffee, pastries, etc. If you know of specific vices, use them. It will make the spell stronger.
• If you’re feeling especially uncertain, you can ring the small space with a circle of salt.
• It can be that simple. Walk away and leave them to play while you do your own work elsewhere.

After my ancestor ritual, meditation, or dumb supper, I put the lights out on the Bastard’s Ball. I send my guests on their way, hoping they enjoyed my hospitality. It’s a twofold intention. I do it as a means to keep their energy from my work, as well as offering them a thank you for being part of the reason I exist.

Not everyone can stand in the place I do, and that’s all right. I think it’s important to acknowledge the dark as well as the light. When I claim my ancestral lineage, I accept it all. Without even one of those links, I would not be here.

To see where you’re going

You must know who you are

To know you who you are

You must know where you’ve been

The story of your ancestors speaks through your blood

Light and dark

You choose the way forward

My Ancestral Dead, My Beloved Dead

My ancestors are pillars of ice-blue fire, breathing in seasons like stars, stones and trees. The Ancestral Dead are firelight that blazes but doesn’t burn. This is the energy source I connect into when I work with my Ancestors. That is not so for the Beloved Dead. The energy of those who you have known in this physical plane, those you have touched, held, hugged and lost is not cool and calm.

Hot salty tears burn my cheeks with a fever as the grief washes over me. The recent dead are changeable water, tumultuous with grief in one minute, still with acceptance in another, and then raging against the feel of loss… they are uneasy waters. Unless you feel called to step further on the path of this work, I recommend stating with clear intention that you are honoring the Beloved Dead and asking nothing of them in return. I routinely call on the energy of my forebears to watch over my nieces and nephew, but I do not ask that of the Beloved Dead.

It may seem strange that I do not ask the spirits who knew me to help watch over us. That’s the good thing about generations though- we keep coming. There are plenty of lives to call on that allow me to leave the recently deceased be. It’s my belief that the Beloved Dead are transitioning what was left of themselves through the process of dying and moving on. I have experienced the moment of death with a loved one, and it opened something in me. When he died and his spirit left his body, when the life of him left the room, the air about me wavered and changed, as if a warm flame had been blown out. His body was not him anymore.

I do not claim to know what comes next or what happens to that bit of life. I don’t know what happens. But I have faith that something does.

My Ancestral Dead

You can’t discuss spirit without being metaphysical. As far as I’m concerned, spirit is energy and science has proven that energy exists. The way I talk about it is more romantic but that doesn’t remove the science; after all, I’m a writer, not a scientist. I believe what I believe because it makes sense to me based on what I’ve experienced. I am always open to adapting my beliefs. As I change and grow and evolve, so too will my concepts of faith and spirit.

Anyone who came before me that I did not personally know is an ancestor. Most of my known ancestors are a list of names with little known substance, but I bridge that by speaking their names aloud. It is a song that sings the story of my bloodline, calling in the four lines of my parents, known through the first seven generations:

Margaret Loretta Burke and Robert Joseph Art, Eliza Conners and Frank Burke, Katherine S. Pils and George Art, Mary Dowd and David Conners, Thomas and Ellen Burke, Mary Burzee and John F. Pils, Ana Catherine Blume and Adam Art, Barney Dowd, Wilhemenia Wernersbach and George Art…

Harold Lafayette Riddle, Emma Louise Burnah and George Francis Durant, Frances Ann Gillett and Lafayette Riddle, Rosella Lavalley and Albert Durant, Jane Berry and Levi Gillette, Sarah Clickner and Marquis DeLafayette Riddle, Rosella LaRoche and Francois Xavier Lavalle, Elizabeth A. Hill and Frances Berry, Mary Ann Boots and Ezra Wheeler Gillette, Mary Ann Hayner and William Clickner, Abigail Chaffee and Freeborn Moulton Riddle, Marie Amable Langevin and Alexis Lavallee, Gertrude Dixon and Thomas Berry, Harriet Gower and Josiah Boots, Abigail Hannah and Eliphal Gillette, Elizabeth Weager and Petrus Haner, Engle Angelica Coonradt and Johannes Georg Gloeckner, Deborah and Charles Chaffee, Mary Thomas and Joseph Riddle…

Ruth Emma Ruston, Minnie Estelle Wicker and Frank William Ruston, Emma Angeline Whitcher and Hiram King Wicker, Ruth Ireland and Charles Evan Ruston, Ordelia DeLozier and Bailey Harrison Whitcher, Cynthia Lusk and Thaddeus Rice Wicker, Phoebe Lenton and William Ireland, Anna Richardson and Richard Ruston, Lucy Raymond and Peter DeLozier, Dorcas Kittredge and Simeon Whittier, Rebecca and Elizur Lusk, Chloe Morgan and Pliny Wicker, Mary Wilson and John Lenton, John Ireland, Thomas Richardson, Jane Brooks and Edward Ruston, Lucy Richmond and Daniel Raymond, Eleanor Erkells and Oliver Peterson Lozier, Molly Bailey and James Kittredge, Elizabeth Dow and Abner Whittier, Mary and Elisha Lusk, Susannah Parker and William Wicker, Elizabeth Wright and Thomas Lenton…

Hattie Eva Smith and Royal Levant Eaton, Hattie Eva Dutcher and Silas Parker Smith, Theresa Cordelia Tenney and Bennett Eaton, Eliza Marsh Bird and Reuben Feagles Dutcher, Sophia Sears and Ammi Smith, Malvina H. Targee and Philetus Tenney, Hannah Ann Treadwell and Solomon Gould Eaton, Irene and Manly Bird, Cynthia A. Feagles and Martin Dutcher, Clarissa DeBois and Heman Sears, Betsy and David Smith, Ellen S. and Thomas Targee, Esther and Hiram Tenney, Fermicy Peters and Solomon P. Tredwell, Lucy Gould and Joshua Eaton, Molly Coleman and Edmund Bird, Jane Palmer and David Dutcher, Abigail Andrews and Isaac Sears, Abigail Darby and Reuben Tenny, Delilah and John Peters, Anne Arnold and William Gould, Jr., Hepsibah Skiff and Benjamin Eaton…

So many names, so many lives. And I now know so many more. These names are the direct line of people whose children bore children who eventually bore me. Were it not for them, I would not be me. The magnitude of that realization could feel like pressure bearing down, waiting for me to be something special or do something special. But standing in honor of these people doesn’t feel like pressure. Those lives are stones beneath me, giving me firm footing. I am because they were, whether they were people of good character or not.

One step towards strengthening your ancestral ties is to begin writing down the names of your family tree you know. Ask your parents who their grandparents were if you didn’t know them. Ask your Grandparents who their parents were. Get as much information as you can. Where were they born? Where did they live? What did they do? Where did they grow up? When did they marry? How many times? How many children?

My Beloved Dead

As for my Beloved Dead, I remember those who have passed on from this world. For my work, I keep a list to remember those I was very close to, classmates I grew up with, people who helped shape and mold me, and people who affected a change my life in an important way:

Mark Eaton, Melinda Tanner, Elizabeth Fricke, Jeff Patterson, Willie Lingenfelter, Elsie Durant Riddle, Gabe Reynolds, Joel Pelletier, Victoria Eaton, Trent Illig, Edward Jerge, Donna Riddle, Jurgen Banse-Fey, Charles “Sienna Fox” Duvall, Jack Singer, Tommy Amyotte, Paul Seeloff, Richard James Riddle, Brett Elsess, Andrew Begley, Coswald Mauri, Norm Herbert, Jad Alexander, Princess Leather Falcor (beloved pet), Dr. August Staub, Martha Dayton, Melvin Chausse, John Simeon Croom, Karl Weber, Lunabelle the Jackalope (beloved pet), Charles Littman, Ellen Fitzgerald.

            Since I initially wrote this post in 2010, my list of Beloved Dead has grown: Thomas E. Malinowski, Michael Pullano, Albert Gritzmacher III, Joshua Verity, Freya Moon, John M. Rosenburg Jr., Gary French, Patches (beloved pet), Barbara Jean Schiffert, Bella the Bear-Cat (beloved pet), Russell S. Whitmire, Ken Koch, Soja Arumpanayil, Jane Palmer-Poole, Paul Slomba, Tracy Lee Flint Jr., Christina Adkins, Harry Brashear, David Ruston Eaton, Constance Salisbury, Ralph Hall, Arawn (beloved pet), and Carol Quagliano.

Remembering the Dead

Each Samhain night, I call out the names of my Ancestral dead to come and bear witness as I honor those that I loved, that I have known and held. I speak the names of the Beloved dead to remember them and hear memories stir within me at the sounds of familiar words on tongue. And then I add the names of those Recent dead, that have died since last Samhain, and welcome them into my Beloved dead, wishing their spirits peace.

            I know, as I age, that my list of Beloved dead will only get longer. It is the price of living and loving and I hold it close to my heart as proof that love is stronger than any magic. May you always remember that those who walked this earth before you walk with you still in the echoes of places their feet once touched the earth. [Revamped from a post originally published October 6, 2010.]

When Spirit Walks Thickly

The Autumnal Equinox marks the first day of fall and opens a door into my favorite time of year. The leaves are dessicating and dropping, skittering across the sidewalk as the cooler winds blow in. In the northeast, we throw open our windows and let the new winds curl through our homes, licking at the corners and cleansing the edges of our rooms, and our minds.

We prepare ourselves to lower the storm windows and turn on our furnaces. We stock the woodpiles and harvest our fall gardens. We ready ourselves to turn inward and ride out the dark and cold days ahead. But they’re not here yet, and we relish in leaf piles and apple orchards, in pumpkins and autumn squashes.

The Equinoxes are balancing points. In the spring we tip both towards warmer days and the reality of shorter days after the solstice. After months of being closed up, we spring clean at the Vernal Equinox, sweeping out the cobwebs and dustbunnies and letting the warm air swirl through. In the fall we tip towards colder days and longer days after the promise of the solstice. At the Autumnal Equinox we also clean, consecrating and creating sacred space in the walls of the home we will depend on through the coming colder, dark days.

Cinnamon sticks simmer in a pot of water on the stove, the scent vibrating through the air, whispering to the ether in the house. Wake and walk, wake and walk. May all beings that wish us harm walk right out the front door. You are not wanted here.

Bundles of sage and rosemary are clipped from the garden and strung up in all the windows. May the ancestors protect all who dwell in this home. May the guardians watch over us. May they keep us healthy and safe.

Our cats run through the house, stimulated by the smells of the transforming world outside and the transforming home inside. And in their laps, the numbers grow. Two cats still of flesh and bone and two cats still beloved and every day missed. For the first time, all our babies are running together. It is a bittersweet sensation, both a gift and a heartache.

Have you ever been in a room with your cats, both sleeping, only to clearly hear another cat digging in the litter box? Have you ever reached out your hand to pet your animal, feeling them jump up beside you, before you remember that your pet is already behind you?

When spirit walks, we listen.

Equinox is a step closer to Samhain, towards All Hallows, towards the time of year when the veil between our world and spirit is thin. They walk all year, but this is the time of year that those who do not see may spy their shadows slipping past them. And this year, the spirits are walking more thickly earlier than I usually experience them, as my cats can attest.

My dreams are full of lost loved ones visiting and bringing me messages. Some of them are for me. Some of them are for people I love. And some of them are spirits who find me because I am an ancestral lighthouse keeper and I shine a bright light. Some messages I can’t deliver, some I won’t deliver, but I listen to what all the spirits have to say. Most of their messages are meaningful, but a handful of them are purely selfish. Still, I hear them out so they can move on.

This is my work and what I do. I listen to the living tell stories about their dead and I listen to the dead tell stories about their living, their loved ones, their descendants. And the spirits that follow the course of their family lines, a mirror of how I trace mine backwards, have just as much love for those they could never know as I have for those who came before me.

And this year, spirit is moving earlier than usual, reaches out to us and milling about, thickening the air around us. The only thing we have to fear from them is what they reveal to us that we have been trying not to look at, the things we have been trying not to see. The only fear is within us. Because they come with love. They come because they love us.

Call out to your loved ones as you close your eyes for slumber. Open yourself up to the spirit energy in the world around you. Open yourself to see what was previously unseen. And bring yourself to meet them in dream world with love in your heart.

(A note: I separate true hauntings and poltergeist activity from normal spirit world antics. Often what we think of as hauntings are spirits simply trying to get our attention. If they’re turning your iron or your stove burners on, that’s different than knocking over boxes, playing with your pets, and turning on lights around the house.)

Cultivating Loving-kindness

Eleven years ago, I attended a series of workshops that altered the course of my life. At my emotional core, I was full of pain and sadness. I did not know how to let go or forgive. New to my spiritual path, I didn’t yet understand the nature of faith. I know it now as a thing that religion has no ownership of. Faith exists without the need for temples, books, and miracles.

The woman leading the workshops, named Whispering Deer, walked us through the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness, also known as Metta. I was looking for that inner Zen, that place of peace inside me that hippies and yogis seemed to discover by sitting cross-legged with their hands on their knees and repeatedly humming to themselves- that was the only cultural visual I had to represent what I was looking for.

It’s amazing the stereotypes we create about things we simply don’t understand. These images act as resistance-barriers standing between us and the things we desire most. I wanted peace and compassion and yet I did not believe I deserved it. So I made fun of that idea of tranquility, as if to say, why would I want something so silly? Thus insuring I wouldn’t try for it… and fail. Again.

That weekend, listening to Whispering Deer’s story of transformation and seeing the person she had become standing before me, I finally believed that goal was possible for myself. And I wanted it more than I had wanted anything else in my life. I determined that if I could not find it inside myself, I would create it.

A new path bloomed before me.

The loving-kindness work I embarked on was a series of meditations to teach myself to have compassion. The side effect of the repetitive practice was the alteration in how I perceived events that happened around me. I had been stuck inside my own experience, and saw everything that happened as happening to me. It’s a nuanced line, and a change in inflection changes the meaning, but when you experience everything as happening to you, you cease to be in control of your world. You give that power up to the universe and put yourself at the mercy of its whims, like a ship adrift at sea. You become a victim of the world around you.

What I wanted was to be a part of the world with my hands firmly on the wheel. I wanted to be part of what was happening, of creating my own experiences. I dove into the lessons on compassion, spending 20 minutes in meditation every night, at the end of my day, just before bed. One of the things Whispering Deer told us was that the simplest Buddhist level of having compassion for oneself, was the hardest one for Westerners to master. She wasn’t wrong.

Embracing loving-kindness as a philosophy, requires you to build an awareness of how you respond to the events that occur in your life, and then to push into that awareness to understand those reactions. It’s a way of unlearning the way you have been taught to respond and discover your own intuitive way of walking through the world- which also requires that you be open to how different a path that might be.

If I step back and observe the world around me as a larger web, removing any personal attachments I have to how things work, I can see the pattern of emotional dialogue that plays out. We feel an emotion in our bodies and we react to it, at other people, without understanding where it came from or why we felt it in the first place. As a culture we lack awareness of our emotional bodies. How many times have you heard someone say, I don’t know why I feel the way I feel, I just do?

When we lash out against others because we feel a strong emotion, and we do it without seeking clarification, we commit acts of violence. Being angry/ frustrated/ irritated/ mad at anyone else is like sending out a tidal wave whiplash of your bad attitude. Others will feel it. Others will be hurt by it. I’m guilty of it. Whether you intended that hurt or not, you still have to own the responsibility for the effects of it. It’s why this path became so important to me. It’s why being a better version of myself became necessary.

This is a hard world we live in and it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the traumas, hurts, losses and failures we collect on our journeys. It’s no excuse for being careless with the people around us. Our world moves so fast and so quickly that, often, we feel like all we can do is tread water to keep from getting swept away or left behind.

Even our news headlines are sensationalized to best catch our attention and we’ve had to learn to accept exaggerations and misleading implications as truth. No wonder we get depressed by the world around us. This is a hard world, when everyone is only thinking of themselves. But it is a beautiful world, too, where people do work together and help each other out. In order to experience that, you have to be part of it. You have to participate in it.

We all have to be gentle with each other. We can afford to. We need to remember that we are not just individuals having a personal experience in this world. We need to remember that the face we put out into the world is how the world perceives us. We have to treat people the way we want to be treated. When faced with hard times and hard people, patience, compassion and gentleness are a better choice for the health of your own heart.

            [Originally published August 31, 2011.]

A Family Loss

Death.

It’s July, and for a lot of Americans that means family vacations, gardens, and sunshine. A few of my friends have delivered new life into the world and many of my friends have recently had to say goodbye to loved ones. Death doesn’t care if we would rather be on vacation. My Uncle Dave passed away Friday morning, after battling leukemia. He died surrounded by family at Hospice.

He was the funny one, we would say as children, while trying to remember the names of all our aunts and uncles. Uncle Dave was the one who always knelt down to our level so he could better talk to us like we were little people with our own likes and dislikes. Children are used to being hugged and shooed off to play. At the holidays there were seven siblings and their spouses as well as nine (or so, depending on the year) cousins running about. There’s an invisibility that comes with being part of a pack. But Uncle Dave always saw us. And he was funny, whether cracking jokes, stealing noses, or acting foolish, he liked to hear us laugh.

When I saw him at Christmas, we had one of those deep conversations like people do, where we knew it could be the last time, but fervently hoped it wouldn’t be, swaying around the actual words. He told me stories about his time in the Navy, on a ship in the water near Cuba during the missile crisis. He told me that he would have made the Navy his career, if he’d also been able to have his family. But he chose family, and he never regretted it. He could never look at his kids or grandkids without beaming and losing words for the love they gave him.

Many, many people are going to miss him terribly. For more about my uncle's life you can read his obituary here.

Change.

There are many circles orbiting my world, like the rings of Saturn. Each circle is another group of living loved ones, and together we create the galaxy, my universe. But from my perspective, they orbit around me, separate, but never far. My grandparent circle has greatly diminished as the years have passed. It is no longer solid. I can see a time where that ring will fade, when there is no one left alive to lose.

The circle that represents my aunts and uncles has always been strong and vibrant. My parents exist in that circle, as well as one of their own. Everything changes now. My Uncle Dave is the first loss from that ring. Its edge is no longer sharply defined and the color will grow diffuse as more loss comes. I am one step closer to the reality that more death will come. Mortality feels very real.

He was not just my uncle. He was my father’s brother, they were boys together. He was my cousins’ father, the man who raised them as my father raised me. And my heart fills with loss. My father’s loss. My aunt’s loss.

Prayer.

My family is gathering to pay their respects and lay his vessel to rest. I cannot be there with them, and am shoring up responsibilities so that I can go and be with them soon, which is difficult considering that my heart and thoughts are miles away. So I focus my heart and I do what I can from my office. At my ancestor altar, I call to the seven generations of my uncle’s ancestors.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier; of Treadwell, Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier; of Treadwell, Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston, of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier, of Treadwell; Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond; of Skiff, Arnold, Andrews, Palmer, Coleman, Wright, Parker, Dow, Bailey, Erkells, and Richmond.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston, of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier, of Treadwell; Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond; of Skiff, Arnold, Andrews, Palmer, Coleman, Wright, Parker, Dow, Bailey, Erkells, and Richmond; of Hatch, Brooks, Luther, Townsend, Van Deusen, Lyon, Porter, Washburn, Pearson, Davis, Fowle, Zabriskie, Blackmer, and Caswell.

May my uncle’s spirit be at peace and at rest.

May the ancestors watch over and comfort the living he left behind.

I Choose Peace

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the lives taken in Charleston, South Carolina. For the first time, I haven’t cared to read about the shooter’s background, whether or not he had a rough childhood, or how he learned to hate. I have no pithy statements. My heart is too heavy. Knowing his specific circumstances won’t revive the dead.

I thought differently a year ago when I decided to read Eliot Rodgers’ one-hundred and forty plus page manifesto last May. I’ll never get the hour of horror back as I kept saying, “This can’t get any worse.” What I took away from it was he was wrong in the head. Not mentally ill wrong. He believed he was entitled to certain things, simply because he was a man. And I really mean, entitled due to the fact that he was born. When he couldn’t have the things he felt entitled to (i.e. other people), he got angry and took it out on the world.

He didn’t know what he was doing was wrong because he didn’t believe it was wrong. And that’s what happened, again. So what do you do with people who don’t believe racism or sexism is wrong? What do we do with people who are angry at the world because it doesn’t exist the way they think it should? In my opinion, that is not mental illness.

I no longer believe knowing everything about what the shooter was thinking will give us any insight to help stop the next act of senseless violence. I am certain there will be more. [I agree with Jon Stewart, that this wasn’t a tragedy. This was an act of American terrorism.] There will always be circumstances and explanations. There will always be a “reason” that makes sense to no one but the murderer. And in the end, we will still be left with the loss and grief.

Nine precious lives were snuffed out, in their sacred space, in their temple. And that is where my heart is, with the loss of those lives and the realization that a twenty-one year old thought nothing of taking them. One young man stepped into his place in the world as an adult by taking nine lives. It boggles my brain, like I don’t even understand the words I’m writing out. They stretch out and twist in my gut and I am wary of others who display violent anger.

Anger isn’t a mental illness. Racism isn’t a mental illness. Excusing a murderer as mentally ill because they were angry is a disservice to the people who handle their anger every day. In our culture anger is easy, and we all work our way to the place of why we need to handle our own anger and stop making it anyone else’s problem.

I understand anger. I used to have an angry heart, like anger-ball, explodes-in-milliseconds heart. Beneath that I wanted peace, but I was so broken by my experiences in the world I thought it was impossible. I didn’t want to be angry. It was eating me up from the inside and it was infecting my relationships.

I had a small awareness that I was looking at the world and waiting for it to make itself better for me, so that my sensitive soul could fit in it. I didn’t realize that if I wanted the world to be a more peaceful place, I needed to feed it love, not fear. I needed to feed it peace, not hate. I needed to feed the world peace.

You can change your wiring. You can change your emotional responses to stimulation. It’s not easy but I’ve done it. The trick is you don’t let go of your anger and fill it with something else (like reparations or justice). It isn’t a give and take. You transform that anger into something new. You can’t expect to receive anything in the place of letting it go. You don’t let it go. You change it.

It doesn’t make being in the world-as-it-is easier, but the more I release my anger, the more I sink into our interconnectedness. The more I sink in, the more I see every life as the same, the more kindness I have for strangers. After all, if I want to live according to my beliefs, I have to accept that everyone else I see does, too. The only belief I think we must all share is that we cannot harm other living beings.

These shooters, these American terrorists, are disconnected from that web. They don’t see everyone as the same. They don’t give everyone the same worth. But we do. We can. And it starts with feeding the world our kindness, patience, and peaceful hearts, and allowing that to heal our angry, vengeful, anxious hearts, so that we may walk the earth leaving peace in our wake. Wakes ripple outward.

When faced with anger or love, I choose love. When faced with violence or peace, I choose peace. When faced with teachable moments, I speak up to diffuse angry moments before they can escalate.

I have had violence and rage directed at me. I do not want to be the cause of that pain and grief in anyone else’s life. When I anger, I feed it down to the earth through the soles of my feet, not out into the air with my words and breath.

“Sometimes we wait for others and think that Martin Luther should raise among us and Nelson Mandela should raise among us and speak up for us but we never realize that they are normal humans like us and if we step forward we can also bring change just like them.”  ~Malala Yousafzai, 17, Nobel Peace Prize winner from Pakistan

Be a Good Ancestor Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- John F. Kennedy

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

- Rachel Carson

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

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Terri Swearingen

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

- Carl Sagan

One planet, one experiment.

- Edward O. Wilson

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

- Gaylord Nelson

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

- David Wann

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

- Kurt Vonnegut

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

- Cree Indian Proverb

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

- Albert Einstein 

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

- Native American Proverb

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

- John Muir

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

- Edward Everett Hale

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

- Archibald MacLeish

Again and again

Some people in the crowd wake up.

They have no ground in the crowd

And they emerge according to broader laws.

They carry strange customs with them,

And demand room for bold gestures.

The future speaks ruthlessly through them.  

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Quotes Contributed to:

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