Letter To my ancestors

With satanic ritual abuse as one of the unseen anchors in my life (up until I discovered and unhitched from it), I have harbored a robust distaste for who I’ve known my “ancestors” to be. Because of my birth order as one of the eldest of the grandchildren in my respective birth families, I was able to have interactions and conversations with grandparents and even great grandparents that I can still reflect upon. Of course beyond them, I’m clueless as to any of the others who are in my generational line, besides stories passed to me through the filters of others’ impressions. Glorified or not, I’ve wanted nothing to do with knowing or learning about these people; I’ve held them as guilty of passing direct and indirect influences to me - manifest through trauma and pain.

So I surprised myself in October of 2020 when, on Halloween morning, I sat on my patio with a warm cup of tea, thinking about my life - how far I had come, and where I had come from. The following letter is the result of my musings which produced a profound healing experience that I believe extends to me, through my heart and beyond….to those past and present I call generational family.

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October 31, 2020

A Letter to My Ancestors.

I have ignored you.  I have been angry at the legacy that created me, and I feel those emotions are justified.  Ages and ages of collective choices fashioned a pain that manifested in me like an ever-present ghost, haunting a body it had mistaken as its own.  And I will tell you it has taken dogged determination to exhume the bones you left that have shackled my life. 

I saw all of you once.  Remember?  That huge auditorium somewhere in the ethers that houses unsettled souls.  I was brought there in a dream to address things about my life - not yours.  And yet, you were there.  I was puzzled as to why so many souls were interested in me, in the work I was doing. The seats were full in this nonphysical place you inhabit, and I felt a little like a spectacle as I walked forward, not understanding why there were no empty seats.

[Allow me to interject here, for others reading this letter, the “work” I refer to was a very long process of memory recovery of the horrors I had suppressed so I could survive some semblance of normalcy.  A strenuous and exhausting process that inserted itself into my life, demanding attention and a good portion of my life source energy.] 

So there you sat, stoic witnesses to my efforts, and I resented it.  I could sense your collective attention behind me as I talked to the council of beings in front of me.  I realized what I was doing directly impacted each of you, allowing you further movement or progression.  As this came clear to me, I made it clear to the council that the grueling work of healing and recovery I was engaged in was for ME, NOT for you.   I felt no kinship to you.  I felt no desire to help you, for it was you that created the generational hell I was born into.  If you wanted to watch, fine, but my loyalty was to me.  My motivation to heal was fueled by a tenacious desire to be rid of the uninvited darkness that occupied parts of me, not to emancipate you.

I was successful too.  I’m sure you know this, you’ve been watching from afar all this time.  I had skin in this game.  I was all in and, as it turns out, I lost it all too.  No more of anything. Poof. Gone. Crumbled and obliterated.  Who I thought myself to be was no longer; my identity vanished as the mushroom cloud of truth did its job demolishing the foundations I had built everything on. The fallout from that inner war rolled through my marriage, my religious beliefs, my friendships, and my family, and naturally, it all traced its way back to you.  

I believe you watched from your lofty seats as my marriage and support systems dissolved.  I think you witnessed me struggle as I experienced desperation and survival in an entirely new and gritty way, with nothing to fall back on, or kin to call upon.  I couldn’t trust you or the ones still alive, because they were the ones who hurt me, and you were the ones who hurt them.  One long generational line of hurt, and I’d be damned if I allowed that near me again. 

For years I carried this realization that I did not belong to any kind of tribe or clan, and I made little effort to know my roots.  I became a nomad, adopting family by choice over family at all.  I was ashamed of you.  I had become the generational “chain-breaker” and I didn’t look back.  I didn’t care where I came from or to whom I was related. I looked forward, holding my hard won liberation as sacred for my children and myself.

But today, something shifted.  It’s Halloween, an evening full of candy and costumes, and false identities that I never really understood.  I find I’m more familiar with the nature celebration of Samhain – an ancient Gaelic festival that marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter.  So in that spirit, I chose to begin my morning with a quiet connection to the nature around me.

As I did, I read a quote from Chani Nicholas that said “We are made of blood, earth and stardust. The ancient sources of life that built our bones and pulse through our veins proclaim that we are because someone, many ones, gave us life. We do not get here on our own.”  And for the first time, the isolated wanderer inside of me felt like she was sharing her fire with more than pain filled ghosts.  I saw a connection materialize.

What happened next liberated us both.  Sitting under branches of the cherry tree that arched over my patio, I contemplated a new understanding that contained a stream of genius (an elixir perhaps) that helped me see our connection as a way through and out of our stagnate condition.  I believe our DNA has been seeking a cure to balance all the failings, evils and shames we carry, and I suddenly recognized my ability to hold both dark and light for all of us.  I understood my work didn’t have to be labeled as “mine” and “yours”, but as a continual process with certainty of balance as its outcome.  What I had been responding to was rooted in a generational marsh of decay, conscious only of the separation that generated self preservation, unaware that this evolutionary process of human experience was growing a better version of itself as it passed coded lessons through each of you to me.

I saw the folly of holding you hostage by refusing you all this time. I felt a free flow of energy begin, as I un-dammed, the dammed.  I held compassion for all of us and spoke out loud to those I knew in this life: Grandmas and Grandpas - great and grands.  Each were acknowledged and remembered. I hold no ills, yet I do hold compassion for the responsibility all of you have for your actions.  I do not condemn as I had, but offer a stream of love to Source that you have full access to until you discover your own love that flows to Source.

This all changes with me, for what you have birthed is what you have been yearning for all along. 

It is now gratitude that guides my feelings and I can smile and say thank you. I am here.

With Love