On ancestors
I’ve long been a fan of the BBC Programme, “Who Do You Think You Are?” which for those not familiar, takes a celebrity (though sometimes I’m not at all sure who the celebrity is), and traces back aspects of their family line. It is a fascinating insight into the power of the written word and how records, when kept, can unearth amazing facts and sometimes difficult pasts.
The programme gives permission to be nosey without lurking behind a curtain!
Ancestry hadn’t really been something I’d considered looking into, but it came up through two routes for me over the past year, and it has been quite revealing (and amusing).
About 15+ years ago, my younger brother had started ‘the family tree’, and with my mother’s help, had sketched out quite a formidable past that made me realise there were plenty of others whom I’d not heard of, but had a part to play in who I was.
As a gift one Christmas, he’d had the tree printed (it was a long scroll he home printed) together with a memory stick of photos. It is still one of my most treasured possessions.
As I said, over the past year ancestry has nudged me quite strongly. Initially within sessions with my therapist (mentioned in my previous museletter), it was a way of understanding what was ‘my stuff’ and, ‘stuff that belonged to others’. Of course, this sounds quite simple, but not knowing the (extended) family that much, nor had much been shared, it proves difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. But, I persevered and signed up to Ancestry myself and started playing ~ realising the gift from my younger brother was invaluable as a springboard. It also prompted very long, deep and sometimes upsetting conversations with my father.
Around the same time, a course came up on the Shift Network with Perdita Finn (Collaborate with your Ancestral Spirits). Now in any ordinary time and place, this would be something I’d choose to bypass, as it didn’t ‘fit’ the genre of my usual topics. However, given that I’d been charged with working ‘my stuff’ out, this was no ordinary time and place.
I also knew of Perdita Finn’s1 husband, Clark Strand2, previously the senior editor at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review3. (He now focuses on haiku and is still a contributing editor to the magazine within this sphere).
For others who may be interested, Perdita is a wonder-woman of writing and editing, and this extends to their daughter, Sophie Strand, who also writes extensively.
Perdita was keen from week one of the course that we get to know our ancestors and to create a personal litany of our dead, an ancestor altar and to task one ancestor with helping us with something. Her motto, ‘we go slow and stay low to the ground’, which I loved.
My ancestor altar was duly created (see photo) and was made so much easier from the memory stick of photos my younger brother had gifted me, along with other photos I’d accrued over the years. This took me several weeks (as I was adhering to the ‘go slow’ part of the task). It also helped nourish my creative side which had taken a back seat due to my 'dark night’ period.
My litany of the dead proved very interesting and many synchronicities happened as I began writing. People would pop into my head for what I thought (at the time) no apparent reason.
Example 1: I had a flash of someone come to mind that I hadn’t known very well. In this case it was the name Carol, and she was the assistant in the hairdresser’s I visit. I felt it quite odd but put it to one side. A few weeks later at my appointment, I mentioned this because as we all know, hairdresser’s tend to like a natter when doing your hair. At which point my hairdresser went pale and her jaw dropped. She said, of course, you might not have heard, but Carol passed away. I wrote that off to coincidence, but Carol was duly noted in my litany.
Example 2: a number of us from the meditation group met for a catch-up at the park, as it’s lovely to have some face-to-face time with our sessions now being online. Prior to this my German teacher had come to mind ~ Frau Jurascheck. She was someone I’d mentioned quite regularly in the past to my eldest daughter when she started taking German at school, and I had such fond memories of my first encounter with the country, as well as embarrassment when she used letters from a boy I’d met as teaching examples in class! (I’d only shared them with her for help with translation!) During the course of conversation, lovely Elaine mentioned about a family name that would not be continuing following her son’s upcoming wedding. Intrigued I asked what the name was, to which she replied ‘Jurascheck’.
My heart stood still. I then asked whether, by any chance, she had been a German teacher. ‘Yes’, replied Elaine. (This was becoming surreal). I asked whereabouts she had taught ~ well, you’ve probably guessed by now, it was my school and yes, it was one and the same Muriel Jurascheck. Her photos are shared below with the kindest permission of the family.
So Muriel has lovingly found her way into my litany.
Asking an ancestor for help
The next task was to ask an ancestor for assistance with something. The instruction was clear: keep it simple! OK, something came to mind and then I chose to ask my grandfather (paternal) for his help. Now we were warned to be vigilant as our ancestors don’t communicate the way we might anticipate. Probably the third morning after my petition to my grandfather, I was busy working when I heard something. It was very soft and gentle. I went out to my hallway and saw a corner of something in the letterbox.
Pulling on it a leaflet came through - I opened the door and looked around and there was nobody to be seen. Looking more closely at the leaflet I realised it was indeed a message from my grandfather, giving me a little advice:
Some of you may be thinking, ‘that’s just coincidence Claire’ but what I haven’t yet revealed to you is how I knew it was from my grandfather.
The image below is the leaflet without the area blocked previously:
My grandfather had chosen to abandon the Catholic church when my father was quite young and moved across to the JW’s. At that time, the repercussions of this within the community were devastating ~ the family had bricks thrown through windows and it created a huge severance, which I feel has been one of the wounds I’ve been tasked to heal.
Still think it’s a coincidence? What you also need to know is that the local JW’s know they are not to knock on my door or leaflet as they have clear instructions (which, by the way you too can request by asking to be removed from their calling lists). Given that in all the years I’ve lived at my home, there has not once been a leaflet put through my door, it was, for me, proof of his message. I did indeed exercise patience and all came good.
Channeling an ancestor?
In sessions with my therapist, sometimes I’ve been given to laughing. Nothing wrong with that you may think, although it has come at points when it’s really not that funny or amusing. This has been flagged with me and I was charged with noticing this happening and to think about where it may originate. Mmm…
The men on my father’s side have always been referred to somewhat sarcastically as ‘comedians’ ~ cracking jokes or not taking things seriously, perhaps that was the origination?
In a recent conversation with my father he began talking about his father’s mother (his grandmother), and told me my grandfather was illegitimate. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of there’, I said, but appreciated the time period and that it was an issue in earlier generations. He went on to say that it was revealed at his father’s funeral, his grandmother had been a mistress to someone, then found herself pregnant. The ‘unknown’ person was a well-known Victorian comedian on the stage. So has this unknown great-grandpa been the one showing up at inconvenient moments? This also goes to prove that funerals are great ways of finding out hidden pasts.
Say my name
He then went on to talk affectionately of his Nan and Grandpa (maternal) and how much I would have loved them. Hailing from Co. Carlow they found their way into the UK via Cornwall. He’d shared some photos with me years ago and I’d had them reproduced so that I could use on my altar and also for journal writing purposes.
Speaking of his grandpa’s size, I queried this as the photo portrayed him of average size.
Having seen photos of my great-nana previously, I ‘knew’ the two on the right to be my family, and didn’t know who the others were.
Confused, I re-sent the photo to my father and he advised the gentleman on the left to be my great-grandpa and has no idea who the other chap is!
I’ve been honouring the wrong person all this time! So now I need to acquaint myself with the man on the left and am in a quandary, but will leave the other person on my altar as he’s not doing any harm and he had a lovely smile.
Which brings to mind a saying on temple walls in hieroglyphics in Egypt, which are funerary texts of Osiris4: ‘Say my name so that I may be remembered’, was an important job of temple priests / priestesses to remember the dead.
To know someone is to name them, hence remembering them in our personal litanies.
Thank you for taking this ramble with me through part of my ancestry. It may have inspired you to have conversations with family who may still be alive, or to re-imagine stories you don’t have the answers to. As Perdita constantly reminded us, we need to talk to our dead, as they are part of our present.5
Remembering His Name
[…] Give me my name. Say it over red jasper dipped in an unguent of flowers. […] Give me my name. Say it over red jasper laid in the heart of sycamore. Give me my name that gods may call me to soar like the hawk and crane.
Details of Perdita’s work can be found via her website: Take Back the Magic
Perdita and Clark have also created The Way of the Rose network, taking back the use of the rosary out of religious dogma. Clark is also the author of several books and has co-authored with Perdita too.
You may enjoy this article from Tricycle: Giving Birth to Ancestors
This refers also to the quote ‘Remembering His Name’ - see Awakening Osiris (The Spiritual Keys to the Egyptian Book of the Dead) by Normandi Ellis, published by New Page Books, an imprint of Red Wheel / Weiser 1988
There are many books on this topic but all will advise similar caution in ancestor work, that you ask to work with well, or ascended ancestors. Many may still not have evolved to be of assistance to us and that’s where working with someone knowledgeable can be of enormous benefit. I can highly recommend ‘The Love of Thousands’ by Christine Valters Paintner, as she gives additional ways of working with ancestors and guides.