Friday, November 16, 2018

Contacting the Ancestors


Custard Pie

Is there another room, stage left, one we cannot see? Doesn't something happening in the wings argue a wider net of reality? If there are wings off to the side or behind us, where stuff is unfolding, then reality is more than we can see and measure. It means there are concentric circles rippling out beyond the life we see being acted out on the stage.”
Anne Lamott (Almost Everything, p.17)

My friend, Rebecca, came for dinner last night—lamb chops, pasta and roasted Brussels sprouts. She brought with her a buttermilk pie—an old Southern staple. I was instantly tossed back to a memory of my Aunt Matt's house when I was five years old. All the old sisters, my great-aunts, cooked on wood stoves, and Aunt Matt's always had a custard pie sitting on top. It was as if the pie that Rebecca brought was a message to me from Aunt Matt—how about a custard pie for Thanksgiving? I don't have many family traditions, but custard pie goes as far back as I can remember.

Suppose for just a moment that there is something going on “in the wings.” What if our flesh-and-blood existence is not the only one. What if life is not linear, and people who die in this reality continue to exist in another. I'm not talking about heaven or hell, I'm talking about right here, right now. I have always been a “mystic” in this way, simply because I have always sensed that there's more to this life than our little day-to-day existence.

Someone recently said to me that a friend wanted to research “ancestor healing.” The person who mentioned this thought that an absurd idea, and said that the friend was simply “crazy.” But the belief that life is not a one-way, one-existence, birth-to-death-and-gone sort of thing was the major reason American Indians did not want to leave their territories—the ancestors were there. It was sacred to them because of that. Many traditions and cultures hold the same to be true, and they take care to honor the ancestors as though they are actively involved in life—because they are. I believe that when we do our individual spiritual work, when we advance our own consciousness, we heal not only our personal wounds, but those of our ancestors. Furthermore, we pay it forward to future generations—they are born more conscious simply because we did that work.

Life is not linear. My ancestors and yours are close by, and communicate indirectly with us. They aren't specters or ghosts; they have an existence of their own. And this Thanksgiving, they will be around our tables just as surely as they were back in their flesh-and-blood days. Aunt Matt will be pleased to see her custard pie on mine.

                                                           In the Spirit,
                                                             Jane


1 comment:

Isie said...

Jane, this is such a beautiful image--the gathering of the loved ones, seen and unseen. It reminds me to be grateful for all the love and wisdom bestowed. All the hugs that still surround me. And you may have just prompted me to include a buttermilk pie to our Thanksgiving table. I think my angel aunts would love it :)