What My Ancestors Left For Me
Last year, I felt left out because I didn’t have some special spiritual lineage with heirloom tools in my procession like a bunch of Instagram accounts claimed. I was delusional about my heritage. I pretty much thought I came from normal folks that ultimately lead lives that were only spiritual on Sundays. But that’s what I get for comparing myself to people on Instagram, especially when I only had assumptions about my own family.
Recently, I have been researching and honoring my ancestors more. The first and continual research was mapping out my family tree and learning about my kin through family stories. No amount of internet searches in the world will ever give me the amount of information my tipsy relative has.
More of the detailed research has been reading books about how people survived in the American South and the Midwest in the last 100 years. Learning about the social and political climate people were living through has been very important in understanding their life.
A Little Background
I am a mixed American. Both sides of my family have been in the states since at least the late 1700’s but only one side was here by choice. By the early 1900’s they had picked a spot in their respective small towns and pretty much everyone lived in that town for generations. Military men in both sides traveled a bit but moved home after service. Both sides were blue collar, both have agriculture backgrounds, and both were in a branch of Christianity.
I personality did not see the magic in that background before. They stayed put, worked the land, raised families, and were buried a few miles from where they grew up. But there was a lot of magic in there under the surface.
Herbalists, Rootworkers, Holistic medicine, Etc.
I’ve learned my Grandma’s garden was full of medicinal flowers. I have no idea if she planted them for that reason or just for looks. She wouldn’t always give the full truth when I asked her spiritual questions. I was really close to her, but she always kept that side of her life private. I just had a vague idea of what she believed in but I always knew she loved and felt good in nature.
She always would yell for us to come look at the sunset with her every evening. Her favorite chair looked out of the west facing bay window, so she never missed the sunset. And she would yell “come quick!” when the colors looked like a raging fire in the sky. She would embarrass me as a teenager by knocking on stranger’s front doors to ask for seeds when she saw a garden or flower she really liked.
My grandma pointed out all of her favorite trees when we were in the car and could name any local bird she saw. We have tons of pictures of her grandkids standing in her garden to show how abundant it was that year. Because of her I always notice the sunlight twinkling through the leaves of the trees.
No one I know of on either side used words like holistic to describe themselves. But every book I read about southern hoodoo and midwestern folk medicine have habits and remedies I relate to. Like that we flushed our loose hair that fell out, we didn’t just throw it away in the trash. I never knew growing up why we did that until I started seeing it pop up in books. There are so many unnamed habits and remedies we do that I’m seeing in books under categories like folk magic or hoodoo.
They were healers in their own right
I know historically speaking and, in my bones, I can feel that my lineage is full of people that used plant medicine. Small towns without medical care, lower income households, bias against us and their strong-willed nature required that of them. They had to be healers to survive.
Healing ourselves despite the odds is magical. And faith in our ability to heal is a spiritual practice. They might have only been seen practicing in a church on Sundays, but I believe they were quietly and sometimes covertly spiritual and magical every day.
The more I learn the more I’m grateful for
I was never left out, I just wasn’t paying attention to and appreciating my family’s legacy. I am so thankful that my ancestors left me with this deep connection to the plants, water, and wind. I am appreciative they made choices in their lives that lead to so many blessings in mine. And glad I have a place in my home to honor and talk to them every day. The more I learn about my ancestors the more grateful I am to be apart of them.