DP: Kindred Essays
December 2nd, 2009
Part one: Ancestors
Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I see a reflection. At first, I see only myself, and my kneejerk reaction is to look away. If I look closer though, I notice things. I have my grandfather’s eyes. He gave them to my mother and she gave them to me. I have my father’s nose. He got it from his father and passed it on to me. I have my grandmother’s hair; thick and wavy and soft. I wear the bone structure of my ancestors. When I bleed, it is almost as if I were looking straight into the past. I am composed of an unbroken line of individuals who survived harsh winters, famines, and cruelty. I am the product of their strength, joy and ingenuity. I am also a product of their failings and hard times.
I am not limited by my physical attributes to connect me to them. My spirit knew them as well, as they are known to me now. This incarnation of my spirit has experienced the woes of my ancestors in other incarnations. My spirit appeals to those who are not of my blood or lineage. It recognizes a kinship that is not restricted to those ancestors of blood, but also to ancestors of belief. We share ideas, love, inspiration, fears and philosophies. I feel their losses and their hardships and remain inspired by them to continue on my path.
When we call the ancestors, I see them standing in front of me with knowing in their eternal eyes. I am they, and they are me. I see and feel the presence of my beloved relatives who have passed during my lifetime. My grandmother on my father’s side was my personal mentor and life coach. She was a mother to me in ways my own mother was incapable of doing at one time or another. We established such a closeness that life without her has been painful and uncertain. I feel as though with her passing my training wheels had been removed. I am now an adult, and I have her to thank for preparing me for this life. I was blessed to know her, and remain blessed that she walks with me still and teaches me new things even now. She and my other ancestors paved the path behind me, so that I may forge the road ahead.
(word count 396)
Part two: Nature Spirits
My pets were the first friends I made in this life that were not my parents. We had a couple of dogs: Angie, Dublin, and Boo. We had a cat who was a stray my mother took pity on, named Calico. We had a whole bunch of bunnies. I learned a lot from these creatures whom I saw as brothers and sisters who were different. Even when my siblings were born, I spent much of my time with the animals that I loved. Angie and I would sit in our family’s garden in rural Delaware, and I would inspect the plants and steal vegetables. I understood about the seasons and nature’s cycles very early on. The beauty of the earth struck me early in my lifetime. I would watch the travels of the geese as they would flock south in the winter and cover the sky with white wings. I learned about the daffodils of spring and the pumpkins of fall, and snow banks in winter which were as tall as I was. I helped my parents build the world’s most ineffective scarecrows in the fall, and stole vegetables in the garden so often that I often spoiled my appetite for dinner.
Because of my kinship with nature, it also taught me about death. It did not register with me being so young, but when my father had shot a snow goose and had it mounted in his workshop I would sit and talk to it for hours. My father insisted that it was dead, but I didn’t know what that meant. It talked back to me. When my mother accidentally killed a kitten that had crawled into her car’s engine, my parents shielded me from the gore knowing how deeply I loved cats. It was horrible still, feeling the pain of my little friend’s last moments. I sobbed inconsolably for a while, and eventually came to understand life’s greatest lesson at an early age. Death was an end, so a beginning may follow, even though it hurts. Our life cycles and the cycles of the earth were the same. When my other pets passed, they spoke to me in dreams. Sometimes I would feel the warm of their bodies pressing on my feet while I slept even though they had long since passed on. They taught me dedication, unconditional love, and a sense of play.
I have always been this child of nature; hating pavement and longing to be among trees. There were more valuable lessons to learn in the wilds than there were in the world of human devices. There was so much in the human world that didn’t make sense to me. It seemed so different from nature. As I got older, I began to understand why. Humans are not separate from nature; we are one and the same. However, we’ve spent centuries of prideful dogmas trying to assert our dominance over our own nature.
When my father’s health began to spiral downward, he began to see black panthers skulking around the lawn of our Delaware home. I had chalked that up to the imaginative mind of a man who was mentally unwell, and found through meditation that the black panther is one of my most protective spirit guides. I currently have two little black cats which comfort me still in times of mental duress. They were with me in the darkest nights of my adult life. What lessons I have learned from these kindred animals have been invaluable, and I am enormously thankful for them all. They serve as messengers from the Gods and guides to the worlds beyond the one we can see.
(word count: 608)
Part three: Shining Ones
The shining ones are our Gods and Goddesses and ascended masters. They are those beings so great as to ascended through time and remain with us still. They are our sacred ones; our shapers and creators of pathways. They are great spirits and teachers, whose teachings and paths we emulate.
I suppose that the concept of “God” is an easy one to wrap my head around because of my Catholic upbringing. However, I also see them as infinite, human, flawed, and entirely worthy of praise and respect. I think of the Gods past whose names we still know, and I often wonder about those whose names we have forgotten. And I often find myself puzzling over whether or not it is possible to create a legitimate God in this day and age. Maybe we’re giving names to a spirit that has always existed, or renaming a deity whose name has been lost to time. Cernunnos or the “Green Man” are examples of this phenomenon. I have difficulty finding it within myself to worship what is a very modern God based upon uncertain, ancient fragments. However, I feel that if this spirit is so strong and has awoken in so many people, perhaps it was a God we were meant to discover in our time of utmost need. Perhaps an old God/Goddess reincarnated to a form we need to comprehend them as this time around. These possibilities are quite endless.
This said, the ‘Pantheon’ I relate to most would be that of the Tuatha de Danann and the native Gods of Ireland. In particular, I am under the guardianship of the Morrigan; the Great Queen eternal. When I think of the Shining Ones in my daily practice, I first think of Her. I do not feel as though the Gods are unattainable. In fact, they are our teachers and guides who lead us by example and I interact with on a regular basis. The Gods I know are complex; they bear aspects and faces that they show to individuals but are always more than they let on. They know my heart, and I honor them wholly. I do not ask anything of the Shining Ones. I accept what they see fit to bestow upon me, as they know best. My relationship with them is one of dedication and service.
I guess there’s a lot of talk about man-made Gods, but I don’t think you can make a spirit. It’s said that some of the earliest Gods were invented as aspects of the human psyche, or to explain away natural occurrences they didn’t understand, however this does very little to explain away a tangible spirit. One of the things I noticed within Druidry is the high reverence held for the Gods; they respect them. I have met many neo-pagans who are terrified of the Gods. I suspect it is because of their own shortcomings or dishonesty which makes them afraid to bear it to a Being that can see right through it. In that sense, I believe the Shining Ones teach us honesty.
(word count: 478)
(total word count: 1507)