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There’s been a heaviness to this past week. I feel like I’ve been walking underwater dragging a stone from a rope tied around my waist. Have you seen the photos? People actually do that to build strength. Maybe I need more exercise.
It’s not depression. I don’t feel hopeless, more like past mistakes are showing up as physical presences and saying, “You’ve gotten away with this for too long. It’s time to make amends so we can all more forward without all this sticky resentment.”
Some of these past mistakes are situations, circumstances, events and relationships from my own personal biography. I understand those, and while I may dread confrontation, I’m willing to make the corrections as they’re needed. Apologies are in order, so are cutting ties-with people and places. Never easy. Maybe just wait a little longer till you get back up to the surface for a breath? I’m not sure who says this, but I think it’s good advice. I’ve lived through depression that lasted years without a break. I can take another week until I have to breathe again.
Some of these past mistakes are not part of my body’s biography at all, at least not in this form or dimension. They belong to my ancestors. Yet here I am living with the results.
What is an ancestor? We tend to think of them as the people in our family tree, but if we go back far enough, farther than we can actually measure, we all have the same ancestors. We might call them the first humans, but they were something else before that.
Were they plasmic beings, primal ooze in our atmosphere? Were they pollen or stars? Those stories are all in my marrow feeding these bones held so tenderly by the skin covering these hands writing to you.
In pua’aehuehu, Naua, the fern of Emotional Tenderness, helps us with the ability to negotiate. When we soften, we become more open to what we perceive as other, but is really just another mote of stardust caught in gravity’s spiral being carried down to Earth.
I wrote this poem as a negotiation with my ancestors, the ones caught in time and carried in what seems like an endless river, and for those that came before, and most of all for those who will come after time ceases and the spiral reforms. The form is a pantoum, a Malay verse form with interweaving repetitive lines.
Poem To My Lost Ancestors In search of faith I came again to the forest, laid my hollow bones down in ferns. Looked up. Begged the shadows for a boon- touch my face, soothe my shame, accept my secrets. Hollow bones down in the ferns, longing for tenderness I moaned: touch my face, soothe my shame, accept my secrets, so I can trust again. Longing for tenderness I moaned in surrender to the shadows so I could trust again the path my ancestors walked in dark forests in surrender to shadows. My name taken by the wind on the path my ancestors walked in dark forests in search of water’s source. My name taken by the wind I rode a dream horse into dark clouds in search of water’s source. In the eyes of a newborn foal I saw myself ride a dream horse into dark clouds running from loneliness. In the eyes of a newborn foal I saw myself hesitant at the edge of a clearing running from loneliness. The foal was not afraid of me, hesitant at clearing’s edge. What was I waiting for? The foal was not afraid of me. The mare on her side lay covered in blood. What was I waiting for? Light anointed skin like holy water, the mare on her side lay covered in blood. Fern spores dusted me gold; light anointed my skin like holy water. Without asking fern spores dusted me gold. Light, I was delivered through clouds by wild horses without asking, across two oceans flowing as one I was delivered through clouds by wild horses. In the shelter of the trees’ rooted shadows, across two oceans flowing as one my bones came to rest in the river sound. In the shelter of the trees’ rooted shadows my ancestors found me bones resting in the river sound born and reborn.
Kō aloha lā ea
Concentrate on love by way of the light
My wish for you Jen is that you wouldn't be so hard on yourself. You are one of the most loving and loved person I know. I love you with all my heart. Dad