When we heal ourselves, we also heal our ancestors...

"I had a vision the ancestors told us to heal the world.

When we heal ourselves, we also heal our ancestors, 

our grandmothers, our grandfathers, and our children. 

When we heal ourselves, we also heal mother earth.” 

~ Grandmother Rita Pitka Blumenstein

Photo of Grandmother with Calla Lilies, Antigua, Guatemala by Judy Sidonie Tillinger

Tree of Life: Mother Courage by Betty LaDuke, 1986.
From "Celebrating Life – Betty LaDuke: Multicultural Celebrations"

The artist Betty LaDuke, explores women's lives as a duality - women as young bearers of new life, sustaining and nurturing all life forms, and women as old, wise healers and cultural guardians, offering strength and stability.
From: Women Speak; The Eloquence of Women's Lives by Karen A. Foss, Sonja K. Foss, 1991.


Reconnecting to the Wisdom of our Ancestors ~ A talk and guided meditation with Dr. Illana Berger. Click on the link below:

http://energyhealing.thesacredscience.com/video-day-2b-ift_LIVE.html

Quw'utsun' Made © Be A Good Ancestor

Enriching our lives through the stories and ways of our Ancestors...

Greetings and welcome back!

This will be a place where we can share and learn a variety of ways to remember and honour our family and ancestors... via memories, stories and creative expression.
By walking with our Ancestors we can help to keep their memory and wisdom alive in our hearts and lives... for ourselves and the generations to come.

Meanwhile... as I continue to sort and bring together my many years of gathered material for Ancestors Alive! (which might take a wee while!) I thought I would pop by each day and share some words and pictures with you for contemplation and inspiration... Enjoy!

Today I will leave you with the following message which feels so timely for me and resonates deeply with this new work in progress...

Message from the Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers:

"As you move through these changing times... be easy on yourself and be easy on one another. You are at the beginning of something new. You are learning a new way of being. You will find that you are working less in the yang modes that you are used to.

You will stop working so hard at getting from point A to point B the way you have in the past, but instead, will spend more time experiencing yourself in the whole, and your place in it.

Instead of traveling to a goal out there, you will voyage deeper into yourself. Your mother's grandmother knew how to do this. Your ancestors from long ago knew how to do this. They knew the power of the feminine principle... and because you carry their DNA in your body, this wisdom and this way of being is within you.

Call on it. Call it up. Invite your ancestors in. As the yang based habits and the decaying institutions on our planet begin to crumble, look up. A breeze is stirring. Feel the sun on your wings."

Wisdom of Grandma: Photo by Carmen Hunter

Enriching our lives through the stories and ways
of our Ancestors...

Artwork detail from a collaged Gourd I made some years ago.
(I will share more info and images about this creation process later!) Image © Raine @ Inner Voice Art™

Quw'utsun' Made © Be A Good Ancestor sticker

Storms and family memory-stories... a fine place to begin!

Hello and welcome!

"The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them.

If stories come to you, care for them and learn to give them away where they are needed. 

Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memories." 

~ Barry Lopez 

Before I share with you how and when I got to the start and heart of my inspiration and work behind my latest work: "Ancestors Alive! ~ What is Remembered Lives" I would like to first touch on something which I believe lies at the very heart of that long line of unique and precious people who have come before us... and that would be Stories... both theirs'... and ours.

Let's begin then with our stories... How wonderful! But there are SO many... Where on earth to begin?

Here's a wee story to start off with as I am reminded of how often - and sometimes suddenly - our memories can transport us back to another place and another time... I find that there are many triggers... most often sensory... it could be a sound or song; smell or someone; photo or even perhaps a dream ... or a combination of things.... and then there is also the ripple effect of memories...

Have you noticed how suddenly and vividly you can be taken back to somewhere... or someone? Do you think to write it down or share with anyone? I suppose we all take our memories for granted in a way... until sadly there may come a time when, with aging, our trusty memory-maker-keeper mind starts to struggle with its job and everything we thought we would remember forever, slowly starts to fade around the edges like an old photo...

Meanwhile... outside here, as the thunder rumbles moodily in the dark clouds, I think that today's hot and steamy late Summer's afternoon with a storm rolling in, feels just like the perfect place for me to start... with one of my own treasured Memory of Place stories.

As far as childhood and family memories go, it was lazy afternoons just like this one on holidays with my family, that you would ALWAYS find me perched on the steps of my Aunty's classic Queenslander, excitedly awaiting the biggest and baddest tropical hail storm to hit! Those clouds were literally 'green' and as my Mum and Aunty rushed around the house closing all the louvers and windows, I would stay out on the porch until the very last possible moment when the first heart-jumping crack of lightning flashed from the sky.

I remember always loving storms, just as much as my Mum hated and feared them - and still does to this very day - even as she approaches her 87th birthday.

She tells me that when she was expecting me with her tummy grown large, she would try desperately to get under the bed whenever there was the first rumble of thunder.
What a sight for sore eyes that must have been - ! - and why I have spent my entire life feeling the exact opposite about storms I guess will always remain a mystery to me! But I am happy to have the memories... and the stories!

Like the time many years later after I'd moved out of home and was almost struck by lightning one evening on the deck of the share-house I was living in! Thankfully our dog saved me that time by a couple of seconds... Phew!

But that is another story for another day... along with the cicadas (green grocers or black princes, I wonder?) who are singing away at almost midnight because it is still so hot and sticky ahead of the cooler change which is thankfully due tomorrow morning...

On that note, it is goodnight and sweet dreams from me and I shall return again soon with more about my vision of Ancestors Alive! Memory of Place and Walking with Our Ancestors.

Their stories are waiting as we peek through windows to the past... and remember... you also have a lifetime of memory-stories just waiting to be told, gathered and kept for future generations...

"We are the ancestors of the generations to come. 

We are the net-weavers for all our children,
wherever in the world they may live."

~ Hiro Boga from her book: “To Be Soul, Do Soul”

P.S.
Because I have been gathering many aspects of this work for a very long time, I have come to imagine Ancestors Alive! as being like a very large and ancient tree with many branches...

I see each one of these offering ways in which we can help to honour and remember our families and those who have come before...

Some topics and creative activities which will be included are:

Stories & Story Catching, Memories & Memory Mapping, family history gathering, photos, cultural journeys, myths, dream visits, House of Belonging, personal shrines & altars, creative memory keepers and Life Blessing Books, collages etc.

At the moment I am not sure if I will be able to bring all of these ideas and components to a blog such as this one but will continue to share here until I get better sense of what will work best!

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Great memories!
I was so happy with myself holding the "Crab Catch of The Day"
and wearing my favourite bright red play-suit!
Photo taken at Bribie Island in Queensland in the 1960's during
one of our many wonderful Summer holidays.

What is Remembered, Lives...

 © Quw'utsun' Made