in 2022 i did a zoom call on ancestors & rituals.

we were to call on the maternal lineage for each of our parents. (i grew up with each of my grandmothers, but we didn’t ever talk about generations that were dead).

our grandmothers were to decide which one would give me a ritual to heal something.

they asked what i would like to be healed. i said i would like to know about the grief that my body has been experiencing and heal that.

my grandmothers then began talking and came to the realisation that my dad’s mother, who was of anglosaxon stock and was religious, was symbolic of colonialism, while my mom’s mother has indigenous roots of only a few generations (unacknowledged by her family).

the colonial grandmother said she was carrying grief for what colonials had done to indigenous peoples and the indigenous grandmother said she was carrying grief on behalf of what indigenous had received.

we took a brief pause after reaching that threshold. then it was like my colonial grandmother began to do a past life regression. first appeared a tall man dressed in black, maybe a preacher. he was waved away by my angelic helper. then appeared a mother superior who was also waved away and i heard “before the crusades”.

finally we got all the way back to my dad’s mother being a type of midwife / healer, whereupon the indigenous grandmother began celebrating and saying “we’re each medicine women”.

in that moment, i saw/felt how my mother, had never felt really accepted by my dad’s mother, who lived practically next door to us until my grandmother’s death, after my parents had been married for 40 years.