I am from the birth place of repressed emotions.
Diaphragms held tightly in with the squeeze of a corset.
Shoulders weighted heavy with armor and the ideals of conquering foreign lands filled with savages and unknown riches.
I am from the legacy of Christian ideals that others, not like me,
Must be shown the truth and saved,
That I know better.
The violence implicit in that idea —
Metal edges, blood stained clothes,
Across centuries,
Across continents.
These are my ancestors.
The ones whose hearts were closed.
The ones whose wildness was burned with the witches
And bred out of them with centuries of ‘culture’ and ‘civilisation’.
Whose first conquest was over the land, and it’s fertile chaos.
Who made it efficient,
And reigned her in.
And then reigned over others.
The ones whose hearts turned cold and whose minds grew so large with ‘enlightenment’ they could not contain themselves and sought to conquer the world.
The ones who dominated and terrorized wild peoples everywhere,
as they were once, too long ago to remember, dominated and terrorized
So far past, the imprint of their own indigenous spirit is lost.
I am from them,
The lost children,
Who now seek ceremony and truth anywhere but in their homeland,
With their own people,
Who betrayed them,
Over and over.
I am from a pain-filled ancestry,
Of legendary drinkers who can only feel after pints of ale,
And who drown in centuries of tears, in drunken slurs.
Who stole from all of the world what was not theirs
Because they themselves no longer had anything of true value.
Nowadays my brothers and sisters,
So barren of heart, body, soul and spirit,
Lost and separate from this ancestral pain,
Seek solace, healing and shelter
In the very indigenous wisdom traditions that our ancestors
Once did everything in their power
To destroy.
We are lost children of the world,
Grasping at indigenous ceremonies that are not made for us,
Because we have none of our own.
Ours were wiped out with the crusades.
Return home, lost children.
Return home.
Follow your ancestry back to their shores.
Listen to the lands.
They are alive and have been waiting for your return.
Dwell in the breezes and grasses.
Drink their water.
The healing and ceremony that is meant for you is there.
The earth.
The sweet, solid earth of home,
Is the only medicine that can begin to remedy the legacy we carry.
Copyright – Karen McMullen 2019
