Heritage

February 14, 1998

I wear my grandmother's ring for medicine.

Rubbing my fingers over it,

I feel my connection to her,

and to the long line of old, wise women

who came before her,

who walked the grandmother path 

before she

who walked here

before me.

One of them was a healer;

one of them spoke with ghosts.

In my past are Celtic crones

and warrior women,

mystics and dream weavers.

In my past, women galloped 

on horseback across the plains,

gave birth in tents, in covered wagons 

and in captivity.

A medicine woman is back there,

and an Untouchable,

a witch and a nun.

In my past are bent, exhausted 

and determined women,

digging in the unyielding earth

trying to feed their children

during the potato famine.

Once in vision,

row upon row of silent, 

dead-eyed women

wrapped in blankets,

I saw, weaving their way

through the frozen blackness 

of a winter morning in the Gulag

and, with a chill, I knew them,

and knew I had been there.

Somewhere back there

there was a woman of vision

and a fool.

Somewhere back there, 

wise women sat around a fire

in Council,

speaking truth and governing.

Somewhere back there,

women were burned at the stake.

Some raised swords 

and led armies on horseback.

Some were shackled together 

in a ship's hold, to be sold as slaves.

Some lived in castles 

and some in caves.

Somewhere back there,

once women's spirits flew;

somewhere back there

our souls were kept in bondage.

Somewhere back there

our feet were cruelly bound.

Somewhere back there 

we threw off all the bindings 

and stood tall.

And now I am watching 

my grandmother's face

emerging before me daily 

in the mirror.

My grandmother's eyes 

are looking out of my face.

They know me.

Somewhere from within

my grandmother has told me

to put on the ring, for now I am worthy.

I, the baby grandmother,

just coming into my power.

No longer a granddaughter,

now an elfin granddaughter 

walks beside me, looking up,

and the vast peaceful knowing

that lived in my grandmother's heart

has come to reside within me.

I wear my grandmother's ring

for love, for memory, for connection

to the line of strong women 

who came here before me

and for the line of strong women

who will walk here behind me,

for the passage of time that is timeless,

for the circle of love that is endless,

for the circle of life 

that keeps turning and turning:

one grandmother out,

one granddaughter in,

footsteps walking in footsteps,

heart upon heart,

all the way Home.

Dusted off and posted for Susan's Mid Week Motif prompt: Heritage Day, since I doubt I could write another that said it better. I am thinking of Maya Angelou's quote: I come as one, but stand for ten thousand. In my family, our matriarchal line is full of very strong women. My grandma, born in the late 1800's, who lived to be a few weeks short of one hundred, was the first woman to ride horseback for pleasure in her area. She caught the eye of the young handsome bank manager and the rest is (my/our family's) history. She had limited education but was self-taught, a voracious reader, and she campaigned to help W.A.C.Bennett get elected, in Kelowna, back in the day. She was sharp as a tack till her very last years. A character, and my lifelong inspiration.