Let It Be Me

Remembering our breath is very important.

It's a part of the work which can be easily neglected - in our rushing days interacting with the world, one of the first things to get forgotten can be correct breathing.

I know, for I've been correcting a lifetime of bad breathing - chest breathing, breathing too fast and too shallowly - over the past few years,and it's still something I can let slip when my mind's too engaged with the minutiae of this civilised life I Iead. Or don't lead, depending on the sign of the moon.

This weekend I monitored my breathing most of the day, when I wasn't off in the land of the undead - which this weekend meant monthly shopping - paying attention to all the sparkly bits that clamored for my attention, trying to decide which pack of toilet rolls was actually the better value for money,or how much VGA cable we really needed to connect Warren's laptop to the telly. It wasn't easy, but I found that attending to my breath - making sure that it was coming from the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm and that the energy was flowing steadily - produced a much less harassed-around-the-gills sort of shopping experience. It was even quite pleasant in parts,plus we got more done than we normally would, when both of us are just sprinting to get it over with and get out of the damned mall.

So: breath, yes,is important in the most menial of events in life. Another thing which needs my attention, and right now, is the question of unresolved ancestral issues.

Christina has a lot of wisdom to share on this topic.
I'd recommend listening to her podcasts.
I'd recommend to myself that listening to her podcasts is one of the brighter things I can do.

Ancestors can be, and frequently are, invaluable helping spirits, especially for anyone on anything even approximating a Shamanic path. They have the wisdom of both life and death to impart, and, being concerned with our well being, they are willing to help us to help ourselves.

In my family, one unresolved issue has shown up as alcoholism. It beset my maternal grandfather to his death, has shown its face among cousinly branches of the family, and of course it has had a major effect in me. The last twelve years  I have been moving farther and farther away from the terror of alcoholism, and perhaps now is a good time to start to look at the reason it has raised its ugly head down the generations and across a swathe of family, destroying all in its path and much on its periphery.

Issues like familial problems with alcohol, drugs or dependent behaviour are old, unhealed wounds to the psyche which manifest in many members of the family constellation. If not addressed and healing started, they will continue their devastating course until a descendant finally does get the message,and begins to do something about it.

I have felt my Mom tugging at my inner ear for days now, pointing this out to me. She has been hovering so near that at times I can smell her, feel her touch upon my arm, see her clear hazel eyes in the face of a stranger passing by. And what she's telling me is that some one - some descendant - must step up to the plate and take on these ancestral issues which manifest mostly as alcoholism in my family.

I am that person in this generation who is closest to having an understanding of a Shamanic worldview.

Therefore, let that descendant be me.

Pic: Many years ago, Mom first let herself be known as an ancestral helping spirit by appearing to me as a hippo.