ancestors

Art by Jan Oliver Schultz-Trail of the Ancestors


They are still with us; they care about us. I know, I have seen them.

Some of the most exciting years of my life were spent tracking down those elusive people who came before me. Looking for headstones in an old Vermont cemetery which required hoisting my sister over a chain linked fence and crawling up and over myself. Hunting headstones with precious dates. Finding the burial spot of Prindle Rising,  a Union soldier mentioned in a letter from my Civil War great grandfather dated 1863. Hooray.

There is something spiritual about trying to connect with these long dead folks.I felt that deeply as I worked. It started with the death certificate of my grandmother with the names and dates of her parents and where they had been born.It was like pulling a colorful thread that slowly unwinds, gifting precious knowledge.

I am sure of this: their grit stiffens by backbone.Try to imagine coming to Plymouth in the winter of 1638 with a husband and 4 children under the age of ten.You did that Abigail, oh woman of courage.The colony there was barely settled, a few homes carved out of the wilderness.You left everything behind."Oh, beautiful for spacious skies," it called you.

Amanda, my great aunt, I have your picture, in tight bonnet and long skirt.You moved from Vermont and raised a family in Minnesota. In the 1880's a tornado blew through Duluth and a baby was ripped from your arms.She was never found and yet, you lived.You went on. I have proof , a letter you wrote in 1900 telling of hearing William Jennings Bryan speak.You kept in touch with your family back east in Vermont.We will meet some day.

Catherine,  how did you leave beautiful Ireland with four teen-agers in 1848 and arrive here with nothing ?You were tenant farmers and when the only crop, the sorrowful potato, got blight, your life was over.The English government would have fed you if you gave up your faith.Not you,Catherine, you sailed to an unknown place where signs appeared in shop windows that said :"Irish need not apply".You lived and your children became Americans. I am one of yours.

Johnann, my Scottish grandmother, had a third grade education and never drove a car. Always a sweet smile on your face, such busy hands knitting and tatting.Your life was limited to travel to from NY to New Jersey, and no vacations that I ever heard about.I never appreciated how limited your life was. I am telling you that I am sorry.

Strong women, were you all in that vision of six years ago?

I was on a bench in the woods behind our house when I saw you. My eyes were closed as I prayed for my unborn granddaughter.There was bleeding and a safe delivery was not guaranteed. In the quiet, I saw two lines of ancestors on either side of my beautiful, pregnant daughter-in-law. Each person would stop, place a hand on her womb and pass on.The lines were long and from many different parts of this earth; all with one desire, that Maddie be born. It was all so clear, their intention and concern.Then a bell softly rang and they were gone.

She is here, Catherine, Amanda, Johnann, Mary, Abigail,.At the age of five, you will be happy to know,  she loves to pray.My love for her is beyond telling.Thank you.

the writing group

The richness, the joy of it all. Writing in a group; using art to poke around in the roots of who we are.

I wish I had starting writing sooner.What a balm to a soul with so many secrets , so much turmoil. But I must put that aside and be grateful for the beginning. It started, my journal, as a bare bones running log.Weather, sights, ease or hardship, with or without dogs.That was the beginning in the 1980s. This has morphed into a writing group with individuals as unique as five colorful birds on a branch.

There was the time that I took a piece of art, Sisley I believe, and wrote a story that pulled all of me into it. More stories and then for at least seven years, I wondered how I could share this with others and how would that start? And now it has been almost three years of stories and deep connecting.

Writing is a joy; that's all I want anyone to know. And using art deepens the experience profoundly.So, a member of the class goes to Las Vegas and sees a purse with a Van Gogh art print and she and we are transformed by the thought of it. Amid the glitz and glamour, she found timeless beauty. A poem by a Native American is read and the author reaches through the page to bestow an image of great comfort to those on the fourth hill of life.We are not alone, we stand with courage,and the bald eagle as celebrate that we made it this far.

A postcard of an old abandoned tractor in a Nebraska wheat field in winter recalls the warmth of being held there on a similar machine by a father before it all changed. Family members here and gone are recalled in beautiful language and they become ours. Lovely sunsets are captured and held by a haiku of gentleness and colors that please. Long ago childhoods are recalled, some beautiful enough to envy. Risks are taken in poetry form with extraordinary colors of red. Stories of lives so different from others enrich our experience; music on a bus that taught a new language and a kind word on a playground. Someone new joins and, in a flash, has us all soaring like fireflies above a pond in the magical night air.. Delightful.

Would we know any of this about each other without writing? We are awash in unforgettable tales.

Our writing has turned us into watchers, listeners, drifters, people of the finger counting. We travel about with an invisible net ready to snare any wisp of a story, any beauty that can be etched on a page.We are no longer cleaners, scrubbers, helpers; oh, we are that, but we are also this: artists. Long may we be.

haiku 10-11-17

                                                                        amidst the roses
                                                                 the sound of bird calls far away
                                                                         an orange leaf falls