“That’s it!” I exclaimed as I was browsing through my pictures of a family trip to Yosemite last summer in celebration of my husband’s 60th birthday. My daughter had snapped this picture of me standing in front of this expansive root system of a Sequoia tree in the Mariposa Grove. Now the picture here illustrated a new meaning for me. It mirrored what I had been experiencing in crafting my personal and historical story on my grandfather. I’ve discovered that I am part of a vastly interconnected system and strength through my Scottish ancestry. There is a mystery here I felt I was unearthing. Yes, I am deeply woven into this root system, in the past and most surprisingly, in the now.
My grandparents emigrated from Scotland soon after they were married. They grew a small family of two daughters, in a land far away from their own families, Scottish culture, geography and history. In growing up around my grandparents, I came to know a little bit about Scottish culture by the values and character that lived within them. They were proud, yet humble people. It was considered distasteful to talk about one’s self. An exemplary family value, yet it left us after their passing, with little tangible connection to the family and culture they came from. And the culture we came from too.
A whole new world has opened up to me through exploring their stories. I have discovered that in spite of a lack of information, their culture, values, history, preferences, aptitudes and ethics are vibrantly alive within me and my family members. Even though the land and people of Scotland are continents and oceans far far away, something lives in us even though we can’t see it, or be surrounded by it. We are rooted in it.
This image of the massive root system of the Sequoia helped me name what I was experiencing. It got me to thinking as to the magic in the telling of personal stories. In class when hearing one another’s stories, we have often reflected on how personal fact based stories hold as much magic, if not more, than folktales, fairytales and myths. How can this be? We would ponder this as we would hear over and over again of the incredible synchronicities and happenstances that would emerge through exploring one’s ancestor’s lives, stories and history. This magical synchronicity seemed be a consistent experience. Somehow lost pieces of information or connections, found as in a puzzle piece, would bring together reconciliations and offer new insights and understandings. These ‘providential convergences’, seemed to bring lost parts together again, to make what was once fracture, missing or broken, whole.
We often create family trees to help us understand the place and people who are part of our family. There is great value in that. But maybe, if we thought of our families more as hidden and intertwined root systems, it might enhance the purpose, grace and gift in exploring one’s history. These root connections run deep, our stories and history are important, complex and intertwined. It is core to who we are. This is especially true in our American culture where we have come together from many different cultures and families over the last 200 plus years. Our stories and histories are present, yet invisible, just like the Sequoia’s.
In discovering this deep inner resource within me it has felt like, “wow my hands and legs are beginning to work together in a new way!” I am connected to something, to someone, and it’s large, mystical and magical. I have come to discover this magic isn’t there just for me, but for my living family, children and grandchildren. It is a magic ‘super’ power, one that is living, active, and transformative. It is nourishment from the very source of where one comes from, from relationships, and from stories that are all very, very, real.
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