Ancestors and the Creative Fire

In this detail from a recent collage, a kimono-clad woman bows to a circle of people. She reminds me that my work is a ceremony, an offering of just the right Medicine. The words around her: Inspiring Life's Journey and Respectful Exchange. She is close to the earth, grounded. She is ready to serve.

Perhaps she is an Ancestor called home by my creative fire, the sparks I'm fanning into flame.

In o-bon, the Japanese Ancestor ceremony, it is bonfires that guide the Ancestors home. Family clans gather in mid-late summer to clean up graves, give thanks to the Ancestors, feast, sing and dance. After a good long visit, people float lit candles on the water to send the Ancestors back until the next year. Both the quick and the dead are renewed.

I remember as a young girl stringing leis with my grandmother in Hawaii, preparing for an aunt and uncle arriving late for o-bon. We walked in the dark, following the sounds of celebration to the neighbor's luau, bearing long white strands of starry blossoms. We kids called it the 'bone dance' and watched the old ladies make their careful steps with sweeping arms and moon fans. They wore their light summer robes and sandals. I remember fire and night.

I haven't celebrated o-bon in many many years. But every time I write or make art, it seems as if the creative fire itself invites the Ancestors in. They help me and I hope that I help them in carrying forward this spark of life.

The Veil

The ancient Egyptians intimately connected life and death, with their mummification and preparing the dead for the next life. I made this collage in the spring. Rediscovering it now, fiddling with it in Photoshop, adding the sands of time, I see it freshly.

You see, an important stranger recently died, someone I'd sat with in healing ceremonies a few times.

In the week between his accident and his death, I felt inexplicably happy for him. Several others and I just kept seeing his smiling face that whole week he was in a coma. I felt no worry, knew he was somehow fine, despite the medical prognosis. I knew he was preparing for some next big thing and was already free.

I can only hope that he did not suffer, that he was in essence gone at the time of the accident. Perhaps he was just patiently waiting for his loved ones to get used to the idea of losing him. I like this idea, for he was a truly generous person.

These are the mysteries. We don't know. Years ago a close friend, trying to prepare me for the loss of him, told me that the relationship continues. Over the years, having him as an Ancestor, feeling his continued care, I really get how the love continues in a different way.

For many people around the world, this is not news. Still, we are pitiful humans and we get attached to that smile, the enfolding arms, the smell of each others' hair. Even though we can't have them back, we can choose to carry on with the love.

We can serve our Ancestors by living our lives well and heeding their teachings. My husband and I are keeping a spirit plate for our important stranger's year of transition to Ancestor land. We give food offerings to fuel his journey.

And we can look to them for support in the myriad of invisible, palpable ways they are here to back us up. I feel their love and blessing in all that I do. I choose a connected world.

Ruby Slipper Stories

I live in the Castro in the heart of San Francisco, a neighborhood rooted in gay liberation. My heart soars every time I see the pair of small ruby slippers that sparkle in mid air, dangling from the telephone wire crossing my street. No stinky old sneakers for us! Some kind person with good aim rocketed them there last year.

The ruby slippers remind us in the age of increasing gentrification: honor the soul of this place. Remember refuge and belonging. Never give up the freedom to live out loud. Make room for others’ authenticity. Enjoy the humble magic in being who you truly are. Those we lost to AIDS, our too young Ancestors, say there’s no time to waste.

We need stories like water, like air. The Wizard of Oz and The Red Shoes both tell the tale of the soul’s longing for an authentic life. You’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz until you’ve seen it in the grand Castro Theater, among costumed audience members who shout out their favorite lines. Who doesn’t identify with Dorothy’s desperate search for home? In The Red Shoes the poor little girl ‘rescued’ by the rich old lady desires only her tattered handmade slippers. She becomes obsessed trying to recapture what came from her own heart and soul.

There’s no place like home. I’ve found it here among my Tales of the City diversified family. I’ve also found my heart, my mind, and my courage. I even work in the neighborhood, where director Gus Van Sant and team are filming Harvey Milk’s story. He was the first openly gay city supervisor, who was later assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978. A new generation of people, for whom sexual identity is not a big deal, need to know that this current openness came from a continuing long struggle to transcend fear. We need Harvey’s story and his guiding wisdom as an Ancestor, to keep inviting people to be who they are.