I drove to Oakland this weekend to meet with my curandera maestra who was visiting from Mexico.
Our family is very bonded, so even though we support each other’s paths and exploration, it is sometimes hard to be apart. This is especially felt with my youngest.
I came home to hugs and relief all around, and Sabriel ceremoniously crowned me with a wreath of willow leaves. He ‘gets me.’
We are similar in our love for ceremony. Upon waking, after our morning snuggle, he unpacked my abalone shell and mugwort, lit a candle, lit the mugwort and with his two feather fan he made in our cooperativo, smudged me.
We had time, we were not rushing off to school.
Like every day of our ancestral schooling life, we allow moments to unfold.
(It is not so much about what we say no to in traditional schooling, but what we make room for instead)
I smudged him and gave him a stick of palo santo that an hermana preciosa gave me, and asked him to carry it through the house for clearing.
We reunited a little later in our garden as I reconnected to our snap peas, lettuces, brassicas, calendula, borage, sages, strawberries, mints, lemon balm, and so on. Garden hugs of return.
We let the chickens out to graze, and Sabi noticed with glee that our autumn olive bush had ripe fruits already. They are little juicy cherry shaped fruits with a sweet and sour tang, and big lemon like seed. He went around gathering them and the chickens went along and ate up the fruits on the ground and those they could reach, some jumping up to grab them with their beaks.
Sabriel said, “Yeah, we are not doing this the colonizer way, trying to have it all. This fruit is for everyone! The chickens have the lower fruits, we get the middle bush and the birds have the top. The insects get what falls.”
I chimed in agreement, “and the soil gets fed by what falls and the chicken fertilizer/poop!”
We laughed in delight at how good it feels to see the cycles and interconnections of life, and be part of it.
We gathered greens, herbs, alliums, and eggs for our morning scramble, saying thank you to all who were part of this meal, the hens, the plants, the sun, water, soil and more.
As I cooked, he said, “I’m so glad we live on a farm! well it’s a mini farm (because it’s a typical suburban backyard) but we are growing alot.” I agreed that I too am grateful that we interplay with and honor the land and all life we are with.
He said, “Yeah, we don’t want the American dream! We want the native dream?” trying to figure out how to articulate all the things we do.
We both reflected for a moment, me thinking about how ‘native’ has become a tokenized/exocitized idea in this country, and also doesn’t exactly fit for our Mexica/European lineage.
I suggested “maybe, the dream of our ancestors?” He smiled big with peace, “Yes”
And by dream, we mean life, living.
Not a fantasy version of ancestral life,
but the time/space to breathe,
to be connected to all life,
to be slow enough to listen
and feel the energy, vitality pulsing around us
and in us.
Earlier, we were admiring the sharp star spikes of the violet blue borage flowers and he said, “I just love watching the bees drink the nectar of these flowers! It makes me want to drink some!” The bees hummed, we observed and felt their song in our beings.
I’m trying but I cannot fully capture the gift of a ‘school day’ of living with presence.
We came inside and he played the drum my eldest made at a recent skills gathering.
And now, my teen daughter and he are singing the running with the wolves song.
So much magic unfolds each day, and I trust it.
I literally do not have to teach anything because they are learning/remembering, retaining the truly important concepts,
that just are and arise when we seek to live the ‘dream of our ancestors’, opening to whatever that is, whatever it is meant to be.
Trusting our hearts.
Making space to follow and be with the pulse of life.