Who are my elders ?

Sitting on the floor of the Temezcal, sweat dripping from my pores, I tried to to keep the open wounds on my hands out of the dirt. As Mariana our Temazcalera proudly sang songs passed down to her from her elders, her voice touched me as I listened to the rhythm of her heart, she asked if we knew any songs, in that moment I felt a hinge of sadness, longing, and even a bit of anger. From whom should I have a song to sing? What ancestors, whose elders— for It feels like I have none. In October, south of Lisbon at the Arrábida nature park,  I sat in retreat with 14 women, diving deep into Herbalism and Alchemy to remember a part of me that had long been lost. 

A few days after the Temezcal experience I wandered the streets of Lisbon in the neighborhood of Alfama. It was a warm October night, the cobblestone streets were full of people enjoying their Sunday evening. I sat down at a pizzeria, my Margarita pizza arrived, the creamy white buffalo di mozzarella, the juicy red San Marzano tomato sauce and the fresh green basil stared back at me. I find comfort in the colors of the Italian flag, the flavors and aroma of the southern European boot remind me of with a slice of me—-ancestors I never got to know.  The couple next to me said “guten apetit”, they probably think I’m German, my features are quite German meanwhile the next couple over speak Italian which feels more like home,  yet neither are. At that moment I found myself brought back to the feelings I experienced in the Temezcal. Who am I? who are my elders? What songs and traditions do I have, what healing modalities belong to me? My fathers family origins are Italian and German while my mothers are Norwegian, German, and English. Yet I never met any of my ancestors that lived in Europe, they emigrated around 1890, the traditions, languages, and struggles lost on that journey across the ocean. I long to know them and their stories —-my story. My life is full of culture yet in a way I’m culture less. I don’t have elders to learn from like Mariana in the Temezcal.   Who will teach me these ways? I feel like an imposter some days. Like many, the traditions of my ancestors were lost --washed away with time.

Earlier this year I found myself in the shower, flooded with tears, longing for a wise woman. I felt towards my mother and my female lineage for not knowing the ways of nature, the traditions of living in alignment with the moon and stars. How was I meant to live without someone to show me the way, the truth.   Am I destined to a disconnected fate because my ancestors ended up on American soil, all my ancestors come from Europe, but yet I don't really belong here. I'm not Czech, not Italian nor German but also I am not really American either. 

I have no connection to the Native Americans other than the vision of a native some see in my face during  plant medicine ceremonies. Maybe I did have a past life on those lands but when it comes to my blood, it's not there. Not American, not European, so what am I ? In that shower I felt a deep desire for an understanding of the plants, the world around me. I envisioned a medicine woman, with deep knowledge and a golden heart.  I realized, she is in me, I must find her and access her.  This wise woman archetype, she is the deep ancestral knowledge that has been lost. She is the woman that's been silenced. She is the all consuming embrace you melt into and know everything is going to be okay. She holds space for it all, the hurt, the sadness, the pain. She brings beauty, understanding, and healing. She knows the truth and isn't afraid to express it. The embodiment of love and divine wisdom. 

Maybe you can relate to this longing, especially if you grew on different soil and feel in your heart, a little bit disconnected from your roots. It's as if the soul was raised on someone else's soil. So much of the Wisdom of the natural world has been lost, destroyed by the part of us that seeks money, power, and control. The part that desires to manipulate the natural world rather than working with it. In many ways I have found beauty in the opportunity to seek what fits for me, to find my own way. I followed the beat of my heart back home to Europe. I find myself in the center of the part of me, Norway to the north, Germany to the west and Italy to the south. I've found my people, the Czech’s, a people who've been through it, who know pain and the effects of power.  I feel accepted here, yet still there is separation. Language divides us. They may always know I'm not one of them because of my tongue. The words don't sound quite right when I say them and often it's hard to find the courage to try. Its something inside of me that creates my separation, my own fear and trauma, it comes from within and is reflected without. How much of our separation comes from within us?

Even with these challenges, I feel more whole than I ever have. As I follow the paths of my ancestors, I find traces of the things that pull at my heart—- healing, plants, and connection to a natural way of living. I have let go of the parts that didn't feel mine, a rejection of the materialism I was taught in my country. As I follow these threads I feel closer to myself, to my truth. I have begun to weave together these parts of different places and people that light my soul on fire; creating the unique fabric that represents me. Some form of separation has always existed. It's a part of this human experience, I believe we are all parts of the same whole, separated in order to experience each other. We are God experiencing itself. However, currently our separation is magnified. This recent trip to Portugal was focused on Herbalism, so how are plants connected with this separation and what can they teach us? 

People have been traveling for centuries, in search of plants in distance lands, the silk road and the spice routes etc.  Trade and travel expanded herbal knowledge and then at a certain point it isolated it. In the 1800 and 1900's people started to isolate compounds in plants. During the herbalism course, one of my teachers spoke about the beauty of the coca plant, its powerful yet can be harmful as well. This harm comes when the plant is isolated. The alkaloid cocaine is just part of the plant and often when people use cocaine they experience effects like disconnection and selfishness. He mentioned how there is a connection between isolating the alkaloid and the isolation effect it has on humans once it enters the body.

 I have to wonder what the deeper connection is between the isolation of active compounds in plants by the pharmaceutical industry and the isolation of humans, with rises in suicide, depression, and a world that appears more disconnected than ever. In what ways have we used these healing plants to harm? Used culture and traditions to divide, and destroyed the wisdom of our elders? In what ways can we heal the separation that lives within us? We have separated our plants and ourselves. We've destroyed communities and let fear and competition divide us. As I follow my path back to wholeness, the plants are guiding me. I'm so grateful that I felt the call and listened to the whispers. It's time for a great remembering, an awakening of the elders. We may not have grown up around them but we can seek them and we can become them. If we follow the path of remembering, we can find ourselves in that warm embrace of the wise woman.