The Office Mystic: I AM: ALL My Relations

On Ancestry, Heritage, Blood and Water...

I am a grandmother.
My daughter was born to this world in 1990, when I was 20 years old.
Her son was born to this world in 2011, when she was 20 years old.
He is a warrior of love, of mischief, of magic and of the future.

I AM.. Loki.

I am a granddaughter.
My maternal great-grandfather was born in New York to a Syrian refugee and a French-Canadian woman. My maternal grandmothers were born to this world as both indigenous and settlers.. they are the Filles du Roi, 'daughters of the king', sent to the Americas as wives for the hunters, trappers, furriers of the 'new world'. They are also the stolen First Peoples, Mi'kmaq squaws that were displaced from their native lands and taken as wives by colonizers from Europe. And too, my ancestors are great athletes descended from German immigrants, and they are matriarchs of vast families of international lineage in the Great Lakes region where I was born. My grandparents adopted over 20 children, many with disabilities, and fostered over 100 more before my grandma died of cancer in her early 40's. I was nearly two.

I AM.. All Peoples.

I am a love child.
My mother's first husband was abusive, and threw her out of a second story window at a Christmas party. She walked in her torn dress to a nearby gas station, and went home with the attendant there who loved her even though she was married. I was conceived then, and when she returned to tell him she was divorcing her husband and the baby is his, he doubted her, and was marrying another woman. I was born in September, 1969, and my birth certificate bore her former husbands name though he never laid eyes upon me. I was adopted by my mom's third husband, who raised me and my sister from the second marriage as his own. I have half sisters, step siblings, foster aunts and uncles of every ancestry, background, circumstance... and more cousins that I can ever possibly know.

I AM.. Family.

I am a custodian.
My path and purpose brought me here to Cascadia, to the Salish Sea, to OSA, after living through many powerfully formative experiences, initiations, adventures, separations, and lifestyles that Michigan's fresh waters availed to me for immersion. These places have taught me the deepest lessons life has to offer... forgiveness, resilience, compassionate care, and that with every thought formed, story told, action taken, we create the life we believe we have coming to us. My door, my heart, my arms, my mind and my eyes are wide open to all that pass through; and the greatest gift I can offer forth to all is the opportunity to see what is possible in you reflected in me. Truly seeing, every being, as life! As love! I weep for the spirit of each tree that is cut down just as I cherish the memories of the angels that walk this earth when their body returns to the soil. I continue to practice, and still have much to learn in the caretaking of myself, my communities, my stuff, my one planet.

I AM.. Home.