Our Grandmother's Hands

 "History is not the past, it is the present.  We carry our history with us  We are our history."

 --James Baldwin

For decades I have believed and taught YOGA as a form of a healing art.  One that  actively opens our body through a series of movement which also allows to simultaneously concentrate and empty our mind of redundant worries, and lighting our spirit so we feel a sense of connection and joy.  All on my intuitive belief that it was so.  Like everyone else, I also spend part of my time wondering, "what if everything that I think that I know is all wrong?"  

This is not that post.  

I have realized, with more confidence, intuitive strength, and anecdotal evidence, that YOGA is a divine healing art and that by healing our body and connecting with mind and spirit we create a deep, lasting, and transformational healing opportunity.  Deep into our bones, within our ancestor's bones, inside the bone marrow, and changing our DNA.  

Yes, DNA.

You may have just rolled your eyes.  Everyone knows that you can't change your DNA. It is what you are born with and that's it.  Like winning or losing the lottery.  You are born with your lotto numbers and you don't get to exchange them.  

"There is a deep wisdom without very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it."

 --Elizabeth A. Behnke

What if I told you that we don't get to take your DNA back and exchange it, but you are effecting your  DNA which will be left for future humanity.  Our DNA will cue the next generation, give them the responses they need to survive, perhaps even passing information for the next pandemic without them even realizing where it all came from.  That is the alchemy of our bodies' ability to speak to the our forward ancestors.

In recent years researchers have learned that trauma can be inherited—passed down due to changes in DNA, what's known as epigenetics. But researchers recently uncovered a new wrinkle to the story: “The effects of trauma which can be transmitted to the offspring can be reversed by a positive experience.”Apr 15, 2017 Scientific American 

The United States of America has a bloody history.  The world history of our planet is bloody.  I like to think that we are evolving, becoming less violent, more compassionate, more like the spiritual teachers of Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and others.  If you look at history over long expanses of time, it is hopeful.  One of the gifts that astrology has given me, is the curiosity to look for cycles in history, repeating patterns which very often correlate with patterns of heavenly bodies in our Solar system and galaxy.  Physics, science, history, math, even literature and human drama, along with coincidence, all sitting at the same table.  

It's fascinating to look back on our last major lunar eclipse on July 4th, 2020 which was right in the heart of the year (literally on it's way into Leo the Lion Heart) and occurring on the date of America's conception.  This is her birthday.  This eclipse was pointing to ancestral work.  To the past.  Eclipses shine a light and give us pause.  A moment to reflect, rethink and reintegrate. A lunar eclipse is deep emotional work.  It was a time to commune with our ancestors and dredge up that which needs healing.  I didn't need to go far back into my families history to find darkness which needed love and healing. A release from a pattern, an ill intention, even direct harm to others.  This ancestral healing creates a useful passage for myself, my ancestors, and the future beings on our planet.  It literally heals the past, the present and the future, with one event. This is true love - beyond time and space.  This is a form of our higher, angelic self.

But what is America healing?  Slavery. Hundreds of years of slavery, from before she was even conceptualized.  Oppression.  Hundreds of years of cruelty, inhumane treatment of innocent beings, bigotry, racism, systemic injustice. Violence. 

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: ​“Hate can­not dri­ve out hate; only love can do that.”

The voice of systemic oppression, slavery, and violence was heard through George Floyd and numerous others.  George Floyd's words, "I can't breath" were multiplied over and over again with COVID-19 taking the breath away from innocent beings.  Amplified with the work of Jupiter (world wide)  conjunct with Saturn (earthly karma) and in Pluto's (death & destruction) neighborhood. Coincidence. And, this is a repeated pattern.

Our current pandemic mimics the Black Plague in Europe where innocent people lost their lives,  upending economic stability and social hierarchy and structure.  No one was insulated. After the plague had retreated, the time of the Renaissance began.  A time of revival, creativity, beauty, love, art and happiness.  The artisan was finally king!  DiVinci, Rapheal, Michelangelo, Botocelli.  In music, the cello, viola and lute. Romanticism. A time of awakening!

Jupiter and Saturn will conjunct on this Winter Solstice, December 21, 2020.

The last time this Jupiter-Saturn conjunction was this close to earth was the early 1620s.  About the time that the African slave trade began to make it's way to the Americas.  These are the true beginnings, the roots, of the Black Lives Matter movement.  

The last time this Jupiter-Saturn conjunction was in the sign of Aquarius, was around the year 1465.  The year the Pope Pius was born and his greatest claim to fame was his admonishment of white on white slavery.  Specifically the Christians.  This goes back further into the past and unearths more of the same listed above: slavery, violence, systemic injustice. 

The theme, or pattern in history cries out for healing.  Before we may step into our future, we must look back and clean up our past.  Wipe your feet carefully, the mud of your past, at the door of the future.

This book contains ideas to heal your body and your past.  According to Resmaa Menakem, the author of My Grandmother's Hands, Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, we carry our ancestral trauma in our bodies.  Everyone carries trauma in their bodies, even if it isn't your trauma.

He explains that the previous bodies in our bloodline experienced trauma one or all three of these ways: 

1) Our families created and inflicted trauma onto others.  

2) Our families endured trauma inflicted by others.

3) Our families witnessed other people's trauma.

All three of these methods changes our DNA to accommodate the trauma.  We are literally carrying racism and mistrust of others IN OUR BODIES.  This is your flinching, or stepping away from someone who doesn't look like you, or feeling a small tug of fear as the only person in a group of people who do not share your skin color.   When we are faced with these feelings, we have a choice.  We can expand on them, grow and solidify that fear, maybe even create a scenario to justify it.  Or, we may recognize it and diffuse it.  Heal it.  Leave it in the past where it may have been useful but in our present and future time line.  It is now heavy weight.   Dead leaves fallen from the tree. The book mentioned above has many meditations, body and breath work ideas to work through this, whether you have a white body or black body.

Even if you do not read this book, nor do any work to release your ancestral trauma, or heal your own past trauma, just remember this.  Our very own bodies carry the deepest stories of the past.  

Do you remember as a child looking at your grandmother's hands? The blue veins, bulging beneath the thin, papery skin.  The exaggerated joints looking like the gnarls of tree branch.  The slow movement and lack of strength and yet full of character, wisdom, and love.  Perhaps she baked you pies. Or held your chin to kiss your cheek. Or knitted you a pair of socks.  All of our grandmother's carried wisdom in their bodies and then gave it to you.  It is your turn to honor your grandmother's hands and do the work to heal your ancestral past, integrate into the present, and create the vision for an even better life ahead.  On this hallows eve, they are behind you and whispering their loving support.

Namaste,

annette