Last year I started receiving signs and intuitions that I needed to begin acknowledging my ancestors. This coincided with changes happening between my still-living family members, as my maternal grandmother suddenly began opening up about more details from her life to both myself and my mother. Altogether it felt like the floodgates were parting, and that I needed to be there to witness and help process the knots of inter-generational trauma that were seeing light for the first time in decades, centuries. A great deal of the work, too, is me trying to figure out just how I fit into the story of my lineage so I can stop feeling alienated by blood ties.
I had also spent the last 10 years dancing around the subject of ancient Mexica religious practice, trying to avoid it in order to focus on other areas of Mesoamerican polytheism, but as these events and patterns unfolded, it became clear that I needed to finally embrace this part of my ancient history. This work is tightly bound up with the gods of ancient Mexico, and I can no longer ignore them.
In this series, I talk very frankly about my family, living and dead, the cultural and historical currents that carried us to where we are now, how we were scattered to the winds. A lot of it is raw and very personal writing, so the first posts in the series are password-protected due to the sensitive subjects I included therein, especially as they pertain to my still living family. If you would like the password, please ask and I’ll be happy to share.
- [Protected] Part 1: The Tree
The general goal of the project, the state of my family, why the work needs to be done, and how I plan to do it. - [Protected] Part 2: My Mother’s Branches
Painting the story of my maternal family’s trauma. - [Protected] Part 3: My Father’s Branches
Painting the story of my paternal family’s trauma. - [Protected] Part 4: Apoptosis and the Heartwood
Talking about my hysterectomy, and what being childless and trans means for my future, my family line, and the broader pagan community. - Part 5: Mestizaje Spirituality
Addressing the spiritual component of being mixed-race, and the metaphysics of embodying opposites and contradictions. - Part 6: Duty, Sacrifice, and Gendered Expectation
Asking why the things my ancestors believed are not believed in any more, and what replaced them. More on the topic of being trans through the lens of history. - Part 7: And It’s October Already
A fluff post about discovering a box of some of my grandfather’s things, and other miscellaneous thoughts. - Part 8: La Malinche
Talking about the mytho-historical figure of La Malinche, Cortez’s interpreter, and spiritual mother of all mestizos. - Part 9: The Days of the Dead
Thoughts and recipes from my solo celebration of Dia de Muertos. - Part 10: “Authenticity”
A long piece on the doomed task of reconciling incompatible bloodlines and what it means to be an authentic religionist when trauma has taught me not to trust groups or authority.
