Hi Friend,

Death changes life.

As does birth.

And for many people, other major life transitions - marriage (and divorce); a major move; losing a job; moon-blood and menopause; a relationship with a horse; a powerful program of study; an initiation; publishing a book - these things can also change one's life.

There are many mysteries; many sacraments.

The mystery death and birth, the coming and going into this world… those certainly are transformative: holy.

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of my father's death.

His death - and of course his life! - changed mine.

We cannot measure death, just as we cannot measure life.

So phrases like, "it was a big deal" sound kind of strange, moving us into a world of measurements - "big" and "deal". Slang, really - an attempt to convey something that we don't know how to convey about what it means for life and death to matter at all. About "impact."

Language often fails us when it comes to the sacred mysteries. Still, we keep trying. It’s a human thing.

I told a writing group that I'm involved in (we call ourselves the "Decolonial Dames" after an essay by that same title authored by Morgan Curtis) that my father died 10 years ago. From the vortex that opened up after his death arose the work I'm doing now.

The vortex: a confluence of questions that interlaced and fed into one another, huge questions that we can only live into, and still even then it is uncertain if we answer them.

Who was my father? Why did he get sick and die from that sickness - a terribly common chronic illness that, for 20 years, took much of his life-energy? Who was our family - the Wolcotts, who came to this country in 1630 on a ship from Dorchester, England, who stole land and enslaved people and planted apple orchards and influenced and co-wrote government documents that college kids read and which still grace the desks of conservative and progressive politicians alike?

What is my inheritance?

The vortex: asking those questions whilst studying theology at Union Theological Seminary, after having lived for several years in India. Whilst learning about the Doctrine of Discovery. While learning about the European witch hunts. While learning how all of these threads weave together. While deepening into the relationship between Quakerism (the faith of my family), Christianity (union is a Christian seminary), Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, and other traditions - especially Hinduism, Buddhism, and Indigenous traditions. And European pagan/witchy traditions. Recognizing the importance of my bodywork practice. It was a moment of a great convergence of rivers - which is to say, a lot of swirling. A lot of diving. A lot of tears.

Because of my father's death, I asked questions I had not asked before. Because of my father's death, I could not look to him for answers. And so I had to do a different kind of research, and communicate with him and other ancestors in a different kind of way, forcing me to open into spiritual lines that I had not previously practiced. Patterns were revealed to me that helped me make sense of the vortex/convergences. Patterns and knowings and teachings. From ceremonies. From long walks. From study/research/writing. From silence. From dreams. From conversations.

From all of that swirl arose The ReMembering Course. Arose my thesis. Arose Sequoia Samanvaya. Arose is a somatic 1-1 practice utterly distinct from what I was taught in massage school. Arose me doing a kind of witchy spiritual direction that really works for some really cool, creative, powerful change-makers. Arose is a peculiar form of queer witchy ministry that has and continues to make a profound difference in the lives of amazing, heart-centered, courageous people who want to and actively are making a difference in their world, including people like you.

My father is not ‘in’ any of these offerings- I don’t talk about him all that much. But they would not exist without the portal that opened after his death.

The thing about death is that it stays with you. The dead stay with you. Every year, that person is still dead. But of course, we keep relating to them - to their life and to their death and to what it means to live with the dead, beloved and complicated as they are, the ancestors. Our relationship with them keeps growing.

So now 10 years later I return, again, to some of the places we scattered my father's ashes. I went with my mother to the family graveyard in Cloverdale, CA. We sat under the oak tree. I played my flute. We said prayers. I went into that body of water we now call the Russian River, which flows right next to the graveyard, and is one of the few places I am sure beyond a doubt that every generation of Wolcotts who have lived in California have visited and known. And I prayed.

I look at my life today and know that I live in a world of kinship that was not even a conceptual possibility for my grandparents, and certainly not my great-grandparents, who also loved this river and these oak trees. I have long talks with the descendants of people whom my ancestors saw as enemies/the devil. Or (often) whom they both respected and acted against.

My father was a complicated man. He encouraged me to paint and to sing and to write and to trust the mystical and to ride horses and to "get out there." He taught me to love learning. His own life was drenched with sickness - mental, physical, emotional. I’m still coming to understand how much his sickness impacted me. My mom mentioned the other day that when I graduated high school he was in a wheelchair. Looking back I realized he was the only parent I knew in a wheelchair. I don’t recall even thinking about it at the time.

I never doubted how much he loved me.

The system "should have" worked for him. His ancestors helped to make the system work for people (esp white men) like him. In some ways it did - he got early retirement (he was a high school mathematics teacher for over 25 years) and died as he wanted to in a lovely home surrounded by trees and quiet. He had access to excellent health care, swam at the community pool, rode horses, and, before he lost his ability to walk, loved visiting friends in Europe.

In other ways, the system wrecked him.

It happened, by serendipity, that this week I was asked to officiate a celebration of life/memorial service for someone who recently passed away. His friends decided that it did not make sense to hold the service by themselves. In learning about him, and his life, and his death, and this community of people, many of whom, including the man who died, were deeply impacted by violence, I agreed with them. A tad bit self-conscious, they asked me how I felt about creating a ritual for such a complex context. Oh, I smiled softly, I understand.

There are a lot of complex people out there. There is a lot of complex grief.

And yet, I reminded them, death is a powerful sacrament.

Death can be a chance to tell different stories. About the person who died… and about ourselves.

And so here we are. We, who are alive. Living with the dead. Blessed by their absence/presence.

We, we are the ones who are up now, with our ancestors looking at us in the mirror.

So how will you love your life?

And how will you honor them.... including through doing things differently?

What are you remembering?

Blessings to you living and to your dead