If Our Ancestors Could See Us Now: There’s a Grimoire in my Bones

I have been reading the Practical Magic series by Alice Hoffman this fall.  For those who are unfamiliar, it is a trilogy of books about the Owens women, witches from Massachusetts.  The Practical Magic book was made famous when it was made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock.  In the story, a grimoire, or book of magic spells, is passed down from woman to woman through the generations.  If there is no one to pass a grimoire down to, it is burned.

So it’s probably fitting that I have been thinking a lot about my female ancestors, most specifically, the direct maternal line-Virginia, Virginia, Alberta, Mary Jane, Alfretia, and further on back.  I know my lineage back to my 6th great-grandmother, who was born in Maryland.  I don’t know when this chain of my family came to this country, but it was pre-Revolutionary War. 

There’s also something about being home, almost all of the time, since March that has me thinking about the women who came before me.  They endured.  They were farmer’s wives, survived depressions, epidemics, wars, and so much more.  I am a survivor, born of survivors.  We all are.  Just the existence of each of us in this moment makes this so.

I’ve been talking a lot about the trauma that is passed down to us through generations.  I talk about it with Morgain, and I talk about it with my friends, and I talk about it in the parenting class I am taking.  We are all concerned about breaking those generational curses that haunt all of us, in one way or another.  But what about the strength?  What about the magic?  That has to be there, too.

When I read Women Who Run With Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, I was fascinated by the idea of gathering bones.  Gathering bones has become a psychological term meaning bringing back parts of ourselves that have laid dormant within us over time because society doesn’t foster those parts of us.  We call it “growing up,” or “becoming responsible,” but it really has felt like a taming to me, a form of repression to fit in and “succeed” as a woman.

I’ve been thinking about that term, “gathering bones,” for some time now.  There are parts of me that are bubbling to the surface.  Surviving, enduring, embracing the wild and instinctual parts of us that help us get through tough times, these are also things we inherit.  There is knowledge and magic in our bones, passed down through generations of women who endured.

So we heal those traumas as best we can, and we try to make improvements both internally and externally, but it’s the strength and magic that bring us there.  So gather those bones.  Remember not only the worst of you, but the best of you.  It is because they survived that we survive.  We can do hard things.

Song:  Call of the Wild by Milck