<div style="color:black;font: 10pt Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Waw.... thank you for this post Lydia, what a wonderful reminder!
<div>We choose, what shackles we pick up and choose to carry... or not..... period.</div>
<div><img src="https://s.aolcdn.com/cdn.webmail.aol.com/resources/core/images/emoji/hearteyes.png" alt="Heart Eyes" title="Heart Eyes" height="25" width="25" style="vertical-align:text-bottom"></div>
<div>V.<br>
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<div style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black"><font size="2">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Lydia Ruby Shepard via Thespiritexpress <thespiritexpress@lists.mcn.org><br>
To: thespiritexpress-bounces@lists.mcn.org <thespiritexpress-bounces@lists.mcn.org>; Thespiritexpress@lists.mcn.org <thespiritexpress@lists.mcn.org><br>
Sent: Mon, Apr 18, 2022 12:36 pm<br>
Subject: [Thespiritexpress] Fw: Easter 2022 - What The Ancestors Want You to Know<br>
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Posted by Charlie Engel. Author is not known.<br>
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~~ WHAT THE ANCESTORS WANT YOU TO KNOW ~~<br>
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<div class="yiv4638178541PlainText yiv4638178541elementToProof">The ancestors want you to know,<br>
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<div class="yiv4638178541PlainText yiv4638178541elementToProof">you are not required to carry their pain.<br>
Your mother did not spin the web that nets you,<br>
you wove it from your own desire.<br>
Yesterday's rain won't nourish this flower;<br>
the new sun drank last night's tears.<br>
Your grandmothers are singing for you<br>
to birth your own unbearable happiness.<br>
Your grandfathers' bones are praying for you<br>
to hunt the sweetness in your own marrow.<br>
You think you must stand like a warrior<br>
in the withering crossfire of your father's blood.<br>
But what wounds you is the wavering blade<br>
of your mind, slashing the past and future.<br>
If you insist on making reparations, plant<br>
a wild pine; let it be a tree of Presence.<br>
You cannot pay them for the privilege of breathing,<br>
for awakening this solitude of beauty.<br>
They need no libation, they thirst for no offering.<br>
They are not hungry ghosts,<br>
But earthworms who luxuriate in loam,<br>
shards of sunlight lodged in magnolia blossoms.<br>
Do not carry them; they do not carry you.<br>
They bear their own grief and laughter.<br>
The past is vanishing smoke, the flame is now.<br>
Be christened with this breath; name yourself.<br>
You sleep alone in the chamber of your ribs.<br>
No one else enters and leaves your lungs.<br>
A mother kissed you, a father held you;<br>
you owe them nothing for this.<br>
They did it for themselves; now let them<br>
be about the business of their next childhood.<br>
Father your heart, Mother your body.<br>
Hold and kiss new sparkling babies.<br>
Give them your grandmother's name if you must,<br>
but not as a weight, not as a brand on the hip;<br>
But as a prayer, a promise of astonishment<br>
for what has not yet been conceived.<br>
__________<br>
Author unknown<br>
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