Meditated a second time. A good very long yoga nidra in shavasana by a calm voice that always soothes me to sleep. It's a meditation on the Divine Feminine, so of course it's a favorite. And offers a full body scan and counting breaths backward, and a guided magical carpet ride through the eye of a needle, set to gentle psychedelic-y Indian music for like forty minutes. It's a vibe.
Got nice texts from two different people that made me feel better. Good timing. I was glad to hear from them. Grateful for people who make me glad to be alive and make me smile. Grateful for loving people. Grateful for non racists. Grateful for my friends' quirky sense of humor. Ah. Sane people are so nice.
I have this family heirloom. It's a small unusual ancient object that my great grandpa gave to my nana who gave it to my dad who gave it to me. I've never known what it was. Tonight I discovered it is an incense burner, from his (our) tribe. !!! This thrills me!!!
It's funny how I found out tonight of all nights. I was looking for other things, licking my wounds by stalking archaeology from the part of me that was attacked today, to self soothe. And poof there was an image just like my mysterious heirloom. I've searched for information before and found nothing. It was comforting. Like a little note direct from my great grandpa. "Pssst. Don't cry mija."
The timing.
Burning incense for the ancestors is a major tradition. I now know I have a real incense burner. And I already have copal. Weeks before Dia de los Muertos. My great grandpa probably knew all these things.
When I was grieving over my nana, my (non-American) cousin told me about a song a long time ago in our language pre conquest, about a clay doll left for one's child because they knew they would one day die. The clay doll is a gift so that the child will not feel alone when they can't physically parent them anymore. My great grandpa probably knew this story. The clay figures had the same meaning to him as they do to me. Something to hold onto when indigenous mama was forced to hand him over to have his history and culture erased. I may not have a mom, or a dad now, or any of the grandparents I arrived here with, but, they gave me clay things to hold onto in their absence.
11:36 p.m. - 2021-10-09