The difference between wealth and treasure is that you can’t take wealth with you when your days are up, but treasure lasts forever. Wealth over time might grow or shrink depending on who is managing it. Treasures over time are kept safe because they are worth remembering and preserving. Wealth is gained by knowing that money doesContinue reading “Family Treasure”
Category Archives: Time
Where are We, and Why?
Where do memories live? Are my ancestors alive because I dream at night of their spirits, and I want to know their stories? Can I consult my DNA in deep introspection to find continuity in the stories of their many lives? The dream memories I find are not crisp and clear, nor easy, nor alive. They are secret and forgotten. TheyContinue reading “Where are We, and Why?”
Not to be forgotten, Son of a Crystal
Perhaps dreams allow us to time travel and visit the worlds of our ancestors. Last night my father called me on the phone and told me to come because he was having some trouble with my Grandmother, his Mother, Francis Isabell MacCrystal. Does her name ring a bell? (haha) With a name like that, I am guessing she didContinue reading “Not to be forgotten, Son of a Crystal”
Watch Time
The fortune cookie says “If you are wise, you will get to live ALL of your 100 years.” A lifetime on earth, in a body, or as a star is always defined and measured by time. Everything in time has a birth and a death. But is time herself an immortal? Mystics of the past becameContinue reading “Watch Time”
Life is Short and Then We Die
The immortal deity of note for this chapter is Pluto, the roman god of the underworld, the afterlife, and also wealth. For 76 Earth years, this immortal god enjoyed the status of a planet. Discovered and named in 1930, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) struck Pluto from the list on Aug. 24, 2006. In a strange twist of irony, the godContinue reading “Life is Short and Then We Die”
Two Sides
Janus is called the god of boundaries. He has two faces, looking away from each other toward the past and the future. He presides over beginnings, transitions, conflicts, coins, births, the new year, and times of War and Peace. He is a perfect entity to invoke in the beginning of this story of our ancestors. IContinue reading “Two Sides”
All the names
Journalism students learn to answer the five fundamental questions: Who What When Where Why. The best question, which I prefer to answer first, is WHY. “Why?” is the question which sets art apart from journalism. (According to Steve Jobs, this is also true of advertising, but I digress… Please excuse the distraction.) When I ask “Why?” the universe recognizesContinue reading “All the names”
Sobriquet
First there was the word, but when it comes to ancestor research, it all comes down to the names. And what do the names tell us? A little and a lot. When you are looking at seven generations, there are at least 8 surnames in the tree, and that is just if you trace backContinue reading “Sobriquet”
