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. They […]

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 did […]

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 became […]

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 god […]

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. I […]

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 recognizes […]

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 back […]

History starts with me and goes backward

The art of seeking ancestors creates many questions, no? When I began my journey into the past, my reasons were purely personal. My memories are dear to me, and the story of my life should not be left untold. So, who is the story for? Who cares to remember me? First of all, I want to […]