Kindred- Ancestors
May. 16th, 2006 02:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarHow does one relate to the ancestors when one barely speaks- if at all to most of the currently-living members of one's family?
It's not easy- as I've also explained in my Samhain essay, I am not close to my family, except for my mother. My immediate family was tr aart when I was young due to my parents' divorce, which would likely not have been nearly as devastating as it was were it not for my grandparents' maicious intervention in effort to hurt my mother. In my fathers family, no one is especially close to anyone else that I can see- it seems that someone is always fighting with someone else, disowning them, changing their minds and then fighting again. My mother's family lives in another city- I grew up in Lancaster, Pennslvania and they live in Philadelphia- and while they seem to be close amongst themselves, many of them stopped speaking to my mother even before she divorced my father for having left the Catholic Church. Several of those who still speak to us have in the past berated me on my choice to have attended a Methodist university (religion was not a factor in the descision). Most of the time, all of this does not bother me, or perhaps it's easy to pretend it doesnt, it's what I know, it's how it's always been. But once in a while, it can tear me up.
So what am I to do? Well, I do know the origin of my ancestry, at least the immediate past few generations. English on my father's side, Sicilian, Lithuanian and Polish on my mother's. None came to the US until the very late 1800's or early 1900's. I have made casual attempts at trying to trace back further in their countries of origin, but so far have been unable to find anything that the family does not already know. The Sicilians are especially difficult- it is known that they did everythgin that they could to break ties with the wman who came to the US and her child- she was a peasant woman sent here after having a baby to a high-ranking nobleman who would not marry her. Another wrench in the cogs is that the family name- Caracapa- is very uncommon- no one in the known family even carries it anymore. I have met two others by that name- at completely different times and circumstances, and given the rarity of the name should not have been surrised to find that they were brother and sister. They knew a bit more about their ancestrs coming to this country, and they were not the same as the woman that I am related to, however they also were able to tell me that the name was local to the town of Palermo, and as far as they could tell, there was only one family with the name. So if I ever chose to make a serious pursuit of this, it may lead to my visiting Palermo...I would like to go to Italy some day.
Perhaps it is the intrigue of unravelling a mystery that compels me, but my Sicillian ancestors- la mia famiglia Caracapa- are the ones I am the most interested in learning about. It led me to study the Italian language in college, though my knowledge of it is extremely rudimentary, perhaps someday I will have the opportunity to become more fluent.
My spiritual ancestry, however feels as though it lies elsewhere. When I first began learning about different pagan religions, I felt that I should be interested in Stregheria- La Vecchia Religione- Italian witchcraft, and worship of pre-Roman deities. Perhaps it is because the only sources of information that I could find were one or two Raven Grimassi books, or perhaps for other reasons, I rejected what I had learned of Stregheria and moved on. I have had the opportunity to study an Eastern European tradition of witchcraft- the name escapes me, but I turned down that opportunity. I cannot muster any interest in the Celts that is not purely academic, and I have simply never been interested in the Anglo-Saxns or other cultures of ancient Britain.
No, it would seem that my spiritual connection lies somewhere in the Hellenic culture. I do believe in reincarnation, so perhaps I was first born there, or led a life of great significance to me there. The Greek deities have caled to me in some way ever since first learning about Greek and Roman mythology in junior high school. Even while being told erroneously that the Greeks and Romans were identical in their mythology excet for the names, I knew that wasn't true and today, the Hellenic pantheon and mythology is my main source of spiritual and religious inspiration.
The last connection I have found is not to my own, or to my spiritual ancestors. It is not what I would chose as an ideal, but when I am feeling alone and without a past, for one with so little connection to my own, sometimes it's most appropriate to remember those who have no one to remember them, who have been forgotten or lost through time. When I am feeling sorry for myself for not cnnecting to my own, it helps to feel a little closeness to those who have none to connect to them.
It's not easy- as I've also explained in my Samhain essay, I am not close to my family, except for my mother. My immediate family was tr aart when I was young due to my parents' divorce, which would likely not have been nearly as devastating as it was were it not for my grandparents' maicious intervention in effort to hurt my mother. In my fathers family, no one is especially close to anyone else that I can see- it seems that someone is always fighting with someone else, disowning them, changing their minds and then fighting again. My mother's family lives in another city- I grew up in Lancaster, Pennslvania and they live in Philadelphia- and while they seem to be close amongst themselves, many of them stopped speaking to my mother even before she divorced my father for having left the Catholic Church. Several of those who still speak to us have in the past berated me on my choice to have attended a Methodist university (religion was not a factor in the descision). Most of the time, all of this does not bother me, or perhaps it's easy to pretend it doesnt, it's what I know, it's how it's always been. But once in a while, it can tear me up.
So what am I to do? Well, I do know the origin of my ancestry, at least the immediate past few generations. English on my father's side, Sicilian, Lithuanian and Polish on my mother's. None came to the US until the very late 1800's or early 1900's. I have made casual attempts at trying to trace back further in their countries of origin, but so far have been unable to find anything that the family does not already know. The Sicilians are especially difficult- it is known that they did everythgin that they could to break ties with the wman who came to the US and her child- she was a peasant woman sent here after having a baby to a high-ranking nobleman who would not marry her. Another wrench in the cogs is that the family name- Caracapa- is very uncommon- no one in the known family even carries it anymore. I have met two others by that name- at completely different times and circumstances, and given the rarity of the name should not have been surrised to find that they were brother and sister. They knew a bit more about their ancestrs coming to this country, and they were not the same as the woman that I am related to, however they also were able to tell me that the name was local to the town of Palermo, and as far as they could tell, there was only one family with the name. So if I ever chose to make a serious pursuit of this, it may lead to my visiting Palermo...I would like to go to Italy some day.
Perhaps it is the intrigue of unravelling a mystery that compels me, but my Sicillian ancestors- la mia famiglia Caracapa- are the ones I am the most interested in learning about. It led me to study the Italian language in college, though my knowledge of it is extremely rudimentary, perhaps someday I will have the opportunity to become more fluent.
My spiritual ancestry, however feels as though it lies elsewhere. When I first began learning about different pagan religions, I felt that I should be interested in Stregheria- La Vecchia Religione- Italian witchcraft, and worship of pre-Roman deities. Perhaps it is because the only sources of information that I could find were one or two Raven Grimassi books, or perhaps for other reasons, I rejected what I had learned of Stregheria and moved on. I have had the opportunity to study an Eastern European tradition of witchcraft- the name escapes me, but I turned down that opportunity. I cannot muster any interest in the Celts that is not purely academic, and I have simply never been interested in the Anglo-Saxns or other cultures of ancient Britain.
No, it would seem that my spiritual connection lies somewhere in the Hellenic culture. I do believe in reincarnation, so perhaps I was first born there, or led a life of great significance to me there. The Greek deities have caled to me in some way ever since first learning about Greek and Roman mythology in junior high school. Even while being told erroneously that the Greeks and Romans were identical in their mythology excet for the names, I knew that wasn't true and today, the Hellenic pantheon and mythology is my main source of spiritual and religious inspiration.
The last connection I have found is not to my own, or to my spiritual ancestors. It is not what I would chose as an ideal, but when I am feeling alone and without a past, for one with so little connection to my own, sometimes it's most appropriate to remember those who have no one to remember them, who have been forgotten or lost through time. When I am feeling sorry for myself for not cnnecting to my own, it helps to feel a little closeness to those who have none to connect to them.
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Date: 2006-05-16 04:26 pm (UTC)i understand that, i'm writing it in its respective segments and posting it as i go. i'll put it together once they're all written