I Call on Ancestral Strengths

I link arms with my ancestors, bare feet on bare soil, deep hearts, hearts like spokes of a wheel coming together in a pact of arms.

I call on ancestral strength and resilience. I call on old laughter and unusually refreshing humor that turns the difficult moment like a pivot on a potter's wheel, and lends unexpected leverage and levity. I call on forgotten bonds and long-past ways of seeing that make the struggles easier, the chores pass with rhythm and solid cheer against adversity, the nights lit by stories about campfires. I reach out with long arms of spirit towards unspoken feelings of peace with the earth, comfort with life itself, nature -- in all its thorniness, ice, and cloudy skies -- as home.

I open myself to a more flexible mind, capable of rolling 360 degrees with events, and thus, tougher for it. May I find more refuges and stretch my litheness. May agility of craftsmen and sportsmen, stamina and unending hope of women in labor, and full investment of tree in fruit be mine, that I may make ancestors proud with the richness of my experience, shrewdness of my will to survive, and soulfulness of my cheer and struggle against the inevitable elements. May their ample, unseen abilities benefit my fruition, and not for my sake alone, but the betterment of life.