Connecting to my many roots
So...
I'm super mixed, like, *really* mixed. Most of the time, this doesn't even register with me, due to the fact that I'm so bloody swedish. I'm usually the most swedish swede you'll ever meet, culture- and ethic-wise.
However-
There are times when I need to... Dunno, remember, perhaps, that my grandmother was indigenous/Native American, from the lost forests of Chile. I never met her - she died 23 years old, leaving a drunk bastard of a husband behind, and five small boys, none of them older than five years old. Imagine that. She gave birth at what, 17??? In the 50's. She worked herself to death one winter, died of pneumonia, under a tree.
I can't even try to put myself in her situation, tbh. It's a very different world from mine, but I have her eyes. I am the only one, amongst all kids my uncles (and father) got, who inherited both her eyes and her connection to the Otherworld. Sometimes I feel like a fake, even if I'm not, and then I am reminded of a story my mother told me ages ago.
Toman, my grandmother's grandfather (on her mother's side) came to meet my mum. He was so very very old, but he wanted to meet my mum's second child (me). When he did, the first thing he noticed, was the mutation of my teeth. Hahah, yes. I was a few months old, but I had gotten my two front teeth very early, see, and they were, well, fangs. I looked like a horrible baby-nosferatu, but for him... For him this was the very proof of his blood-line, of a born shaman of his kin. He told my mother that she had to make sure I was raised properly (pagan/shamanistic) because I was meant to be a shaman/priestess of our family. 'Our family' being the native blood. My mother accepted this, took it to heart, and made sure to honour his request.
That's why I'm so bloody pagan, and a shaman at heart.
But, I'm also swedish, and some days I feel that I am a fake, because how can I be both a rather european-inspired pagan and a shaman of a blood-line that literally died out 50 years ago? How do I connect to loving Hecate, Brighid, Epona, Pan, The Green Man and my spirit animal, the great black cat of my soul? Not to mention, being swedish at the same time, which means low-key pagan in a rather hippy-beaurocratic way.
Some days I feel like I'm a swede faking my native blood, because I have no connection to it. Nothing. Toman died, and there was no one left to tell the stories, and since I spent my first 8 years of my life hiding (political shit), running, being a fugitive, there was never anything beyond my mum's own culture (european/spanish from, yes, Spain) to connect to. I know nothing about Chile, and that's okay. My first years were full of pain, of running between safe houses, and I'd rather leave it at that. I know some chilean folks, ppl who helped us, but their culture is not my own.
I'm so mixed that I can only be swedish, with some european traits here and there, and that's okay, too. But days like these... I feel like I'm a fake, because while I have my grandmother's eyes, and her shamanistic belief, I'm not... worthy of it.
Ugh.
I'm super mixed, like, *really* mixed. Most of the time, this doesn't even register with me, due to the fact that I'm so bloody swedish. I'm usually the most swedish swede you'll ever meet, culture- and ethic-wise.
However-
There are times when I need to... Dunno, remember, perhaps, that my grandmother was indigenous/Native American, from the lost forests of Chile. I never met her - she died 23 years old, leaving a drunk bastard of a husband behind, and five small boys, none of them older than five years old. Imagine that. She gave birth at what, 17??? In the 50's. She worked herself to death one winter, died of pneumonia, under a tree.
I can't even try to put myself in her situation, tbh. It's a very different world from mine, but I have her eyes. I am the only one, amongst all kids my uncles (and father) got, who inherited both her eyes and her connection to the Otherworld. Sometimes I feel like a fake, even if I'm not, and then I am reminded of a story my mother told me ages ago.
Toman, my grandmother's grandfather (on her mother's side) came to meet my mum. He was so very very old, but he wanted to meet my mum's second child (me). When he did, the first thing he noticed, was the mutation of my teeth. Hahah, yes. I was a few months old, but I had gotten my two front teeth very early, see, and they were, well, fangs. I looked like a horrible baby-nosferatu, but for him... For him this was the very proof of his blood-line, of a born shaman of his kin. He told my mother that she had to make sure I was raised properly (pagan/shamanistic) because I was meant to be a shaman/priestess of our family. 'Our family' being the native blood. My mother accepted this, took it to heart, and made sure to honour his request.
That's why I'm so bloody pagan, and a shaman at heart.
But, I'm also swedish, and some days I feel that I am a fake, because how can I be both a rather european-inspired pagan and a shaman of a blood-line that literally died out 50 years ago? How do I connect to loving Hecate, Brighid, Epona, Pan, The Green Man and my spirit animal, the great black cat of my soul? Not to mention, being swedish at the same time, which means low-key pagan in a rather hippy-beaurocratic way.
Some days I feel like I'm a swede faking my native blood, because I have no connection to it. Nothing. Toman died, and there was no one left to tell the stories, and since I spent my first 8 years of my life hiding (political shit), running, being a fugitive, there was never anything beyond my mum's own culture (european/spanish from, yes, Spain) to connect to. I know nothing about Chile, and that's okay. My first years were full of pain, of running between safe houses, and I'd rather leave it at that. I know some chilean folks, ppl who helped us, but their culture is not my own.
I'm so mixed that I can only be swedish, with some european traits here and there, and that's okay, too. But days like these... I feel like I'm a fake, because while I have my grandmother's eyes, and her shamanistic belief, I'm not... worthy of it.
Ugh.