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An Offering For My Ancestors - Eshu Karl Martin

The words and spirit that I bring to share today are an offering.

And so, I humbly make this offering for my Ancestors….

For my Ancestors who felt hunger, who knew failed crops, and famine…

For my Ancestors who were abandoned, disenfranchised, disowned, dispossessed, and exiled from their homelands…

For my Ancestors who fell prey to illness, plague, and disease…

For my Ancestors who fled from war, who were wounded and died in war, and who suffered the inevitable trauma of enacting war upon others…

For my Ancestors who were persecuted, despised, tortured, oppressed, and killed out of ignorance, fear, and hatred because of the shape and ability of their bodies and minds, the colour of their skin, who and how they loved, or their relationship with Spirit…

For my Ancestors who were abducted, enslaved, raped, and murdered by those who felt them to be inferior and inconsequential…

Having left behind the suffering and need of human incarnation – may you find satisfaction, healing, reconciliation, and peaceful rest.

For my Ancestors who enacted great harm upon other beings; who enslaved, who robbed and exploited, who raped, and who murdered - motivated by ignorance, greed, fear, and hatred…

For my Ancestors who have treated the Earth, the Elements, human and other-than-human beings as if they were inexhaustible commodities that existed only for their comfort, convenience, and pleasure…

 

Having surrendered your living bodies, and all of your material accumulation; may you truly perceive the delusions of separation and inequality. May you give rise to boundless compassion, benevolence, generosity, and kindness.

For my Ancestors who cultivated and nurtured harmonious and reciprocal relationships with the Earth, with the Elements, with other beings, and with Spirit…

For my Ancestors who were stewards of knowledge, culture, ceremony, medicine, and tradition…

For my Ancestors who were creators of art, and of music, of medicine, and of magic…

For my Ancestors who shared their abundance, their time, their energy, their knowledge and their love with those who were in need…

 May you, beautiful and wise Grandmothers and Grandfathers, walk with me and teach me, guide my thoughts and my actions for the benefit of all beings.

 May you share your blessings, teachings, and medicine with me, with all of my Ancestral lineage, and with my descendants, so that we may be whole, and wise, and well. Help us all to find our way home.

 Mikit Thakkir