Family Ties

10/19/2014

When a family member that has been a pillar or core component in the family tree transcends this realm, everybody else in the family tree moves places like board-game pieces, with someone taking the place of the person who transcended and everyone else taking another position in the family tree. This can be in an energetic (meaning thought/emotional form) or religious way (meaning taking physically part in a church/temple/institution) or both. This also changes the complete relationship and harmony of the whole family tree because, the members taking place introduce new energy, ideas, behavior and patterns. However, just as I explained in another story, when patterns are shifted chaos occurs before harmony can come again. Then, the family becomes a new kingdom, a new dynasty.

When my grandfather died, this became real to us and we could all feel it energetically but demonstrated it emotionally but not truly knew what was going on. As I become more attuned to energy and my emotions, I understand more of how the things we witness physically can shift energy around us that many feel but ignore, repress, or cannot perceive at all. This is the reason I write. I want people to understand what is going on with them and the people around them, specially when grief and illness lurks and clouds their happiness. My goal is to bring acknowledgment, understanding, relief and possibly a positive solution to suffering. What I witnessed when my grandfather died, was the hidden emotions of everyone in the family, including mine. His death and absence forced us to talk to each other. We were fortunate that our family was very close and kind, so it made it easier to reach someone and talk about what we were going through. Other families are not that fortunate, regardless, we all had hidden emotions we never really acknowledge. In my case, I experienced an extreme fear of seeing the sickness and agony of someone close to death. My grandfather was sick for a long time and his agony near his end lingered for months before we actually died. Closer to his death and when I was told of the intensity of this illness and his physical deterioration, I refused to see him anymore. My excuse was that, “I rather remember him the way I saw him before he got sick, young, happy and active instead of seeing him as a living corpse”. You can say this is cold and cruel but at a deep level, I was unconsciously protecting my inner child because at the age of three, I lost my Great Grandfather who I loved dearly, and witnessed at a very young age and with very innocent and vulnerable eyes the physical torture of his illness. It took a very long time after my Grandfather died, for me to realized consciously the depth of my behavior towards my Grandfather’s illness and death but I will discuss that another time.

When the family members starts moving places in the family tree, most of the time, the younger generation will move their position in the family tree easier than the older generation because the younger generation has less so-called “responsibilities” and inflexible opinions about life and people. In my family’s case, all the grandkids and the kids who were still single where able to move faster. Being less preoccupied with taking care of a family or work give them more freedom and focus to tend to their spiritual life. Other family members will have a hard time shifting their position in the family tree. These are the ones who are set in their ways, unwilling to be flexible and break patterns. They will suffer the most, especially emotionally. In our family’s case, my grandfather was a preacher and a senior member of his church. He was also very faithful and diligent in his study and practice. When he was alive, none of his kids or grandkids where seriously involved with any religion or spiritual path. However, his death brought in us the strength to shift in the family tree and we all did it in all levels, including and more importantly in the spiritual level.

You see, the faith my grandfather had was deep, and he shared it with us while he was alive but without forcing any of us. We were all passive and even non reactive to his teachings, but what we did not know that I know now, is that my grandfathers’ deepest wish and prayer to God was for all of us to know and be close to God and the wholesome life. This wish was, and still is his true legacy that since his death manifested in each one of us in many different forms, but with very deep results. I can call it a “wish”, a “prayer” just to use words people are used to, however, At an energetic level, this is more than just a wish or prayer, this is a wholesome desire that sets motion to the universe of intention, creation and manifestation. Maybe, while he was alive his intention did not manifest, but even after he left this world of form, his intention for us did not leave with him. It remained because it is energy; the kind of energy that moves our inner and outer world from our very core.  You can see tangible changes in my family tree now. My grandfather’s youngest son has now become one of the preachers in my grandfather’s church. Before my grandfather died, he was not interested in the religious or spiritual life. After just a few years of diligent study and practice he thrived tremendously and later even served as guide for our family when his mother, my grandmother, died just a few years after my grandfather. Her death was also long and painful and even unleashed other shifts in our family that were more mental and emotional than my grandfathers, but that is also another story for another time. I will only say that the death of my grandfather forced us to find roots in our spirituality so when my grandmother died we were more prepared to deal with the intensity of our mind and emotions.

All my sisters and cousins, also less preoccupied with “troubles” in life, where able to enter the spiritual life faster than my other uncles or my father and mother. Some of us are even active members of the religious institutions we chose; some Christian, some, an entirely different religion. I entered the spiritual path in a different way because I had more questions than feelings (back then my feelings were repressed). My purpose was to understand human kind, the world and myself so I took the Buddhist path.   I found that, you either enter this path wanting to know God or wanting to know your self. What I discovered was, that when you enter this path wanting to know God you end up discovering yourself and when you enter this path wanting to know yourself, you end up discovering God. I did not have the intention to discover God, but it became clear, even with Buddhism, that at the end, we are all one and the same. In Buddhist terms: “One comes from Many and Many come from One”. There is not just one or just many, or this or that, or he or she or they or us. It is true, all is relative to each other because everything is interconnected. Every person, every event, every thing in the world of form and in the ethereal world, every energy, every vibration, every particle, every thought, every dream, every prayer, etc, they are also interconnected. We all mingle and dance while the music is on and until the rhythm changes.  We can see this in nature as well. Have you ever cut a tree down in your backyard? Have you noticed how it changes the behavior and relationship of the rest of the trees and plants that were left? You can even see how something that was dying is now thriving and how something that was thriving is now dying because everything is interdependent, everything. In our human life, not only we are interdependent but we can also be co-dependent. This is when shifts and leaps of faith are even harder.

In my family, there are still pieces in the family tree that have not moved yet. We are still waiting for my parents to make the shift. Their daughters have made tremendous shifts and leaps of faith and now, their young and innocent grand daughters are teaching my parents how to effortlessly just trust inner guidance and live in communion with God at all times. My father, as an artist, knows himself really well but he has yet to discover God. My mother, with a Catholic background believes in God, but she has yet to discover herself. Until then, they both suffer in their stubbornness, but we constantly show compassion and support for them. Also, just like my grandfather, I have the same wish for my parents and as we all make my grandfather wish come true in our own lives, I know that this will eventually reach my parents as well. For our family tree, it is time for someone to take the place that our grandparents left empty but full of blessings. It is time for us to move to the rhythm of nature and the universe. Death can be devastated, but at an energetic level, the faster we work through it by letting go and shifting, the faster we rearrange the pieces of a larger board-game, bringing harmony and a new thriving kingdom. That is how we truly honor our ancestors and give a better future to our family lineage.

Art by Marino (My father)


The way I see this painting is, my grandfather from the back and his family in his mind and that gap between us and God (the mountain top)

This article is the property of Mariela Siwarqinti. No one may alter and/or reproduce it in any way without the express written permission of Mariela Siwarqinti.