Talking to your ancestors

All across the planet people search for the means to talk to, learn wisdom because of, or even commune with their ancestors. Some find that communicative solace in church or synagogue, temple or mosque. Many find it simply standing out in nature. In Europe there is a new phenomenon catching on called “telephone du vent” which roughly translates as wind phone but really means Telephone Of The Wind.

For many years free spirited Americans have talked to the wind, especially in locations that felt or connect spiritually. I have seen people supposedly talking to themselves overlooking waterfalls in Yosemite or Bish Bash Falls, looking content, at peace. I have walked in the desert of Mojave at sunrise and listened to the wind and responded myself with “Good morning to you too.” Was I deluded or simply reaching out to the spirit of the place?

The Mexican tradition of Dia de las Morte (Day of the Dead) may run to several days from the end of October (Halloween or All Hallows Eve). This is not a macabre celebration of skeletons and phantoms, but imagery is designed to remind us that the body is no longer here but their spirit remains, inside us all. Without our remembrance of those who went before, their importance to who we are diminishes. The wonderful movie Coco explained exactly that. Dia de las Morte came from ancient Mayan, Olmec, Aztec religious ceremonies and morphed with Christianity 400 years ago. Some say these traditions actually came from Egyptian, Phoenician and ancient Greek beliefs, brought by travelers from the Mediterranean. Is this tradition still important? Yes, to many millions of people, it connects them with their ancestor’s lessons and the building blocks of who they are.

Similarly, Korean, Japanese and many Chinese communities have celebrations for ancestors departed. In Korea these are linked to the birthday of ancestors, where you offer images as well as favorite foods to your relatives that have departed. In China, Qingming is observed in early April causing hundreds of millions of people to visit gravesites, travel to homelands, and once there offer sacrifices and flowers. Hindus in India and around the world remember ancestors on Pitru Paksha for two weeks or at least celebrate those ancestors’ memories on one day, called Sarvapitri Amavasya.

In Japan, where the concept of kaze no denwa (Telephone Of The Wind) started, the idea that you can have a conversation – even if only one way out loud – with ancestors first surfaced in Otsuchi where a phone both, disconnected from the phone network, was found to allow residents to seek solace and contemplation with no stigma attached. Since that first Telephone Of The Wind started, hundreds and hundreds of spiritually connected but otherwise unconnected phones have cropped up worldwide.

Even now old phones, especially rotary ones, have popped up everywhere, hung along trails in National Forests, nailed to a bench along riverways, even in California on a surfboard you can borrow. There are web sites devoted to helping you find the nearest connection, even a directory world-wide should you need such connectedness when visiting, for example, Switzerland or Ethiopia.

So, here is a suggestion: Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Take that old phone – the older the better – hang it on a tree in your garden and have a word, or ten, with your ancestors.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.