Carrying Ancestors Around

Dream I had this week

I was out in the wilderness somewhere, just struggling along a pathless land. I was carrying someone on my back. They were small, wizened, hairless, and very angry.

I endured their constant haranguing, and their feeble blows which never hurt me physically. I think this obnoxious creature was just there to test my patience and resolve, more than anything.

At the end of my journey, I reached a grassy hillside dotted with small grey stone shrines. I took this little monster off my back and held it up to the stars in the night sky. It was then that I realised that this monstrous little shit was, in fact, an Elder, an Ancestor. Part of my family, going back generations.

So I let the sky make their decision. They rejected the Elder, so I sat among the little stone shrines on the side of the grassy hill, with the Ancestor once again sitting on my back. Only this time, they weren’t so noisy. They had fallen asleep, snoring and drooling on my shoulder.

At this point, I let the Elder sleep, and warmed it and fed it some love which I felt stirring in my heart. I rested my head against theirs, feeling their thin, hot skin. And that was where the dream ended.