I have an uncle who is really a cousin.

I only found out a few years ago and so did he.

David is his name and for 50 years he believed that his mum was  Jane Ellen Kay , my grandmother.

He also believed that he had 9 older brothers and sisters.

the whole family went along with this story .

one day the truth emerged which is the great  thing about  family secrets, at some stage  they have a way of worming their way to the surface for a breath of  fresh air.

It turned out that Davids oldest sister Mollie had birthed him out of wedlock .

At first David  didn’t want  to believe it , his mum who had been dead many years at this point was still his mum, and his whole world was defined by his placement in the family ; it was a rock solid alibi .

Mollie was old and the past was best buried in her book . She had married and brought up a  family who believed David was their uncle. And now he was their stepbrother.

As a young woman Mollie  had got a job as a live in housekeeper.  one day she had to fess up to her mum that she was in the family way at which point nana moved into damage control and shipped Mollie off to one of those homes for unmarried ladies .

When the baby was born, Nana brought him home and said he was hers.

amazing eh!!!

where was Nana’s big round belly , where was her milk supply ?

if my mum wondered being still at home and given charge of this little one she never ever said.

and  when I return home and we get together at Auntie Rita’s for a meal I still call him Uncle David because that is how he wants it.

fair enough but makes me wonder about the whole story of lineages.

I visited Nana’s grave in Huntly one time and  there engraved in bold print was beloved mother of  Jean Mollie  Hector Ella George Harry Ian Rita  Alan and David .

I said to my sister  that’s not right,  David is her grandson. and she said but no one wants to acknowledge that and besides that would hurt David.

I think of all  those people researching their family trees and how many gravesides , how many records tell the real story ?

Jess said this morning, Mum, I just read that 9 million women were killed in the middle ages and I wonder why that hasn’t been named genocide.

9 million people predominantly women were tortured in  a variety of innovative ways conjured up by really sick minds wearing the cloaks of the church.

indeed . sounds like genocide. a total commitment to wiping out a way of being.

And how come it isn’t written up in the his story books? how come this is a story that still isn’t told except in feminist literature?

the word witch came down to me as evil and ugly instead of a wise healer .

I re claimed this word witch and taught my girls the truth , that witches were women  who carried the knowing and the means of healing. they were the teachers of the mysteries and for their knowledge they became feared.

And why is it no apology has been forthcoming from the church for those 3 centuries of  sadistic abuse?

The abuse did not stop there  but continued in other forms to this day .

forest after forest has been decimated, tribe after tribe have been squashed.

century after century this insanity  has been modifying  nature,  abusing the feminine,  annihilating cultures  customs and ideas  .

a long lineage of lies perpetrated by a dis ease , an egoic mind-set totally out of control.

the beauty is that we can change this story ,  we can find the truth and tell it .

and when we do, a breath of fresh air  blows away the stale crust of lies  leaving us in a truer template of living on this earth with each other.

a cosmic vision is coming ,is here which is more than a human centric view.

it is  a earth focus ,a universal focus ,a way of living that encompasses our role as planetary beings sharing a habitat .

so for all those witches all those healers and midwives ,all those carriers of wisdom ,

all those women men and children that were accused and burnt and forgotten,

know that we remember, that we care and that we will tell your story.