The Healing Power of Wild Grapes

 

The Wild Grapes have been whispering to us.  “It is time.  It is time.”  We’ve been watching their transformation since the grape vines flowered in the spring.  This year, there seemed to be a lot of grape flowers on the side of the walking trail that we frequent.  Soon, we noticed large clusters of small green orbs appearing as if by magic.  We watched them grow larger and larger throughout the summer.  When they began to blush pink, then pinkish purplish blue, we paid close attention.  Soon, they were dark blue but still hard to the touch.  Last week we noticed that they were soft and flavourful when tasted. “It is time to pick us,” they whispered.

I spent last Saturday in an Indigenous Culture Competency workshop with a local Indigenous teacher, Kelly Brownbill.  She provided an excellent foundation for us to later “build a house of knowledge on,” as she put it.  Some of the information was new for me and some of it strengthened what I had already learned from other authors and teachers. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about ancestral traumas and how my ancestors brought the worldview of scarcity to Turtle Island.  Instead of seeing the abundance as a cure for this scarcity, they moved into greed which resulted in the death of 80% of the people Indigenous to these territories, the extirpation of some species of birds and animals and the deforestation of thousands of acres of land.  Kelly explained the worldview of the Europeans coming to Turtle Island in which the monarch was the supreme ruler and the aristocracy took way more than their fair share of resources.  Despite the warnings about greed in the Christian teachings, greed was the sign of success.  This is still true today in Western non-Indigenous culture.  And so, scarcity hoping for abundance turned into greed and destruction in the face of actual abundance.  This seems to me, to be an ancestral trauma in need of healing.

This morning, in the gentle fall rain, my partner and I renewed our relationship with the Wild Grapes that grow beside the dock where we tie up our canoes.  We asked their permission to pick and they were happy to say yes.  We gave them an offering in reciprocity and then we begin to break the clusters off of the vines.  There were a lot of them and they hung in beautiful clusters.  I felt the ancestral desire to get as many as I could rise up in me.  I didn’t name it greed but that is exactly what it was.  I was picking quickly, as if there was someone approaching who would take them if I wasn’t fast enough.  But, we were alone.  There was no actual threat. Wild Grapes are a treat for us, not my main food source.  We give most of the jelly we make to our friends and neighbours.  There is absolutely no need for greed.  I became conscious of this ancestral trauma rising up in need of healing.  

 I don’t exactly know how to do this healing. It seems to be a relatively new idea for non-Indigenous people who see themselves as the perpetrators of trauma, not realizing where it comes from to think about healing the trauma they carry. And so, I am finding my way, making this up as I go along, co-creating healing experiences with nature.  I took some deep breaths and stopped picking.  An idea came to me.  What if I thank each cluster for their gift as I break them off of the vine.  So, that’s what I did.  My body changed.  I slowed down.  Efficiency became null and void.  Presence, gratitude and appreciation were what was important.  We picked only what we could reach from our feet and left lots of grapes up high for the birds who do need these grapes for their food.  There were enough for all of us.

Dr. Gabor Mate talks about holding compassionate space for healing and he does that beautifully for his patients.  And so, I held a compassionate space for myself as I became conscious of the impulse for taking as much as I could arose in me.  I didn’t beat myself up.  I simply noticed it and felt the fear of scarcity that was underneath it.  What we love softens and as I held a compassionate space for myself, the fear diminished as did the greed that arose out of it.  Instead of being driven by unconscious trauma, I became conscious of it and could then choose to slow down, calm down and feel gratitude.  My body slowed down, calmed down and softened.  I could be present in the actual moment instead of being driven by an ancestral past.

Perhaps healing ancestral trauma is a series of healing events.  Perhaps some of these are done on a personal level and some are done at a collective level.  I do believe that as we get better at this, it is possible for a shift in “society” to take place.  As an older woman, I have the freedom of time and space to experiment with this, to reflect on my experience and to listen to the whispers of the Wild Grapes.  It’s what I feel called to do.  It’s where I want to share my gifts just as the Grapes share theirs.