The Past, Present and Future

While in Cotacachi I met a young woman upon arriving at my hosts home. She was from Ecuador and a lovely person, so easy to talk to from the moment we hugged each other in greeting. I found her interesting for several reasons, and really liked her from the start.

She is of mixed race, one of her parents black the other Caucasian from what I gathered in our conversations, although I did not get more details. While it may be easy for me to say race or the color of our skin does not matter, it is quite different for someone in her shoes. So as much as I would like the world to be less prejudicial, more accepting of our differences, this is simply not the way it is. She showed me pictures of her sister as we talked about racial discrimination and how it affects a person of color despite anyone’s wishes this were not so. She is black, her hair dark and very curly, her skin the colour of coffee and cream – she is beautiful. Her sister, also very beautiful has a more fair completion, almost straight red hair (natural), a look suggesting she is from a different family, almost celtic. The other sister, who’s picture I did not see, I was told, has darker skin than this young woman I was talking to. This was excellent for me to be made aware of given my own history – the gene pool can offer many surprises. I wonder if you saw the three women sitting together at a table, not knowing anything about them, would you recognize they were related?

Over the years, I always recognized my father in my son, but not having any photos to prove this makes it difficult to prove the point. Not knowing who he was made it difficult to explain to anyone, including my son what I understood. My memories were all I had to go by until two years ago. When people look at me they wonder about my claims to be the daughter of Che Guevara. The color of my hair, my blue eyes and light skin tone, all give them cause to question my claim, which is easy to understand. However, if I show the picture of Lucas beside the picture of Che, the very one I was shown in my dreams many years ago, but only found on line in 2017, there is recognition. The similarity between the two is unmistakable, the distinct features having skipped a generation. But it is more than looks which can be compared, their interests in photography, motorcycles as well as their strong views on many matters.

Searching for images of his children, I found myself being surprised by the different faces of each. Below are 8 people, each of us with quite different faces in my opinion. My question is this….If you did not know the first 5 people were his children, would you recognize him in their features. For me, his sons have the strongest resemblance, especially Ernesto. Hilda was born to his first wife and has a distinctly different look from the other two girls. To me there is nothing in their features tying them to their father, how about you. What do you see?

It is the same for Lucas, until you see their picture side by side, would you make the connection? Most likely not, especially in Canada. The three of us are around the same age in these photos.

Someone told me the other day while we were discussing the circumstances around my birth name and not really understanding who I am, that none of really know who we are. I did not answer right away recognizing this is a touchy subject for me, this way people have of lumping us all together into the same pile of misunderstanding. Until recently, I would not have even had the courage to respond, so it came as a surprise to me when I answered “with all due respect you cannot compare our situations, it is not the same at all”. When someone is born knowing who their parents are, the city or town they were born in, and the name given at birth, they know who they are. As we grow in years, we change, we learn from all the experiences life gives us, causing changes in our character. Our hopes and dreams may also change as we go through the years, surprising us at times I think, but still you know who you are, who you started out being, even if you forget certain details. Who I am was wiped out, replaced with false information and lies, the memories locked away, which some hoped would never be retrieved. I do not know with any certainty what day I was born, what year, where I was born, nor do I have solid confirmation of my heritage. While genetically, who I am is not gone, that person was not allowed to be present, hidden behind a whole lifetime of lies and misinformation. You absolutely cannot compare these two situations.

This young girl I spent time with on Friday may have had similar experiences to mine as a young child, although she is not sure of her memories. Whatever her circumstances, we chose very different paths, each of us affected by the challenges life threw at us in similar ways, but with certain differences. There again, we cannot compare our circumstances just because of certain similar aspects. It is not just what happened, but how we reacted to the situation, how others reacted when we told them, or maybe even more importantly if we didn’t explain the situation. She started her life knowing who she was, that definition altered, but I don’t think lost, by circumstances out of her control. She is now learning the cause and affect of those circumstances, moving through the maze with great strength and courage as she does.

We spent time together on Friday because we decided to do an Akashic reading, hoping to reveal new information about my past. The theory is that everything is recorded in your life from the moment you are conceived, like a video recording which can be rewound and played back. You are meant to relax, close your eyes and listen to the voice of the speaker. As she leads you back in time, asking questions, you are meant to answer with the first thing you see, not take time to think about what you should say. If you say there is nothing, you are blocking the energy, which shouldn’t happen if you keep your mind open. There were many times when I could not answer, the video screen blank for many of the questions. When I could answer, I felt I was just saying things I had already written in my book, so was unsure about the validity of my responses. Later when I was on my own and thought about my concerns in this area, I wondered if I was just being reassured about already having the answers, but not confident yet in trusting the truth of them. It seemed to me, the video of my early life has been wiped clean, something I may never be able to discover. I have done this sort of work before years ago, on more than one occasion, always with the same results, so I feel it is time to let go of the idea of learning more. But I do feel, if my life was not the web of lies I describe in my book, those answers would have been there to recover with ease. Just as my DNA would have supported having parents of both Polish and Flemish decent. However there was no trace of either heritage in my DNA. My bloodline being predominately Irish and Scottish, the same as both of my birth parents. This in itself is comforting, adding validity to the answers I have.

As we talked after the session, she continued to ask me questions, curious to understand more I guess. We talked about music, her choice playing in the background. I explained both my love for and the importance of music in my life, beginning with Sunday excursions to the Philharmonic in Calgary as a young girl. As I talked, she was reminded of music by Vivaldi, an opera piece that she really loved. She got up and finding it on her phone, played it for me, a very beautiful piece of music indeed. She knew it well enough to sing along, the inner connection to the music obvious to me. I knew in this moment, this young woman was special and that we had more in common perhaps than we realized. Her instant recognition of the importance of those early experiences introducing me to the symphony meant more to me than I can say. So many people ignore or dismiss me when I explain these important details of my childhood, the core of my ability to survive during those years.

No our circumstances and reactions to them are not the same, and we must recognize this in order to understand how valuable the art of listening is. If we can recognize the differences perhaps we can then begin to understand the value of those differences and what they can teach us. If we can listen without comparing, maybe we can start to bridge the gap – understanding, compassion and willingness to change, these are key.