Cemetery Dirt
As some of you know (those of you who are in community with us on the virtual farm platform anyways), one of my TOP TOP TOP elders is my Uncle Mickey…all 83 years old of him.
Any time I need him. He’s there. He’s known on James Island. He’s still driving (lawd hep us) and of course since he’s a Leo sun…he be Leoing (if you know, you know).
I was asked to get some graveyard dirt (by whom you say? cmon. You already know.) So of course Imma get some from the gravesite of the matriarch herself, Ellen Smith Middleton.
Black Americans. Our relationship to cemeteries is fascinating to me. Our grant writer Parker Blair and I spent the week meeting with a professor and forensic scientist from California who is of Mexican decent and she told us of stories of her family literally picnicking on cemetery grounds during Day of the Dead.
I of course have always admired this. One of my favorite films is Coco. I’ve watched it many times (about to cue it up now) because it’s such a rich and heart felt story about ancestor veneration. It brings tears to my eyes every time!
Soooooo. Where is this happening for us here? In Black America? In cemeteries, resting places, graveyards and burial grounds that hold OUR people?
I watched Uncle Mickey as he walked along reading the headstones of various graves; people he knew over the course of his 80+ years. Together he and I have visited gravesites before but something about this day was different. When I first told him I needed to visit Grandma’s grave, he was like “why?”..Like why? I just noticed this. We need a reason? He’s never asked me that question before. And then as we’re rolling up on our first cemetery he announces that he wasn’t gonna get out the car. What? That was also new. He did get out though and repeated a very strange story to me about an old man he knew who visited his wife’s grave 3-5 times a week. “that’s cause he never treat his wife good”. Aha…soooo, my dear uncle is equating visiting the dead too often as a sign of guilt or penance. Interesting.
Growing up in New York City, my relationship to gravesites started off differently. The construct creates the culture there. Cemetaries are ususally places that are large, surrounded by miles and miles of barrier walls and such. You have to make formal plans to visit folks; hopefully have a car for the ones that are far away in a whole other state. Folks are scattered everywhere; anywhere that was affordable. So I’ve always felt disconnected.
But here? No way…
The dead “live” ALL AROUND US.
In the Yoruba Lukumi tradition (of which I am a practitioner), we always greet Oya when we pass a burial ground, cemetery etc. We make a motion over our head with our hand and we say prayers like:
“Maferefun Oya!” or
“Hekua (Hey) Yansa”
Loosely translated they are both giving homage and praise to the Yoruba orisa, Oya who is the guardian of the cemetery gates; asking her to please keep death away from us.
Here in Charleston, I find myself doing this the entire time I’m outside LOL.
Here, accessibility to the dead is so..accessible.
They’re behind churches and on residential property. They are here and they make it known that there’s no way we can try to act like they weren’t here.
But people will try though. Erasure is at play folks. Developers be developing and they don’t care whose legacy gets paved over in the process.
And part of the systemic plan of erasure is to first and foremost uphold the stigma surrounding ancestor veneration AND sacred spaces.
This is a stigma that still to this day makes me hide from my uncle, the fact that I wanted to visit my grand-mother’s grave to collect dirt. I just told him I wanted to talk to her. And I did. But I also wanted some dirt. I’ll leave that there for you, the reader, to ponder.
Let’s continue though.
Parker and Uncle Mickey at the Stono River off of Sol Legare Boat Landing James Island, SC
The highlight of my day as always when entertaining guests is introducing Uncle Mickey to my friends. Now it was Parker’s turn. She’s a Pisces, but her mom is a Leo so she knows the Leo energy very well. It wasn’t until today (two days after this photo was taken) that I decided to look up Uncle Mickey’s Chiron and guess what? He and Parker both share the same Chiron wound/gift. CHIRON IN LEO!
If you want to know what any of this means, you’re welcome to subscribe to or follow my SubStack to read more. In the meantime, take a look at this intergenerational (52 years) magic I got to witness.
I’m curious. What’s been your family’s ancestor veneration culture if any? Even if you say, “we never visit a cemetery or recognize our dead”, I’d like to know. Trust me. Your comments* are going towards a good “cause”.
More to come.
Stay Tuned!
*If there isn’t a way to leave comments…oh well.
Feel free to send me a note here.