ancestral link Archives -

Traveling Back in Time

By Simone Lipscomb | June 19, 2013

After a sweaty SUP board paddle on the Magnolia River I headed to Hillcrest Farm to pick blueberries. While fresh, healthy fruit was part of my reason for going, the other reason is that this farm was home to my great grandparents many years ago.

I never met my great grandfather Hermecz. Actually I never met Grandma Hermecz either but I feel like I know her. She died a week before I was born. Maybe we passed in the going and coming. My admiration for them has always been strong.

The farm when my great grandparents owned it

These two brave souls immigrated from Hungary, with my great grandfather James (Jim) coming first with his brothers, who settled in Ohio. Then his wife, Ethel and their first daughter, my grandmother Ethel, immigrated when my grandmother was a year old. Great grandmother Ethel was pregnant at the time with another child. They moved to Baldwin County and built a small home and later a bigger one.

As I walked the long rows of blueberry bushes I felt the beautiful spirits of my great grandparents and my grandmother and her brothers and sisters embedded in the land they farmed and loved. The blueberries were sweet and warm from the sun which made connecting with this sacred land even sweeter.

There were many people there picking and I fled further and further away from cellphone conversations and people complaining about email spam and children whining about being outside. Peace enveloped me when I found the only other beings around were brown thrashers and mockingbirds dining on the delicious, ripe berries.

As I stood in the shade of the large bushes with the warm, moist berry juice filling my mouth I felt gratitude for such strong ancestors who worked with the land and made a home there. I knew how happy they would be that their farm is still nourishing people…many people. I bet they would be fascinated by the kid who freaked out when rain drops gently splattered on his bare skin. And perhaps they would embrace me and Grandma Hermecz would tell one of her fabulous stories.

I finished picking my 5.5 pounds of berries at noon. In addition to the berries I purchased honey and blueberry preserves and a serving of homemade coconut ice-cream to help me cool off after spending precious hours traveling back in time.

The Wild, Wild Heart

By Simone Lipscomb | June 5, 2013

I rented a truck in Bonaire and drove up by myself into the national park. It was the first time in a very long while I had been there. Hot desert, cactus, rocks, dust ringed by turquoise and indigo ocean with large waves crashing against the shore–these are elemental energies at their strongest.

Structures built by humans are very few. What was built now stands in ruins, reclaimed by the sky and salt. Destined to always be reduced to the basic elements from which they arose.

The wild energy of the place invoked my inner wildness with prayers whispered in winds whipping through my hair. It bestowed a blessing with the warm fingers of solar energy touching my skin. Jagged rocks cut through any pretense, any boundaries erected to survive the insanity of humanity and I was cut open, my heart beat once more in instinctual rhythm, that cadence that is slow and grounded yet dancing with power and passion.

As I stood on a craggy cliff over looking the ocean I cried out to the sky, “Our world needs more instinctual energy, more awareness of elemental energy! We have forgotten the dance!” The cactus stood as guardians listening at attention, their reply the high-pitched whistle of wind through their needled arms. The wild parrots darting in and out of cactus answered me with their songs and calls. But the iguanas…they simply stared and waited…….the long silent stare that makes me a bit uncomfortable in my skin. It was as if they were asking, what are you going to do about this knowing that you know? Hmmmm?

The disconnect we collectively have from nature is destroying the planet. It is destroying us. If we dare to feel the beat of our wild, wild hearts we will never think it is okay to abuse the planet or any of its creatures….ever again. To heal the disconnect doesn’t require fighting and arguing, it simply requires each of us to reconnect with the part of us that belongs to the Earth. Then, from that bodily connection–that visceral connection–we will know what to do. The Earth will speak through us. She will rise up within us and heal Herself through us.

The Language of Nature

By Simone Lipscomb | October 6, 2012

This past summer I deepened my understanding of nature. The challenge I find now is conveying, in words, the lessons because they came in wordless experiences while sitting under star canopies, beside salty waters–each conveying not with words but with the essence of life. How could I possibly scribble symbols to share this ancient language”? It is unwritten and must be felt….deeply felt.

I’ve puzzled over writing about primeval energies with words. It seems like two ends of a very broad spectrum of experience–the body and visceral and the mind that wants to sort and categorize and label. Maybe ancient earth wisdom is best described by sharing sensations, what my body experienced. And that’s easy: opening. My heart, mind, soul, body….o p e n i n g.

So maybe the only thing I need to write is that nature opened me this summer and I found a deep primeval dance within my heart and soul.

What makes you dance these days? What opens you to life?

In Ways I Can’t Explain*

By Simone Lipscomb | January 29, 2012

A few years ago I stood on this hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and felt my bones vibrate with resonance of the land. For the first time in my life, I felt I belonged in a way I’ve never belonged to any other place on the planet. I was in Devon, England.

Later that week, a beautiful elder of the area told me the Lipscomb’s (Lypscombe) were from Devon. When I returned home I looked up a family history cousins had compiled and found that Ambrose Lypscombe was from the Devonshire line and lived in Silverton, England. He was born in 1610. His son, Ambrose I, arrived in Virginia around 1668 (called New Kent County). And the lineage progressed forward through the years as my ancestors found their way to the Alabama coast.

As I prepare to move away from the mountain that overlooks this beautiful valley, I have reconnected with my intense love of the land here. As I was approaching this area on my morning walk a few days ago, a new song I had downloaded started playing on my iPhone and suddenly everything made sense. David Wilcox sings about wanting to go to Ireland and his lyric made me stop and breathe in the significance, *”My heart is here in ways I can’t explain.”

I have pondered the deep connection I have to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alabama Coast. I love both places dearly and completely. I feel torn with my love of the sea and my love of the mountains.

When I thought back to my visit to Devon and Cornwall I realized that the ancestral link I have to the coast of western England is strong in my blood, in my DNA. The seashore of Alabama I love so well and the mountains of North Carolina are two similar aspects of a very significant place where my dad’s family originated. With the Wilcox song, everything clicked and I had a rather large ah-ha moment.

Understanding a bit more of my heritage gives me insight into my path now, specifically about the move south. I spent my entire childhood, teenage and young adult years wanting to get ‘back’ to the mountains. After finally moving ‘back’ I met people that provided assistance as I developed important tools for my life’s work. It was as if we arranged, before birth, to meet up on this mountain and catalyze ideas and skills. And now, I am better prepared to move forward with contributions I came to make.

The chances of me moving to England to live are rather slim; however, the inspiration it provides and the fire of love for the sea and mountains create within me the devotion necessary to commit fully to this Path I have chosen to walk.

We all make choices about how to invest our energy and talents. As I move forward in this life’s journey, my intention is to utilize the skills I have to help create positive change for life on this beautiful, water planet. I embrace the gifts the mountains and friends here have supported and helped cultivate within me and with gratitude take the leap back to the sea. I allow the ocean of life to carry me.

Lyrics from David Wilcox Ireland and Let the Wave Say:

I’ll speak the words of poets gone: my music’s ancestry
We’ll hear the voice of Ireland in the wind beside the sea
In waves of music far as I can see
The voice of every poet singing free:
Singing bring your orphan children home–to me
(from Ireland)

And the high blue wall can break you
You can never fight the sea
You just learn to let it take you
To the place you want to be (from Let the Wave Say)

I am ready to ride the wave back home. (Thanks David for the music…and wisdom!)