Welcome to Gaia! ::

I try to honor my heritage. My father's name was McPherson, which is as it sounds, very Irish name. He was quarter Irish, quarter Scottish and half German. My mother's maiden name was Ransford, which upon searching I found that it means Raven's ford. (ya'll know I love crows and ravens) this is an English name. Though she had an English name, she is as English as she is Native American. This is my favorite family legend:

My great, great, great grandfather Ransford (I think he was) was a stoaway on a ship from England to America. He supposedly a criminal who escaped. Somewhere during the time he had lived in the states, He came across a young native american girl sick with cholera (I believe) he nursed her back to health, and married her. She was one of the native americans forced to walk the trail of tears in the 1830's. She was sick and was left for dead.

There are a lot of holes in the story, especially since the girl denouced her heritage. It was a family secret about her, I think they just pretened she was a dark looking white woman or maybe nobody ever asked. I don't know what tribe it was since there was like five tribes that were involved. More likely she was Cherokee, since that was bigger one. I tend to say I am part Cherokee, even though I am unsure.

So why did I share this story? Well I celebrate my Celtic/Germanic roots in my witchcraft, which has a lot to do with sabbats. I embrace the native american through sage, which was cleansing to most tribes. I am still learning about that part of me, since I had only discovered this part of my blood a few years ago. I tend to add all native american symbolage to my craft. I live in the pacific northwest, where A LOT of native americans live. You know the ones famous for totem poles. I add bits and pieces to their culture, like their depiction of the Raven. I have him on my alter, since my totem animal is the raven.

it really doesn;t. i'm sorry to say. =(
I'm lithuanian, polish, french, french-canadian, canadian-indian, and welsh. i'm not familiar enough with the culture or language of any of these countries. and my family has done nothing to embrace any of them, so i;m kind of hung out to dry here, lol. smile it would be nice to be able to connect with my heritage more, so i shall pursue that. probably i should start with welsh, since i at least know that i can get information on it. dunno about the others, though.

It's not that my practice is empowered by my family's beliefs (they're all Jehovah's Witnesses; really sucked growing up), but by racial ancestry and of course only by now does the dots connect to form the big picture. My mother's side of the family have strong Native American bloodlines (Cherokee and Choctaw), my real father came from Italy or Greece, and the rest of our blood came from the Scandinavian countries.

So perhaps that's why I practice a hybrid path of Native American and Norse shamanism and worship a Greek god (well, he wasn't ever really a god, but Orion was a very powerful figure).