Linda Merryman

I remember in circle when she said, “I want to call in bloodline”.

Bloodline I thought, ah because she is a new grandmother. She was there for the birth. She caught him actually. She  takes care of him every Monday while her daughter is working. She’s thinking of how the bloodline continues now;… relieved probably that the lineage will continue. In another way all the concerns of bringing a new being into a world with such basic problems as clean air and fresh water maybe that’s why she’s called in Bloodline.

Later I find she is also thinking of bloodline in other ways. She’s thinking of her mother and how despite the bloodline they don’t share the same vision, never have really. What is in the bloodline that carries, that unties, that is the thread ?

Bloodline takes me to another circle. I see each woman sitting dressed in ceremonial velvets. We sit tall and bring our full presence to the circle. We call in our mothers by their full names, and their mothers and theirs and theirs. Some of us can go back 5 generations. I represent my mother Betty Grace Burke, and her mother Cassie Marie Mayfield, and her mother Nora Grace Cook, and her mother Blanche Leininger. The room  is teeming with women now. It is a world event. The names have pulled in our European bloodlines, and Middle eastern, African, and Asian. We are the point at the front of a long line of fine women. I see them sitting in the shadows behind each of us. We are part of a tribal gathering. I am here to represent my bloodline. It is my turn. I call on them to inform and support me.

I am glad she called in Bloodline. It made me remember.