73) Dear Ancestors,

Dear Ancestors, thank you for this chance you’ve given me, to live.  For the songs you passed on.  The babies you nursed at your breasts, taught to walk, and speak, and play, and fish, and build, and love, and read, and forgive.  Thank you for your courage, the sacrifices you made in the wars of your time.  The wisdom you discovered in silent meditation.  The poems.  The traditions, dances, beautiful creations of art and worship.  Thank you for the recipes you passed down through generations of care-takers labouring over hot stoves, for the endless mouth-watering concoctions we coaxed from the abundance of water and soil and sunlight.  Thank you for the luminaries who inspired all who came after, to strive for the Good, to love unto death.