The Stories of Atte Broc

 

Don't try to adjust your TV sets... no, the words are not forward, from your perspective.

This beautiful piece of art with one of my favorite adages on it, to me, seemed to want to face what Westerners call forward, and perceive to be the future. Besides, I noticed that when I couldn't immediately identify the shapes of the letters, their shading is optically enhanced as the artist intended, pushing the background figure even further back, increasing the dimensionality. If you read on long enough, this imagery may explain itself. Even if not, it is one of my favorite choices for guided meditation. It checks a littany of good-for-the-brain-to-see boxes we learned about in my BA degree of Interdisciplinary Visual Communication, e.g. the color variation and vibrant, lively tones; a figure, standing in a pose of sufficiency and reverence, is placed far above a scene in a manner both benevolent and protecting; and that plumage! It has some older feathers that have seen some wear, yet spiraling with renewal, signifying growth - all inside the sacred hoop. 

Color, Texture, Shape. Significance. There are switches in our brains when we see, hear, feel, taste, smell - that our deeper/primal selves recognize, a language that predates whatever comes out when some people flap those parts under their nose. Same with vibrations, experimentation with them has produced a variety of unusual and even deadly effects. But what of the upside? Can it be used to re-order the glitches our bodies experience with daily exposure to (fill in the blank), so that our cell regenerates and repairs, our organs repair, and reach beyond our bodies to rejuvenate a community, a society? All those certainly have their challenges, even without those economic powers whose fruits we are all about to receive. 

My hypothesis is that: since we know water can  be charged, retain, and be divested of reverberations/ chemical memory, AND it will resonate accurately depending on temp, density, and other factors, AND it is found we think in many/most/all/who knows places in our universe, AND scientists are now demonstrating quantum entanglement around our planet as of this date, AND our bodies are 70-ish percent water while brains are 90%, once we learn the frequencies, vibrations will become to us as a first aid kit, a way to provide safe thermal comfort (not too good about not frying people yet), even a method to repel an invading force with soundwaves, like in myths of old. Start your own simple physical protocol at Shekinah Gwaii and a psychological journey at Traveler's Cloak, with supplementary information on the Favorite Links and Blog pages. A class on psychological effects of tones and sequences of sound is currently under construction and will be an 8 week instructional, with painstakingly crafted samples, hopefully to be tested locally in person soon.

But onward. The following is pieced together from a comprehensive report following a DNA test, a year of researching the aspects of those results, and finally the tapestry of facts woven with strands of family stories and fun facts. This is also the first installment, ala Taylor Sheridan style, of the crazy ass stories as related first hand only (anything else would take too much time) that I will be documenting here for posterity. It will be fun to see how great, terrible, and wonderfull it all looks in print.

This will be a hoot if I can get it all owl-t ...  first casualty, boom! and sorry...

Much like these water droplet crystal balls on mossy stalks, the origin of my family name and genetics goes back to a magical place and time, biologically and historically as the Vikings traveled to Scotland. An old name of Atte Broc was noted around the 8th century CE, but predated the assignment of the tartans, and so had none for a long while. It is told that the tartan now brandished by Brook was lent to us by the Irish, seeing that we were lacking. It is quite striking, with colors of dark moss, light moss, and teal. {Fun fact: I picked up a sweet chenille scarf of these colors at a thrift store before I knew!}

From Scotland, our peeps sailed along with Rollo's gang to what became Normandy.  {Fun fact, my blood is the same as my ancestors about a generation after their victory in 1066!} After several centuries of battling the Saxons and the other events that conspired to cause the migrations of that time, my progenitors arrived on the shores of Delaware and Virginia in the 1600's lured by the promise of land if you worked it -- something my ancestors seemed destined to desire -- and became what are known as the Delaware and Ohio River Valley Communities. 

They were a tight knit group who went almost immediately to escaping the wars ravaging a new country into Indian land, where they somehow spent centuries without changing the blood much. One grandfather was born in Lake Tippicanoe, just like his fathers and grandfathers. My dad and mom's family had independently made the first steps out of their respective areas to end up in the same town in California, where they met. When my brother and I were born, we were not only the farthest west in our line, it was the first the family line location changed significantly in 400 years. 

There were only a few stories I heard from extended family, that were talked about and sometimes pictures shown at gatherings, such as: the skyscrapers my uncles built as ironworkers in the big cities in the 60s and 70s; the hair trigger that caused my grandpa, as a young boy in 19-ott something, to nearly kill his dad once while they were out hunting together; my dad getting shot through the arm by his brother hunting pigeons for food in the church belfry at night; and indeed one brother getting shot in the head on a different trip, same belfry -- who still carries the bullet to this day (he is in his 70s); how my aunt survived a car wreck where she flew out the windshield, unfortunately catching her chin on the roof (no seatbelts yet) such that her neck was broken pretty dramatically, saved by landing in the snow and months of traction (and still alive last I heard); the grandfather who sacrificed inheriting millions (of probably blood money) from his religious family in order to marry the woman he wanted, who was a different religion (and ended up using her diabetes money for cigarettes when they got old, wtf); my mom's uncle was on the USS Indianapolis (ironic? that he was probably born in the town of that name) and told THAT story only once in a great while... but these peripheral stories are not the focus, I will relate stories of my own that are happy, harrowing, sometimes fantastic... 

I have lived! and felt like some anecdotes needed to be remembered. 

Thank you for hanging out with me today and see you next time!