Carrying Instructions
To dowse is to search, with the aid of simple handheld tools or instruments, for that which is otherwise hidden from view or knowledge.
The British Society of Dowsers
Dowsing is very literal. The key to asking the right question correctly is to first realize that one question is almost never going to get the answer.
The American Society of Dowsers
~
1.
I receive a neuropsychological report as part of legal proceedings after a head-on collision with a car. This is a page from that report.
Dowsing Question
Putnam genealogy from the author’s family Bible
2.
From: Jane P. PERRY <jpperry@*******.***>
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2022 1:44 PM
To: Diane Rapaport <diane@*******.***>
Subject: Family History Research Query
Dear Diane Rapaport,
I hope you are safe and well and have everything you need.
I am interested in discussing your services for Family History Research. Specifically, I would like clarity on two family stories.
- We are purportedly related to the Putnams (who isn’t if your family lived in Salem Village in the 1600’s). My middle name is Putnam, and my Great, Great Grandfather Horatio Perry (b. 1816) married Serena Putnam (b.1818), which explains it, but I would like help learning which branch of the Putnam tree Serena came from, especially because of family story #2.
- My mother told me we are related to Rebecca Nurse, who was accused of being a witch in 1692 by the Putnam family and who was executed by hanging in Salem, Massachusetts.
I have begun research numerous times and have collected all manner of scraps of paper, as well as some family ephemera, but I feel in a vortex. Are my needs of interest to you?
Take care and please be safe,
Jane Putnam Perry
Dowsing Question
I feel in a vortex. Are my needs of interest to you?
3.
mud sticks
weighting my lineage
I come from soul
sacred soil
a mystery of possibilities
fractured fissured clay
like a heart hardened under horror
generations of passed down hurt
clotted footsteps of the booted
seeking relief from their rage and harms
saturate the blessed threshold
draw into the cracks
rest my language
holiness is mindful
blood and water and ethers exhumed
the short-eared rabbit nibbles
tender rain-soaked, sun-lifted leafing
what kind of cloud calls out
a vertical stack like layers under my feet
exhale this d’earthly drought
4.
Re: Progress Report
External
Inbox
Diane Rapaport <diane@*******.***>
Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, 7:25AM
to me
Hi Jane,
I have confirmed that Rebecca Nurse was not your direct ancestor, but you are a cousin of her great great grandson, Benjamin Nurse, because one of your Putnam great-great etc. aunts married Rebecca’s great grandson. I’ve also found the deed of Benjamin Nurse’s sale of the Rebecca Nurse farm to your 5th great grandfather Phineas Putnam in 1784. The Nurse homestead became your family homestead. That homestead remained in your own Putnam family for generations thereafter. You are directly connected to the land that Rebecca Nurse and her family called home.
As to the 1692 Putnam accusers of Rebecca Nurse, the published Putnam family history that I’ve mentioned, which seems pretty reliable (and I’ll send you copies of relevant pages with my report), has some extended commentary about your 8th great grandfather Nathaniel Putnam. As you undoubtedly know, Nathaniel was a supporter of Rev. Samuel Parris and believed in witchcraft, but Nathaniel signed a petition in support of Rebecca Nurse in June 1692. He did accuse two other women of witchcraft, however, both of whom were executed.
Best regards,
Diane
Diane Rapaport
Professional Genealogist
Dowsing Question
“How must it feel to find yourself face-to-face with someone who has made it clear that he has the power to bring your world to an end, and has every intention of doing so?” ~ Amitav Ghosh in The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis
5.
water in water out
reckoning the sacred creation
yoni from my childhood
bring forth my inheritance
wrap my memories
sand warm and shaping
bury us
so only our faces show
rhythms spray spirit
sun breaks into pieces
sparkling lens
what a nice day
dulse source of minerals
harvested in the atlantic
eat it raw
take my children
my mother’s ashes
in smooth stones
a berm separating water from residence
but really connecting the two
6.
This window was owned by Rebecca (Towne) Nurse’s birth family, photo by the author taken at “The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning & Reclaiming” exhibit viewed at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, on loan from the originally-curated Peabody Essex Museum exhibit of the same title.
Dowsing Question
“In moments of injustice, what role do we play?” ~ asked by the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library exhibit “The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning & Reclaiming”
7.
strong brown moist loam
a history of breaking down and rising
the soul spirit of maghemite
magnetically removing contaminants
sun-lit glittering ripples running
like a school of baby mackerel
jubilant ribbons of iridescent yellow green
a commune of sparkles
calling me to the shore
to wade amongst the resting matriarchs
their manes of bladderwrack
breathing with the tide
dissolved salts, minerals, and ions
not impurities but part of the ancestral sitting with
filtered to purity
would burn your insides
a plop of rain meets ground
trickles over stone and soil
scrapes against fish and gill
carrying this story in ecological DNA
8.
Water, a spirit puppet brought forth by the Nonviolent Direct Action Art Team of 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations.
Photo Credit: Peg Hunter, journal.rawearthworks.com