natural progression

The recent Ancestral Healing Summit hosted by the Shift Network was  five days of revelation and insight that led wonder | wander | women into deeper conversation about our own lineage and heritage. 

We'Moon 2020

What constitutes a family really? In cultural anthropology this varies across the globe depending on a variety of factors including subsistence practices and economic behaviors.

Flathead family (United States)

Family defines obligations that group members have to one another, both economically and socially. Generally, family members live together, but that is not always the case.

Whether our family is nuclear, extended, joint, blended or chosen we pick and create our own either out of our core beliefs, cultural traditions, or a combination of these.

The family tree of Ludwig Herzog von Württemberg (ruled 1568–1593)

Our nuclear family is Mahala and Issa. Both single. Both female. Both independent. Joined heart to heart.

Our extended family are the parents who raised us both. Their other five siblings. The partners these siblings live with. The children they have had. And now the partners of our kids and their babies. Four generations living together. Along with the village that supports us all throughout the day.

Goyo & Sabel Clan, April 2016

By extension we also are a joint family because we are joined by all the proverbial strings that attach and bind a close knit family. Joint families are composed of sets of siblings, theirs spouses, and their dependent children. Living and visiting around the home compound of our folks.

We are also lucky enough to have both parents alive and well and still living together. Siblings with their partners and none remarried. So no blended family among us. A blended family is formed when divorced or widowed parents who have children marry. 

Our family by choice include our lifetime friends who have grown up with us, shared our lives for at least a decade, some of whom chose to stay and live with us. Family by choice can include adopted children, live-in partners, kin of each member of the household, and close friends - all related if not by blood. 

All unique. Each different. All beloved. Even when we express differently. Or live in places across the world. Home is truly where the heart is.