Unlock your Ancestral Wisdom
Japanese Tsunami Stone My grandmother, Esther, spent half of 1918 recovering from the great influenza. She told us little about this event in her life. I wish she and thousands of grandmas would have passed on some hard won wisdom about the amount of craziness to expect during a pandemic. I think reflection deficit disorder got the best of her. She moved on with her life. Many of us are tempted to do the same. But I am inspired by Asian ancestors who took a different path. In Aneyoshi Japan there are 19th century tsunami stones with warnings such as, “ Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point .” [1]. On Simeulue Island in Aceh Indonesia, generations passed down songs about the great tsunami of 1907 with these lyrics: “ if the strong earthquake is followed by a lowering of sea water please find in hurry a higher place .” This worked. During the 2004 tsunami that devastated Aceh, the death toll on Simeulue Island was only