"THE MOST SPIRITUAL"

Ever think about the most spiritual person that has been in your life...that has helped shape and mold you into the person you are right now????

When you have time share it with me....I'm about to share mine with you, but I have to warn you...its a little long and i'm usually not into long writing sessions....feel free to move on to something else and I won't mind....

She was my Aunt Minnie.....actually she was my grandmothers sister but everyone called her aunt Minnie....I have no idea why...

Aunt Minnie was the familys Psychiatrist, marriage counselor, confidant and all round psychic....NOTHING escaped that womans scope....and telling her a secret was as good as putting it in a vault cause she was not the type to ever betray a trust....or none that i'd ever heard of anyway....

Aunt Minnie was a large woman....not fat...just stout...she lived on the edge of the Ozark National forest...actually we all did when I was growing
up....and she'd head off into the woods when she said the augers was right....and collect berries and roots and nuts and mushrooms.....she'd leave first break of daylight and would return around sunset....usually with a clothsack full of whatever she'd picked that day....then sit around that night cleaning and hulling whatever it was.

Everyone came to Aunt Minnie for advice....didn't matter what the problem
was...and she'd do her best to help them in whatever way she could....everyone except the kids that is....Aunt Minnie was never much into children....didn't have any of her own....never married.....

But the adults would come over and sit on her porch, drinking root tea, and talk for hours while the brats ran around the neighborhood and generally
raised hell....

When they were ready to go they would all hand their cups to Aunt Minnie and she'd read the leaves for them.....Most people thought she was a witch
but were either too smart or afraid to ask her....

Aunt Minnie was always in a good mood unless somebody else messed it up first....one night uncle Jimmy got to hollering and cussing over some
discussion (I was still to young to listen in) but Minnie got up and walked over to where he was sitting and stomped his toes with everything she
had....broke 3 of them....Nobody messed up Aunt Minnies good time....

Anyway, thats how I grew up around her....we really didn't start talking to each other till I was 21...barely 21....I had worked a double shift the week before and had a whole pocket full of money I couldn't wait to spend...I decided to head over to the casino's across the state line, (Gamblings
illegal in arkansas) and make my fortune gambling....I stopped by Aunt Minnies on my way out of town and as usual she was sitting on her porch. I walked up and sat down like the adults always did and told her my plan. She poured me a cup of root tea and we made some small talk.....it tasted like dirt, smothered in honey with a kick of licorice....I damn near didn't get it down....but when I was done she took the cup and studied the leaves for me...i'd never had my tea leaves read before and couldn't wait to hear what they said.....after a few moments she told me...."says here your going to come back richer than when you left"....

That was all I needed.....I thanked her and kissed her cheek and headed off with visions of new cars and mansions in my head.....that was on friday.....I spent saturday night in my car on the lot of the casino sick as a dog....I woke sunday morning with the hangover from hell....barely able to make it back home....

Luckily everybody else in my family was off at church so no one noticed when I drove in that I was hurting like hell...Everybody except Aunt Minnie
that is, she'd never been much of a church goer but it was even worse after the fistfight with rev. Gilson...but that’s a different story...

I was stretched out on the couch moaning when she knocked on my door...then she came on in without waiting for an answer...good thing since I wasn't about to get up...she had a glass of one of her herbal brews in her hand and held it out to me..."Drink this, you'll feel better." she told me....

I was thinking...damned old witch and her lying tealeaves...."I thought I was going to come back richer than when I left?" I asked her.... I was dead
broke....

Aunt Minnie sat on the chair across from me and simply said."The knowledge you have in your head now is far more valuable then that chump change you had in your pocket. There’s going to lots of times in your life when you have a pocket full of money...sometimes your going to waste it, sometimes your going to make good with it.... its up to you."

I was already starting to feel better, I have no idea what she had concocted but it was working....

Then she said something I’ll never forget...."I enjoyed watching you grow up, when the other kids were watching cartoons you were reading...when they were playing cowboy and Indian you were trying to dig a hole to china...and I’ll never forget the day you climbed to the top of that tree in my back yard and shouted commands at the wind..."

"It didn't listen." I told her...

"Of course not." She answered. "Would you take orders from a 7 year old?"

Aunt Minnie was always good with a comeback line.....

We started seeing alot of each other that summer...I spent many a warm night on her front porch as she spun stories and told tales....she taught me
how to make root tea just as she liked it....then one day I got up my nerve and did what I didn't think I could...

"Would you teach me how to read tea leaves?" I asked her.

She looked at me for a long minute then said, "Yes I will. be here at 6 in the morning."

6 in the morning was early for me at the time but I made it....and I became the first and only person she let walk off into the woods with her (that I know of)...but I had to carry the cloth sack now.....

We walked for about an hour and I was getting a bit concerned....people get lost in these woods alot and we were pretty darn deep....finally she stopped
at a berry bush.....sat down and picked 3 berries off of it....she handed me one and tossed another in her mouth...for the life of me I can't remember what
kind of berry it was, only that it was delicious....

"Whats the purpose of this berry?" she asked me, holding the third one up...

"Its food." I told her....

"Thats something its good for." she answered, "But whats its purpose?"

"Its a berry....you eat it and it makes you not hungry anymore." I was doing the best I could here.....

"In side this berry is seeds....it holds the next generation of life right there in its own little self....but there is more....it holds the memory of
everything that came before it..every little adaptation its ancestors had to go thru to survive it has inside it right now...everything that was, still is, in this little berry....and it holds the future too....if it decides to take root it will become the future of this bush here....it will bring with it
what everyone of its ancestors were....but it will be its own self...somewhere down the line "

"Ummmm, Ok." I told her, not exactly sure what she was getting at...she placed the berry in my hand."Right now you hold the past, presant and
future in your hands. do you understand that?"

"Yes." I told her, "But why are you telling me this?"

"Because you asked me to teach you how to read tea leaves."

"What does a lesson in fruit blooming have to do with tea leave reading?" I asked her..

"You'll never be able to read anything as long as your eyes are closed." She told me..."I'm going to teach you how to open your eyes first..."

We spent the day wondering thru the woods and she pointed out fairy circles and Elf paths....or thats what she told me they are anyway....and every now and then she'd stop and dig up some ginseng root or something....always showing me that you had to reseed the earth with part of what you had
taken....carefully covering up where she had dug....

Truthfully that sack was getting damn heavy by the time we headed home....I was praying she wouldn't see anything else she just had to have....

I spent several days like that with her....wondering thru the woods and her saying things that would make a normal person call 911....but I was having fun and she was telling me things i'd never even considered.....it was a wonderful time to be alive....learning to pray, meditate with nature, respecting the natural glory of life......

....< sigh >

I got married and moved away the next year....soon there were kids and bills and life in general to deal with.....but I never tried to stop
practicing what Minnie had taught me....Love is more important than money...Life is too important to just live.....

Aunt Minnie died in 1989....I miss her...grandma wanted her service to be in the church but everyone objected...especially rev. Gilson....she went off
into the woods one day and didn't come back....they found her sitting under a tree....her cause of death was old age....they said her heart just stopped....her ashes were scattered over the forest she loved...

In her last will and testament she left everything to her sister, my grandma. everything except the book of poetry she had written. She left that to me....


Love and light to each of you,

Wupy

You have some wonderfull stories. Memories are the one thing that are all yours. Thank you for sharing yours with me and the rest of the ats members.
Maybe sometime you could share more about reading tea leaves. My family has had family members in the very distant past that did so, the tradition was never passed down. I'd love to know. And i'd love to hear more about your favorite memories.
May God bless you.

Another well written story mrwupy