“You are the fairy tale told by your ancestors.”
~Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
I’m so excited to be invited to speak and to co-lead a workshop in Tucson, Arizona in March about Ancestral Memory. I’ve been studying and working with ancestral intelligence for over a decade, a natural synthesis of my work with the brain and shamanism, and have assembled the latest brain research as well as anecdotal evidence about the presence of our ancestors in our own body.
In my latest book, I Am Her Daughter, I offer that this is a development of the increased use of the right brain, a natural consequence of the human psyche as a whole opening to the feminine principle and shifting into a more whole brain state. Daniel Pink called it correctly in his book A Whole New Mind when he said that the future of the world lies in the hands of right-brain thinkers. We see the shift occurring now in the form of the rise of image-based communication such as Facebook, Instagram and the proliferation of memes.
I have found personally that my efforts to develop my whole brain utilizing evidence-based practice as well as the power of old medicine (something I have intentionally working on since 2006) had led me to a realized understanding of the presence of my ancestors, as if standing with me.
Research has shown that this is not far from the truth. While our indigenous forebears experienced their ancestors as part of their daily lives as a practical and spiritual truth, this can also explain through the sciences. We know now that our ancestors memories are passed down to us through our DNA (including their traumas and emotional memories), and that our bodies are constructed according the the instructions of our gene code.
Made of the elements of earth, water, air, fire and space, our physical body formed around the blueprint our ancestors passed down to us. In a very real way, our physical existence – the clay that is animated by our spirit – is a walking, living, breathing, record of our ancestors lives. We are a genetic library, an organic photo album, an unbroken line of the history of thousands upon thousands. Our ancestors are alive and well inside of us, looking through our eyes, thinking through our thoughts, touching with our hands. Cell by cell, atom by atom, we are an amalgam of them.
And they seek expression through us…our desires and impulses and passions are, in part, their seeking. Yes, we are in charge of our lives, yes, we steer our choices…but what makes us interested in the things we seek? What forms our minds and our habits, where did the original impulses come from?
Our ancestors speak through our leanings. We have a natural taste for their foods, a natural tongue for their languages. We are captivated by movies and television about their historical era. We dream of their conundrums; I have dreamed for decades about crossing a long land bridge, water lapping dangerously on both sides of the narrow isthmus. We seek to answer their unanswered questions. Their connections to the land they came from calls us; we want to visit it, and when we do, we feel a mysterious connection. Their unresolved wounds ask to be resolved, and on behalf of our descendants, and they should be. This is real. How can it not be when we are made of them?
And this means we have a profound opportunity. For the things that were left unhealed that impact us and our descendants, we can heal them. For the restless unrealized passions, we can express them or put them to bed. But most of all, we can acknowledge them. Just like anyone, they seek to be seen, to be heard. They want us to know that we would not be here but for them. It doesn’t mean we have to mindlessly give our lives over, but our indigenous ancestors had it right…we owe them our gratitude. And as they guide us over our shoulders while we busily live our lives, we should listen.
“When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation.”
~ Marcel Proust, The Captive & The Fugitive
Learn more about Nurturing Ancestral Memory at my Spring 2016 Tucson workshop
and experience it for yourself at my Fall 2016 retreat for women in Santa Fe, New Mexico!
Learn more about my new book, I Am Her Daughter, in print Spring 2016
