This resonates with me deeply. I often call on my ancestors to write with me or to see through my eyes, and I feel they are with me as I continue the cycle with healing in mind, all of us knowing the pain of past violence while simultaneously feeling love and joy. Time is not holding us :)
I am happy this piece resonates. Obviously it resonates with me as well, but more on behalf of my father's ghosts, which my make more sense with a story I hope to post in the future. I love hearing that you write with your ancestors. It feels powerful.
It’s funny I just wrote something about this as a feeling. I call it a lingering Déjà vu that just seems to follow you. Pretty interesting to think about!
Déjà vu is a perfect example of what epigenetically inherited memory may very well give rise to - that feeling of something we've experienced before. I'd love to be around one hundred years from now to see how much we've learned, especially about what people, ancestors, have been claiming for years. Thanks. Alma, for your comment.
In addition to the famine studies I think there’s some recent research that mothers with insulin resistance and related issues pass that on to their infants. (If I recall correctly; don’t quote me, lol.)
Even without the biological aspects, there’s also a lot of culturally inherited traits/traumas too. For example, I mostly grew up in AL, and can tell you that there’s still a lot of anger over the civil war down there (them Yankees took away our slaves) — it’s not expressed as such, of course, but the attitudes get passed down and are still present event 6-7 generations later.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. The idea of transgenerational attitudes as potentially inheritable traits is a fascinating one. The nature vs. nurture debate may never be fully settled—and perhaps we spend too much time trying to fit complex human behaviors into one category or the other, overlooking the tangled interplay between biology, culture, and lived experience. 'Attitudes' themselves are incredibly layered, aren’t they? I know mine are. 🙂
I think both methylated memory and learned attitudes and values from our environments affect us as we learn from what we see as children. Overlaid with methylated memory would make sorting them out.
I love your phrase "methylated memory"! You're spot on – our thoughts are built from such a wide array of influences. By the time we understand one source, it seems like we always discover clues about others. I'm endlessly fascinated by the different ways our ancestors passed down knowledge. Shared stories still captivate me the most.
The research in epigenetic memory inheritance is exciting on so many fronts, and it really makes sense when you think about it simply from a survival aspect. I can't wait to see where this takes us in the next hundred years. :-)
This resonates with me deeply. I often call on my ancestors to write with me or to see through my eyes, and I feel they are with me as I continue the cycle with healing in mind, all of us knowing the pain of past violence while simultaneously feeling love and joy. Time is not holding us :)
I am happy this piece resonates. Obviously it resonates with me as well, but more on behalf of my father's ghosts, which my make more sense with a story I hope to post in the future. I love hearing that you write with your ancestors. It feels powerful.
It’s funny I just wrote something about this as a feeling. I call it a lingering Déjà vu that just seems to follow you. Pretty interesting to think about!
Déjà vu is a perfect example of what epigenetically inherited memory may very well give rise to - that feeling of something we've experienced before. I'd love to be around one hundred years from now to see how much we've learned, especially about what people, ancestors, have been claiming for years. Thanks. Alma, for your comment.
In addition to the famine studies I think there’s some recent research that mothers with insulin resistance and related issues pass that on to their infants. (If I recall correctly; don’t quote me, lol.)
Even without the biological aspects, there’s also a lot of culturally inherited traits/traumas too. For example, I mostly grew up in AL, and can tell you that there’s still a lot of anger over the civil war down there (them Yankees took away our slaves) — it’s not expressed as such, of course, but the attitudes get passed down and are still present event 6-7 generations later.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. The idea of transgenerational attitudes as potentially inheritable traits is a fascinating one. The nature vs. nurture debate may never be fully settled—and perhaps we spend too much time trying to fit complex human behaviors into one category or the other, overlooking the tangled interplay between biology, culture, and lived experience. 'Attitudes' themselves are incredibly layered, aren’t they? I know mine are. 🙂
I think both methylated memory and learned attitudes and values from our environments affect us as we learn from what we see as children. Overlaid with methylated memory would make sorting them out.
I love your phrase "methylated memory"! You're spot on – our thoughts are built from such a wide array of influences. By the time we understand one source, it seems like we always discover clues about others. I'm endlessly fascinated by the different ways our ancestors passed down knowledge. Shared stories still captivate me the most.
The research in epigenetic memory inheritance is exciting on so many fronts, and it really makes sense when you think about it simply from a survival aspect. I can't wait to see where this takes us in the next hundred years. :-)