For a long time, I have thought I had the total task and burden of shaping my life, my future and my destiny. I am thinking that is only partly true. So much is handed down to me by those who have lived before me. My ancestors are present in so many ways. I notice that the inheritance they provide me is both favorable and unfavorable.
What my ancestors have provided me is in my body and in the human world I am a part of. Both the elation and the trauma of the past are something that are part of the physical me. The memory of the past is imprinted in my cells as concretely as the color of my eyes and hair. There is no escape from the inherited traits my body carries, both the beneficial and the difficult.
The seeds have been planted before my birth, and my experience comes out of cultivating what I want and neglecting what I do not want. My body has the memories of my ancestors, constantly calling out to me for attention and cultivation.
The more obvious aspects of inheritance are those that are physical and monetary. Inheritance is typically measured in things and resources we receive from ancestors. I can see the things I receive from my parents and the things I expect to leave behind for my kids.
I am also aware of what my ancestors have taught me and what guidance I have attempted to give to those who will live after me.
What has been less obvious to me are all the horrible deeds of my ancestors that are also a part of my inheritance. Those too I carry in my body and see in those who live around me.
When I invite my ancestors into my life each morning, I have been forgetting that some of them were the channels of harmful, horrible actions. The drunkards, the abusers of women, the enslavers of people have not been so easy to acknowledge. They too are part of what I inherit. Like everyone, I inherit the harmful along with the beneficial.
These days, it is more obvious to me that the rage expressed in the streets is part of our inheritance, a debt passed onto us by our ancestors. The rage is not just for the horrible deeds of contemporaries. It is also a rage that springs from what my ancestors have done.
It is becoming more obvious that others have inherited the trauma of the misdeeds of ancestors, and they carry the trauma, the loss and the pain. The more they recognize and feel that pain and harm, the more they are likely to act out in rage. I too have a part in that shared inheritance, and that is hard to sort out.
For me, it is a question of how to deal with all this inheritance, my own and the inheritance borne by others. For now, I am simply paying attention, trying to see what is real as best as I can.
I put my hands in the earth and connect with the reality from which I came and to which I will return. There, in these moments of stability, I hope I will better understand my inheritance and know how to act with it.