This morning I hand wrote nine page of my own family history, before it was time to leave for the day. This writing was about how finding the historical records contradicted or enriched the storytelling and how the search for ancestors included this question "Who, if anyone, am I like?"
My interest in reincarnation, for instance, seems to be unprecedented in my family. In fact, I am sure that some family thinks I'm a "kook," for considering reincarnation to be the CYCLE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE.
Related to this, alternative spirituality - which is standard in much of the world, I believe that certain of my relations on both sides have had some psychic sense, but one person took it in stride and didn't find it was in conflict with her religion, while another person did a turn around late in life, feared that her interests in such subjects had been demonic, and started to shun those who still had some interest.
Taking reincarnation out of the traditional religious context of say, Hinduism, and put it into the category of modern hypnosis and regression, it becomes something that does not depend entirely on dogma. (There are those who also fear hypnosis and past life regression as demonic, however.)
I wonder about the people whose genes are in my body, at least in part, and if I have what's called "cell memory" of their lives. Cell memory is a theory that on some level our reactions to experiences are not about our lives but was passed on to us genetically by our parents (to whom we are most closely related) and other ancestors. For instance, you yourself might never had the all too common female experience of rape, but what about your great grandmother who might have been and never spoken of it? What if you actually are the descendant of a rapist? Do you hold power or powerlessness in your body?
Theories of reincarnation are far more satisfying to me than cell memory, but that doesn't mean that both can't contribute to who I am today. For those who have actually met grandparents and great grandparents, or an extended family, there may be role models or realizations that they are like someone they've met. For me these people are mostly mysteries. I have no reason to believe that I was one of them or any other known family member in a past life, but I will say that when I saw black and white pictures of a German town in present day Romania, I got shivers as if it looked familiar. Just as I did years ago, when looking over a travel brochure about India and saw a particular temple. One would be through an ancestor and the other through reincarnation.
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