Introduction

Genetic memory is essentially knowledge which is inherited and carried from one
descendant to the next, without having first-hand experience of it.. It is usual
ly applied to things like instinct
birds building nests, turtles hatching and cr
awling to the sea etc but more recently it has been increasingly discussed on th
e human level and whether or not our actual DNA holds the memories of our past.
It is deemed to be a much
is not exactly true. Many
ection with the ancestors
ledge (or genetic memory)

newer concept than most spiritual ones, although this

indigenous peoples have long held the belief of a conn
through the bloodlines, and conservation of their know
through the bloodlines.

I come at these thoughts from my own experience of being adopted

in short, separ
ated from my genetic background and not influenced by my blood relatives . As such
, I feel I am as blank a slate as nurture had to write on in her attempts to ove
rride my genetic nature, so we can dispel the comments of, Your actions were infl
uenced by the interests and habits of the people around you .
My Experiences (feel free to skip!)
I cannot explain to you what it feels like to meet a blood relative for the firs
t time when you have never ever met one before. I m not talking about the emotiona
l response to finding my birth mother, which of course was overwhelming, but the
unbelievable familiarity I felt when meeting each and every relative. More tha
n familiar in fact, it were as if each of them were almost like a version of me
not the same
but like they were some other aspect of me and I of them.
This feeling was decidedly acute with my actual birth mother, who seemed really
in a spooky way, to actually *be* me, not just in looks and character but also
(and more importantly for this discussion), in the things which had happened in
her life, her goals, the decisions she d made and the situations she s gotten herse
lf into.
My life had had exceptionally eerie similarities to hers, from start to present.
It really felt as if I were partially reliving her life in some way (albeit in
different circumstances), like i was simply a reincarnated version of her. There
were so many markers in her life which I also had in mine. The same aspirations
not followed through (writing in this case, the following through I m remedying r
ight now). I won t bother you with specifics you can ask me if you would like.
Then there was dancing, which has been the soul of my life.
I instinctively knew how to dance, I knew how it should feel in the body, I could
just see someone dancing and I d feel the memory of how to perform that movement f
low through my body people always asked me if I was a dancer, I never had any le
ssons, but i always danced. It turned out my father was a dancer and musician. I
cannot speak much more about him than that as I haven t managed to trace him yet.
All i know is that he was half Maori, interestingly genetic memory is exception
ally sacred to the Maori..
(Don t worry, tracing him is on my list of things to do this year
it just takes a
lot of time and energy!)