Ancestors

I was blown away when I read this. And this calculation is only going back 400 years. What about all the hundreds and thousands of years before that? How many generations of people were my ancestors, and how many people would make up that number?

Like I said, mind blowing. I know a little about my paternal grandparents. They emigrated to North America from Scotland. My grandfather went to Canada and was a circuit rider preacher, serving multiple communities over a large area, before my grandmother came over a year later and married him the day her ship landed. They then lived in Canada and eventually migrated down through Minnesota and then finally Iowa, where I was later born. My maternal grandparents emigrated from Ireland, but that is really all I know about them.

So I don’t have a lot of specific knowledge about my ancestors. I have a general idea of where the more recent generations lived, but I don’t know anything about the people who came before them. I don’t know their names, or what they did for a living, or what their personalities were like. I don’t know what kinds of challenges and struggles were part of their lives. I don’t know the answers to any of the questions listed in the mathematical calculation above.

But I do know that I would not be here if they had not lived, if they had not had children who would continue to have children. I know that all the cells in my body, all that makes up my DNA carries part of all of them. I know that while I am an individual, at the same time, I am part of them and they are part of me. We are not separate, we are part of the same stream of life that connects all living things.

Knowing that and reflecting on that has a profound impact on me. It helps me see that we are all truly connected, that separation is really just a mental construct, an illusion. It helps me see that All is One, as I have read about and thought on so often. It helps me appreciate and look at my fellow human beings in a different way. Hopefully, with more love.