There are some people who can trace their family line back to some little city in some little country way on back. There are some who can trace their family line at least back to a Great Great Grandmother or Grandfather. We could leave it alone, for who they are, or were, is not who we are, right? Well, the actions and beliefs and diets and places that shaped our past relatives led to who we are—with each generation tweaking and refining in one way or another, for “good or for bad,” however you will look at this, and look at it you must, so that your decisions can alter to what is healthful in mind, body, environment, for our children and their children and all those who follow.
In the “evolutionary” (genes) process, there are many things at work to shape who we are mentally and physically, and ideally and spiritually. Why would you only have that dark dark hair from your Great Grandpa Joe? Maybe Great Grandpa Joe passed along some wonky kidneys or pancreas, too, and his fear of spiders? Hey, maybe his Grandma Mary got it from her Great Great Grandma or pa, and on and on and on. We say, “My grandmother died of heart disease, and my father has a bad ticker, so I’m going to exercise and eat healthfully so I will live longer and stronger. . . . ” Then either we do this, or we don’t, and life either goes on or it doesn’t, a change is inspired, or not.
If you explore your past and still ignore it, then why bother to know at all?
We can look back to see what mistakes have been made and learn from them, right? Right? On many different levels, not just of which are our health, but of survival of the species and our planet, right? Right? We take a thought, an idea, and we roll it around in our head, and then we make action from that thought or idea . . . how wonderful our minds and bodies are! But, how responsible it makes us for so much more than a cat’s or dog’s or pig’s or a frog’s thought processes would be responsible – for they can’t articulate for change as we can. A tree, a river, a rock – can they create from an idea? Seems we have the run of the place when it comes to that! ha! Well! Huhn.
I can decide. I have choices. With the brain and thought processes we have been gifted with comes responsibility to use them to affect some change for the “Greater Good,” right? For survival of the species and of our planet and its other species . . . Right? For our own bodies/minds, and our children’s bodies/minds?
What we pass to our children and they to theirs and they to theirs and they to theirs can often be changed by Choice, Action—and what will people look like and act like 100 years from now? And what will their kidneys and pancreases look like? What will our environment look like? Will we have learned how to protect what needs protecting? Our children. Our Land. Our physical bodies. Our Waters—better protect that water, my friends . . .
Somewhere long ago the journey to you and to me began shaping our attitudes towards our bodies and minds. Somewhere long ago It Began for Us, and then time and time and time passed, and like branches on a very strange and giant family tree, or trees, we began to split and grow out in different directions. The roots go down and spread as well – tangled and deep, too tangled and deep to follow, but beautiful and fascinating and uniquely the same.
He scratched his belly. The strange rumble there itched and pulled and ached. It was time to fill the emptiness. Behind him, crouched under a shrub, was his mate. Her belly was swollen, round and hard. He turned to her and they made eye contact. She touched her belly, rubbed it in circles. Her itching and pulling and aching had been different since the swelling. He knew this because she needed more to fill it. He knew it too from her grunts and sighs, the way she would not lay still beside him as she used to, but move move and move.
He sniffed the air. Up ahead there was both food and danger. Leaving his mate behind, he moved quietly across the hot dirt. He knew it would be harder doing this alone, but his mate was too heavy, too slow and clumsy to be of help. He scratched his belly again. An awareness pushed, and he touched his head. Something captured there, then gone. He stilled and waited, for he knew if he rushed headlong, he would become the meal, instead of finding one. The pushing awareness returned, and his eyes opened wider, became brighter. He ignored the emptiness and backtracked, sniffing the air, looking for footprints – like his own. One wasn’t enough. Two was better. There was another like him without the swollen belly. Another like him in other ways, too.
Over the hard earth, he ran to find the other who is like he is—one wasn’t enough, two was better, mate could not, other one like him could. Other one like him had a mate with swollen belly. One alone, no food—together, better to find food. The pushing eased, his belly empty would soon be filled. His first idea. His first awareness of seeing outside of himself to More.