Do certain things make you wonder about your origins; maybe give you goosebumps, or make you emotional? THINGS—not movies, or dramas, or situations, or the people in your life.
I’m talking about things that you see, or hear, or taste, or smell—and nothing necessarily close to your daily life: an expanse of tundra; the warble of a bird; the taste of curry; the odor of lavender.
Certainly we all respond differently to different physical stimuli. Why wouldn’t we? We are all different. Yet, the way I react to certain things has often given me pause.
For example, I find high rocky places to have a certain beckoning nature that other people don’t. When backpacking, there is an inner resistance to climbing back down off an alpine ridge or barren pass. Part of me strongly wants to remain there.
Bagpipes grab at me and can make me emotional. Don’t have any idea why. Didn’t grow up with them in my little Placerville world, nor did I ever know anyone who played them. It’s odd.
And, I’m always fascinated by ocean ice and the interaction between land and sea. It’s an affinity I can’t explain, since I’m a continental in-lander by upbringing.
I’m also drawn to the notion of premonitions and ethereal forces. I’ve had premonitions and have seemingly willed specific things to occur that mysteriously came to pass. That’s strange too.
Yet I was born and raised in sunny California, not Scotland or Norway. I wasn’t raised a warlock and don’t have any psychics in my family. So what’s up with all that? Such things make me lay awake at night.
Well—I may have found an explanation through my genealogy.
Genealogy has been a part of my life for years; since both parents died early, whereupon I became the repository of many banker’s boxes of family records and heirlooms. Long story. After years of organizing with the help of some good genealogical software, I learned that all those names reflected English, Scottish and Irish roots. That was no surprise.
A few years later I sent in some DNA samples to Ancestry.com and was presented with a report of my origins. There were solid roots from the British Isles, but also some vague Germanic connections. A genetic report showed circles within circles that stretched into northern Europe. Not very specific.
Most recently I was sent an update to that same report which piqued my interest. It was based on some new science; none of the concentric circle stuff. Genetically I was English and Irish, but interestingly 40% Scottish and 8% Norse. So nearly half of me was from the lands of glaciers, moors, fiords and wind-swept seas—and that’s assuming that my 24% Irish roots weren’t derived mostly from the Scottish transplants of the 1600s (in which case I’d be much more Scottish, even Norse). Solid Celt for sure.
Visions of Vikings flooded my head—of ships plying icy seas and fjords. (Ugh—I get so miserably seasick. Not a nice thought.)
I imagined the remote, Celtic-speaking Picts and the mystical Druids.
There were the Gallowglass, elite mercenary warriors who were members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Ireland.
And, of course, there were the Norse Berserkers—a crowd you wanted to stay away from.
Now I’m getting carried away.
My “old family” lineage was probably farming, or goat herding in some remote place. Still, the pull of those barren landscapes, the highlands, the sea and ice, even to mysterious ethereal forces, exists in me. There has to be something to it. That, and my ever-present inner warrior, which (with the prodding of certain people, especially cable news broadcasters) often incites me to lift my imaginary sword.
Ah well.
Can we be influenced by our genetic make-up? I’m sure of it. Are we then marionettes of our DNA?
Butterflies—never around long enough to learn from a prior generation—know exactly where to fly during their annual migrations. And salmon swim back to their specific breeding grounds after leaving them as tiny fish, then returning years later from the sea. Examples of these pre-programmed activities are abundant.
If animals can be manipulated by their DNA, then why can’t we?
Indeed, I probably have all those high, barren, wind-swept triggers in my own DNA. Sea ice and Druid voodoo, as well. And they pull at my strings like I’m some migratory animal in need of its territorial cradle. I feel the need to go to Iceland.
