The Origins of Our Ancestors

The question of our own origins appears to remain a profound mystery. Where we come from is a point debated by scientists and religious scholars alike. Everyone seems to have an opinion. Many defer to authourity on the matter. They believe what the Priest says, and take it on faith. Or maybe it is an Omar or Mullah, a Mystic or a Medicine-Man that gives us the answers we possess as our own on the question of our origins. 

I wonder what we miss out on when the depth of our questioning goes so deep. Maybe we miss out on the origins that are near to us---and, in many ways, dearer.

Do we overlook the immediate as our gaze extends out to the farthest horizon? Is the matter of our religious origins a topic that can actually result in our overlooking what we can know?

We know that we come from Mothers. Each and everyone of us. There is no one who is able to read this who did not come from a Mother..... and a Father. Whether we know them, love them, despise them, revile them, rejoice in them the fact stills remains: we are rooted deep in the soil of Mothers and Fathers.

Certainly we can follow this thread of Mothers and Fathers back as far as our stories can travel. We can do genealogical research into the origins of Mother and Fathers until we arrive at what exactly? Apes? Planets? Stars? Primordial Soup? Interstellar dust? How quickly we lose the thread.

Science tells the story of our Mothers and Fathers in terms of inherited traits and the inevitable mutations brought on by sexual reproduction, whereby we each are part Mother/part Father. Wrestle with this as much as we like we are this once in a lifetime medley of all the Mothers and Fathers who preceded us. We are the connections made. We are the connections being made right now. We are this unraveling thread of heredity and inheritance that extends back to a time before time. The thread disappears into a slippery void out of which not even our voices seem to echo back at us.

Which brings me to what I wanted to share today: Respect thy Mother and Father. I believe this is a commandment in some book or other. Maybe you know the name of it. Apparently, this commandment is up near the top of the list. Not that we are prioritizing here. :) Or maybe we are. Maybe this business about "Respect thy Mother and Father" has little to do with obedience and other such assumptions. Maybe it is just another way of saying, "Respect your lineage. Respect your heritage. Respect your ancestry. Respect your origins."

What is our heritage and ancestry and lineage if not life itself? There is really no separation from our own unique heritage and what life is. Life is heritage. Life is ancestry and origins. The continuation of existence in all of its forms is the story of these lineages and ancestries and inheritances.

It could suggest to us that respecting our origins is synonymous with respecting our self. They are inseparable and indivisible, after all. We did not emerge apart from them. It is the same as respecting life. The tenuous and tenacious story of life's survival has found its pinnacle of success in us... in each of us.... in all of us. <3