Some days I find the only thing more remarkable than our natural world is our ability to maintain the illusion of separateness - from each other, our deep history and every ancestor who helped us over the wall to get here.
I’m reading The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, a book on plants and what they can do. It’s truly amazing, great writing combined with mind blowing revelations, all based on science. You will never see your house and garden plants the same way again.
I can already tell I will carry this with me for a long while, thank you, Rebecca. I’m enchanted when science confirms the materiality of what I imagine or intuit. Maybe one day we’ll discover that the DNA of everyone we love, and with whom we have exchanged breath and touch, circulates freely in our bodies. Including trees, herons, seals, grass. A tangible trace of our interconnectedness.
Many years ago i watched a cicada emerge from the earth in our forest garden - marveling all the while at the bug-eyed alien creature coming out of the ground. And when i had studied it some long while & took to the books to discover it could have been waiting in the earth some seven plus years, i too wondered if it would miss the world it was shedding to become again in this new form in a bright & airy world. i'm pretty sure my ancestors are roiling around inside me ...
The more we learn, it seems, the more we learn how little we know. The older I get, the more I believe, truly believe, in magic. Thank you for another utterly beautiful lesson in how little we know and how infinite the magical possibilities are 💛
Amazing stuff. Caterpillars a remarkable. We raised some Peacock butterflies a few years back. Something that blew my mind a little was that, even as a 'soup' inside the cocoon there seems to be awareness and some measure of movement. If one is lightly touched by something, it will wriggle in a sort of defensive action, presumably to discourage the predator. Wondrous Nature.
I was reading around this just last week, writing a workshop for a writing residential on the body as home. As a herbalist I've always had the sense that memory is much more distributed in the body than just the brain, whcih the research on the kidneys begins to hint at. And that idea of memory corssing the space of complete transformation is awe-inspiring.
Wow, this is such a beautiful read that I really related to. I wrote a post on Substack just last week called 'Running in the Rain' about a connection I have with my maternal grandmother despite never having met her as she died the year before I was born. I thought I was being a bit 'woo-woo', but perhaps not afterall... gorgeous words, Rebecca as ever.
I have called that kind of memory “cell memory” since i began to think about such things in my early twenties (over forty years ago). There has (in more recent years) been a kind of comfort in discovering that this really does exist. What I find disturbing (but again also believable) is that cells from the other people who have had the use (and sometimes also abuse) of our bodies also remain with us. Had I realised this earlier I would have fought harder (or simply said NO more often).
Some days I find the only thing more remarkable than our natural world is our ability to maintain the illusion of separateness - from each other, our deep history and every ancestor who helped us over the wall to get here.
I just learned that plants have memory, too!
I’m reading The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, a book on plants and what they can do. It’s truly amazing, great writing combined with mind blowing revelations, all based on science. You will never see your house and garden plants the same way again.
I can already tell I will carry this with me for a long while, thank you, Rebecca. I’m enchanted when science confirms the materiality of what I imagine or intuit. Maybe one day we’ll discover that the DNA of everyone we love, and with whom we have exchanged breath and touch, circulates freely in our bodies. Including trees, herons, seals, grass. A tangible trace of our interconnectedness.
"I am large. I contain multitudes."
-- Walt Whitman
I always carry some Whitman in my heart.
Good! A unique voice for sure.
Many years ago i watched a cicada emerge from the earth in our forest garden - marveling all the while at the bug-eyed alien creature coming out of the ground. And when i had studied it some long while & took to the books to discover it could have been waiting in the earth some seven plus years, i too wondered if it would miss the world it was shedding to become again in this new form in a bright & airy world. i'm pretty sure my ancestors are roiling around inside me ...
The more we learn, it seems, the more we learn how little we know. The older I get, the more I believe, truly believe, in magic. Thank you for another utterly beautiful lesson in how little we know and how infinite the magical possibilities are 💛
What a wonderful and fascinating piece of writing!
Amazing stuff. Caterpillars a remarkable. We raised some Peacock butterflies a few years back. Something that blew my mind a little was that, even as a 'soup' inside the cocoon there seems to be awareness and some measure of movement. If one is lightly touched by something, it will wriggle in a sort of defensive action, presumably to discourage the predator. Wondrous Nature.
I love listening you speak your words even more than I love reading them. Both are enchanting and utterly absorbing.
Oh, yes🌺 So do I. 🥳🎶
Thank you for this wonderful piece, Rebecca. A trenchant reminder that our children are much more than just their parents.
I was reading around this just last week, writing a workshop for a writing residential on the body as home. As a herbalist I've always had the sense that memory is much more distributed in the body than just the brain, whcih the research on the kidneys begins to hint at. And that idea of memory corssing the space of complete transformation is awe-inspiring.
This science is fascinating and you have so beautifully connected the research on butterflies to human epigenetics. A great read!
I had never heard of this study! So cool! Such a fascinating thing to test. Memory is so illusive and magical. Thanks for sharing this.
Wow, this is such a beautiful read that I really related to. I wrote a post on Substack just last week called 'Running in the Rain' about a connection I have with my maternal grandmother despite never having met her as she died the year before I was born. I thought I was being a bit 'woo-woo', but perhaps not afterall... gorgeous words, Rebecca as ever.
I have called that kind of memory “cell memory” since i began to think about such things in my early twenties (over forty years ago). There has (in more recent years) been a kind of comfort in discovering that this really does exist. What I find disturbing (but again also believable) is that cells from the other people who have had the use (and sometimes also abuse) of our bodies also remain with us. Had I realised this earlier I would have fought harder (or simply said NO more often).
This reminds of Thich Nhat Hanh's meditations around 'my mother is in me' 'cloud is in the tea' etc.