Opening an ancestral superhighway

Dear friends,

Something ‘ important significant and necessary’ happened yesterday.

After waiting two days,  I opened the ancestry.com email and read my DNA  results.   I’d love to share this story with you.

This happened  at 6.30 in the afternoon.   Outside, it was still fiercely hot.  I could smell the sandalwood incense by the swimming pool.  Evening was  still way over the mountain, invisible and far away, approaching  at its own pace.  I was cool inside my dimmed shabby chic small Spanish sitting room.

After 2 months  waiting for the DNA  results, they had  arrived.  

Disappointment immediately filled my whole body.    

Strange as it may sound,  this was better than being completely, off the scale, overwhelmed.   I was afraid  I might have just exploded in a huge surge of emotion.  

Where did  my father, Lionel, the wandering Jew, really come from? Where did he go when he disappeared ?     This question may never be answered, but I know now why I love Russian Sacred Music.

Where  are my roots, apart from Ireland and Holland?   

I did  a lot of preparation for reading these results.

I  bought a ‘travelling’  Buddha,  as part of setting ‘the scene’ for receiving the info. He weighs less than a kilo.    I also bought Peruvian Palo Santo sticks, and incense,  nightlights,  then chose one of Kiki’s Earth Magic cards, for guidance. Fog!  Spot on as always.

I prayed in the little turquoise pool, ate some salad, noticed new mice droppings beside the fridge,  then decided to take the drama out of the whole thing.  Goodness , how much did I want this info.

Drama queen me ?  Yes?  She’s still in there. But she doesn’t get to rule the roost for long these days.  Bless her .  She was expecting  something really jaw dropingly  amazing  to leap out of this info, and change my life for ever.

Maybe there would be a half-sister out there, or a half-brother..  or maybe maybe my beloved Abba father. ….oh how my heart would burst if I could just see a photo of him.  That would be enough.

Apart  from showing your geographic DNA info (with maps) , Ancestry gives you a list of folk you are related too. My list of 129 people were all 4/5^th cousins. I’ve contacted 2. One looks beautiful and intelligent. His name is  Bob. He’s Jewish, 60ish.

By the time I opened the email with the results, I was very calm .

Part of the preparation  included reading  through my research notes written  this summer

Here are  a few note- nuggets which  are propelling me into October, and  will help to assimilate this news.

When we are in silence we are speaking the language of the soul.

Silence is my mother tongue.

…I know I have done something important and  significant and necessary… ( Rene August)

Acknowledging the limitations on or grasp of what lies within and without us…

Less about individual pieces of music, ( Russian Sacred Music today) , more about the overall sound they weave.. an ancestral superhighway they open…

Every day is a threshold we are invited into a bigger life.. ( Nick Williams)

So…

because my maternal grandparents  were  Dutch, Irish, I am 31% Western European, 28% Irish... no surprise here.

That totals 59%. How can that be? Surely  we are all is 50/50  mother/father?

I was hoping to be 50% Jewish. I was hoping to  find I come from a Sephardic  Jewish heritage, that I have roots in Spain.

Ancestry.com tells me I’m 18% European Jewish ( no indication this includes Spain), 18% British ( big surprise).

 I’m  2% Finish/ North West Russian.

 1% African, 1% West Asian .  Smile making surprises here! The Irish certainly  got around, but Africa ??

But the figures don’t quite add up.. there’s 14% of my dad’s  50% missing.. typical dad.. still hiding big time.

Little bit of processing to do now !  

“No medicine cures what happiness cannot.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

 “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
 

― Mahatma Gandhi

 

Choosing happiness, whatever and despite the if only