Understanding and Respecting Your Genetic Memory

Sep 26, 2011 by

Understanding and Respecting Your Genetic Memory

I wish I would have known then what I know now.

I was seventeen, maybe a month into eighteen, when I was in D.C. visiting the Smithsonian Institution with some of my friends from school. We had the whole day to pop in and out of buildings, and it was getting close to the the end of our trip. We decided to end our day at the Freer Gallery of Art.

The in-and-out of exhibits was like all the others; some paintings and sculptures made more of an impression on me than others. Really, though, I was ready to head back to the bus and sack it out for the good hour’s trip home.

One of the last rooms we discovered was filled with ancient Asian relics on a temporary stay at the Smithsonian. Most of my friends had entered the room, and I blindly followed them through the entrance, like I had done for most of the other rooms in this Gallery.

Instantly, I was overcome with grief. I could barely stand, and I was covered in a cold sweat. My vision blurred, and I needed help from my friends to leave the exhibit room. Within seconds after I walked back through the entrance, I was fine.

Believing it was some kind of fluke, I shook it off and decided to return to the exhibit and catch up with the others. The same feeling overwhelmed me, and I was hit with a bout of nausea that seemed too strong to fight back. I was alone that time, and I staggered out, barely making it to a bench about 50 feet from the entrance.

I was so consumed by the experience that I did not think to research what was in that room, but I am absolutely convinced that I had tapped into what Twyla Tharp calls Ancient Memory.

I once saw a news photograph of an ancient dance artifact. It was a pottery shard with a design showing a tribal migration that was believed to be the earliest known representation of dance. It gave me a twinge, if not a shock, of recognition. I felt as though I have that illustrated moment stored in me genetically or else I wouldn’t be a dancer. That’s ancient memory. This is not Jungian voodoo; it’s real.

Whatever was in that room was also in me, somewhere deep in my genetics. The exhibit is long gone, and (so far) I have not been able to trace the exhibits that might have been at that gallery in the early 1980s (though I keep trying). What I carry with me, though, is that feeling, that connection, I experienced in that room.

And I wonder. . . . Was it the artwork or the artist?

Since then, I have had similar experiences (though none as intense), and I no longer dismiss the connection I feel. These genetic memories end up in my writing, mostly with intent, and I do not question the direction they take me.

Now that the memory portal has been opened (and I do everything in my power to keep those channels flowing), I am much more receptive to the memory connections I make with present experiences. Books I read, historical tours I might take — all of them now trigger some memory, ancient or otherwise, and enrich both the moment and the writing that follows.

Rus VanWestervelt is a writer, photographer, owner of Ravenwater Press, and Teacher-Consultant with the National Writing Project. He is the founder and editor of Maryland Voices, a creative nonfiction journal for high school writers and educators. Rus has published hundreds of articles locally and nationally, and nearly all of them relate to writing and living an inspired life. His latest work of fiction, Cold Rock, will be released this fall. For more information about Rus and his work with writers, you can visit his website here.

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