does anyone think your ancestors can leave cultural residues deep within

[datasuspect]

your soul?

i have a copy of the islamic call to prayer and the 99 names of allah (chanting, spiritual music).


it might be that it is simply beautiful music, but for some reason it resonates deep inside my heart and moves me in that most meaningful way that i haven't felt since the last time i was a human being: that fluttering heat that radiates from your center and instills a peace and calm that only the presence of the divine or the unknowable can induce.

the reason i say the part about ancestors is because on my dad's side there is ancestry that at one point came from spain, and if i'm not mistaken, i think they were invaded by muslims in the middle ages or something.

or maybe god is making his presence known to me through religious music. i don't know.

[LaurenG]

1. yes, that and other reasons

However I happen to believe in the indestructibility of the soul and in re-incarnation.

[REP]

2. Sure

I don't do sun, which is no surprise considering my Welsh and Lithuanian genes. I'm also strongly drawn to languages and understand nationalistic impulses at a gut level.

[MiniMandaRuth]

3. I've never had anything like that happen before...

But it must be pretty cool for you.

Yeah. In the Middle Ages, Muslims were great conquerors... or at least people of the Islamic religion. They did invade Spain... a few times, I think.

[greatauntoftriplets]

4. Here I thought it was all the Jameson's and Guinness I have imbibed...

over the years that made me use the pronoun "me" instead of "my" now and then.

The Islamic call to prayer is beautiful. Years ago, I woke in the middle of the night in a hotel in Tangier, Morocco, to hear it for the first time. It is a memory that has stayed with me for a long time.

[wildhorses]

5. generational telepathic communication

where's my crystal ball?

[Writer]

6. Yes the Moors occupied Spain for about 600 years...

Until the time of Columbus.

[sarge43]

11. Yes and their society was enlighten, tolerant and liberal.

My moment with an ancestor came in the Valley of the Kings. I was on a temp duty in Egypt and a group of us AF types had taken a day trip to Luxor. We were touring the tombs. I was struck by all the graffiti scratched into the walls; most of it obviously very old and in many different languages.

One jumped out at me - "Ambrosius". As clear and quietly as someone whispering in my ear, I was sure and still am that Ambrosius was one of my ancestors and much like me - a career grunt who had been around the empire and had taken a R&R break at this ancient place.

I don't know if we recycle or if there are memories in our DNA ala Dune, but I'm pretty sure that the past somehow is alive in each of us.

[fudge stripe cookays]

7. Yep.

Because when I head up to Wisconsin, hear oompa music, order the Friday fish fry and a Hefeweizen, I get all happy.

And to think my mom never let me eat German food growing up! Grrrrrr....

[datasuspect]

8. you were deprived of german food?

that is considered child abuse nowadays.

[fudge stripe cookays]

9. My mother hates the fact that she is German.

She hated her father because he made her eat potato pancakes and other stuff she hated. Ergo, she tried to pass her hatred onto me.

It wasn't until I married the wonderful reprehensor and had German food in Madison as a newlywed that I grew to love sauerkraut and bratwurst and Hefeweizen on draft.

Now, I have grown into my Germanic-ness and HOW.

I am Teuton! Hear me roar!

[babylonsister]

10. Wow. My mom was German and also was not proud of her

heritage. That didn't prevent her from cooking German food though. I think it had more to do with the Lutheran home she was placed in after her parents died, and how poorly she was treated.

[fudge stripe cookays]

29. My mom has inherited guilt about the Nazis.

My great grandparents immigrated in 1903. We had their names put up on the wall at Ellis Island.

But they thought Hitler was great when he first took power. They listened to the Nazi broadcasts on shortwave and everything. Mom can't handle it.

Plus her father was a real disciplinarian, and bossed my grandmother around. And made the kids eat everything on their plate.

My mom hated German food, being forced to eat it. Can't say I blame her. But I ADORE potato pancakes, and strudel, and beer, and rindsrouladen....the whole schebang. Specially nice crispy sauerkraut with lots of caraway seed. Glad I finally got to enjoy it!

[datasuspect]

15. that's weird

because wisconsin and much of the midwest was (and i still think is) so solidly german.

[fudge stripe cookays]

27. She's not from Wisconsin, see.

She was from Illinois (Belleville-- need I say more?), and so was my dad (Chicago).

However, both my dad's parents had roots in Wisconsin, and I did not know it until I became a diehard genealogist. His father grew up around Rock County and Winnebago County in IL. His mom was from New Holstein.

I visited WI for the first time in 2000, and fell in love. I would move there tomorrow if I could. But the spouse is not quite as much of a cheesehead as me.

I'm so pissed now that I did not know about UW when I went to pick colleges. I would have stayed in Madison the rest of my life.

[datasuspect]

30. shoot

chicago was one of the most german cities in the U.S. at one time.

i grew up in a very old neighborhood in chicago (2000 west/2200 south).

the original inhabitants were strictly german. they started building there as early as the 1850s.

one building i remember (it's still there) on the corner of leavitt and 21st street had the inscription "BRUESHABER" on the cupola. i guess it was the merchant who built the place.

there's lots of that on the buildings all over the city. german names with dates like 1890/1892 etc.

the cornerstones of the churches and schools are in german in my old neighborhood too.

i think in the early part of the twentieth century, bohemians from 18th st/pilsen moved in along with the poles, and a smattering of italians.

by the time i was born (1970) it was a solid working class neighborhood with the same bohemians, poles, germans, italians, and a smattering of mexican americans.

it became a solid mexican neighborhood in the late 70s. it was up until a few years ago a point of entry for mexican and central american immigrants for quite some time.

last i saw, the condo conversions sprang up and i there were young indie looking kids walking labs in the neighborhood.

[fudge stripe cookays]

36. Yup. Chicago rawks.

My dad grew up in Bucktown during the Depression when they affectionately referred to their home as "Cockroach Boulevard."

My aunt drove me by their old place last summer--- trendy!!!

Oh-- my mom grew up in the middle of German Central, but she hated it. Go downstate to Belleville sometime and walk through the cemeteries...everything is 12 syllable long German names.

It doesn't mean Beethoven and Wagner and mountains and castles and beer to her. It means death camps.

Whatever. My mom and I don't get along anyway. She has other issues as well. I'm tired of dealing with them.

[XNASA]

12. Yes.

Now Everybody Polka!!!!!

On a similar note:

At one time, I used to have dreams about being in an glistening amber-gray cave that contained statues carved from the same material. Then I saw a documentary on Krakow and it contained some footage of the famous salt mines beneath the city. The salt mines look exactly like my dreams, down to the statues.



Very mysterious.

[datasuspect]

18. chleb

that's the only polish word i know that i can spell.

i used to drink in a bar in berwyn that was owned by a recent polish immigrant (26th/ridgeland). cool hard drinking dudes they were. hard workers too.

very open, hospitable people there. had a tab and line of credit within two weeks of knowing the owner/hanging out there.

and i can never forget the polka nights at the polka hut in stickney around 41st/oak park ave.

oompa oompa indeed.

[XNASA]

23. I'm actually only one quarter Polish.

But my Polish heritage, for some reason, has had more impact on me than my English and German ancestry.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Well, the U of Minnesota twin studies seem to indicate that

some behavioral tendencies are inherited.

But that doesn't explain me. My ancestry is Norwegian, German, and Latvian, and I don't like any of those cuisines. I'll take any Asian or Middle Eastern cuisine over any of my ancestral cuisines.

In the area of music, two types resonated with me immediately: 16th-17th century choral music, especially English composers like Byrd and Tallis, and Balkan women's singing. It's possible that my Viking ancestors went slave raiding in England and the Balkans, but that seems like a rather remote connection.

[datasuspect]

14. that's interesting about the balkan women's singing

i heard an interesting theory about the intensity of norwegian death metal; namely, there is some deep seated ancestral resentment of the norwegian's forced conversion to christianity.

or something like that.

germanic/nordic/teutonic mythology and religion is a very interesting subject.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

16. This is a very interesting topic ... one that I like .

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Nope.

It's just beautiful music.

It needs no other explanation than that.

[datasuspect]

20. whew

i'm glad that's all it was.

i thought i was in danger of expanding my heart somewhat to allow for the possibilty of the mysterious, the inexplicable, and something sublime that was uniquely personal, beautiful, moving, meaningful, and utterly human.

back to cold hard calculation for me.

that was close.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. but datasuspect...

"i thought i was in danger of expanding my heart somewhat to allow for the possibilty of the mysterious, the inexplicable, and something sublime that was uniquely personal, beautiful, moving, meaningful, and utterly human."

That's music!

[datasuspect]

26. i think i am in search mode

i can concede that.

my lot is sorely abject and derelict. when i crash into the depths, i struggle to find any kind of light, any inspiration to lift my spirit sufficiently to rehabiliate my will to live.

[kwassa]

19. I believe in inherited cultural attitudes, sort of a cultural psychology

I read an article quoting a French visitor in the 1600s describing how the British raised their children. It sounded exactly like my family, who left England in the 1600s but apparently kept that cultural heritage intact for hundreds of years. I saw a biography of John Clesse where he talked about the English cultural attitudes that he grew up with and absorbed; again, exactly like my family.

[jrandom421]

21. Actually

It all goes back to who they were, where they lived, what they did, why they did it, and so on. The food they ate, the clothes they wore, the furniture they owned, all these have an impact on generations to come. Most powerful of all, are the stories they tell, keeping ancient ways of life, luminary figures of personal history, and momenteous events of near forgotten times alive. And with these stories handed down from generation to generation, comes a social history and identity.

[evlbstrd]

22. Traditional Irish music does it for me.

It can bring me to tears.

[datasuspect]

25. i'm a briton

at least on paper.

my mother and grandmother emigrated from england after WW2.

that's how i acquired british citizenship - british citizenship by descent.

my mother was 2 when she came here, never really had the accent, but my grandmother retained her cockney dialect and britishness until the day she died.

i really do like the way they write official documents there though.

[mad-mommy]

28. it really instills peace and calm?

[datasuspect]

31. yes

yes it does.

your mileage may vary.

http://www.arthafez.com/Gallery/99_Names_of_Allah/Thumbnails/01.htm

http://www.islamicity.com/Mosque/99names.htm

[Bridget Burke]

32. There could be something to that....

But--consider that the best religious music is meant to stir you deeply.

When I hear Emily Ameling sing "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" on Neville Mariner's St Martins in the Fields recording "Messiah"--I believe. The exquisite music written by Abbess Hildegard von Bingen makes Gregorian Chant sound a bit pedestrian. Of course, I was raised Christian (Catholic)--although I haven't "believed" in a long time.

But I've heard Tibetan Monks chant--on recordings & in person. Without understanding a word, I vibrated along with their double-voiced invocations.

Some secular music you may like: During the commemoration of the 1st voyage of Columbus, several CD's of Spanish music from that age were released. That is Spanish Christian, Moorish & Jewish (Sephardic) music from the centuries when the communities lived together--an age that ended in 1492. Here's one example of Christian/Moorish music, available on Amazon; there are others, but I don't know how many are still available. www.amazon.com/Splendour-Al-Andalus-Calamus/dp/B00000G4U1/ref=pd_bxgy_m_text_b/002-7491726-8567240?ie=UTF8

Keep listening....

[datasuspect]

33. it's happened before

once when i was on a two or three day binge, i walked to the store early on a sunday morning and passed an african american church.

the music that was so forceful that you could hear it in the street seemed to evoke the plight of the tormented soul and its travail in hell. i was stopped dead in my tracks and i teared up. i needed what was in that building, but i was ashamed to go in.

[HEyHEY]

34. Hell yes - it explains my deep love of celtic music

[Deep13]

35. I know what you mean.

I used to wonder how people could ever line up on a battle field, stand there and shoot while being shot. I was at a Civil War reenactment several years ago when I heard a drum and fife band start playing and the drum sound went cork-screwing up my spine. It was like someone threw a switch in my brain. I had a subtle urge to pick up my musket and get in line. (I was purely a spectator and had no musket.)

[datasuspect]

37. that's pretty intense

[WolverineDG]

38. That or it's reincarnation

Perhaps a mixture of both. It would explain how I've been able to navigate in places like London & Paris without good maps & not get lost, or if I do get turned around, somehow recognize a street name & "know" that will be the one to lead me to a Tube/Metro station or back to my hotel. And these things happened on my first trips to those cities. When it happens on subsequent occasions, I just chalk it up to my now familiarity with London & Paris.

Simlar to sarge's observation, I honed in on an ancestor's graffitti in the Tower of London. The walls are covered with names, prayers, & other carvings into the stones. Other people didn't notice this name, but to me, it was as if it had been lit up in neon with arrows pointing to it. :scared:


dg

[Rabrrrrrr]

39. Geez, I have no idea if anyone thinks that specifically about me.

Probably, though.

[ZombieNixon]

40. If that's the case, then my mom's side of the family has some secret Irish

and Scandinavians in it. :shrug: