"As we grow older and more relatives start to disappear from the family lifeboat, many of us develop a new interest in those who've slipped overboard. My research on my family tree has made me realize that rather than a mere list of names and dates, genealogy can be an invitation to imagine, to ponder, and to learn not just who our ancestors were, but who we are and who we might become. I realized some of the traits I thought were mine alone were actually passed down to me, and that I shared more with my ancestors than just some strands of DNA. There's not a test I can take to identify this mix, no spitting into a test tube to find my spiritual genealogy. But the process of learning about my heritage has taught me a great deal about the swirling patterns of my inner life, and I've come to see the way my story reflects something larger." – Lori Erickson

I really can't say this any better. As old modes of religion and even mechanistic sciences give way to evidence of universal consciousness in some way, we are every one a part of a vast ocean, whose wave has come ashore for a brief moment as me, as you. We are a part of that great sea even as we are apart from it, crashing onto land, and inevitably sliding away. We have each of us thereby molded that land in our unique way, a shell added here, a bit of sand racing out with us when we go.

"As we grow older and more relatives start to disappear from the family lifeboat, many of us develop a new interest in those who've slipped overboard. My research on my family tree has made me realize that rather than a mere list of names and dates, genealogy can be an invitation to imagine, to ponder, and to learn not just who our ancestors were, but who we are and who we might become. I realized some of the traits I thought were mine alone were actually passed down to me, and that I shared more with my ancestors than just some strands of DNA. There's not a test I can take to identify this mix, no spitting into a test tube to find my spiritual genealogy. But the process of learning about my heritage has taught me a great deal about the swirling patterns of my inner life, and I've come to see the way my story reflects something larger." – Lori Erickson

I really can't say this any better. As old modes of religion and even mechanistic sciences give way to evidence of universal consciousness in some way, we are every one a part of a vast ocean, whose wave has come ashore for a brief moment as me, as you. We are a part of that great sea even as we are apart from it, crashing onto land, and inevitably sliding away. We have each of us thereby molded that land in our unique way, a shell added here, a bit of sand racing out with us when we go.