A poem I found today ....

‘Heredity'

I am the family face;

Flesh perishes, I live on,

Projecting trait and trace

Through time to times anon,

And leaping from place to place

Over oblivion.

The years-heired feature that can

In curve and voice and eye

Despise the human span

Ofdurance--that is I;

The eternal thing in man,

That heeds no call to die.

Thomas Hardy

ISBN 9780316724388 Edited by Neil Philip Little Brown Book (2000) GB

I picked up a book of poetry today at Waterstones. By chance I opened the book and this poem by Thomas Hardy was the first I came upon. I couldn't have found more appropriate words for my personal project if I had searched and searched. Isn't it wonderful how sometimes you fall upon something that is so fitting. 

My Interpretation of the Poem

My face resembles that of my ancestors, I have my mother's eyes, my grandfather's nose, some resemblance of character from my Grandmother and probably other traits from ancestors from centuries past. My siblings, my children, my nephews and nieces, all have some trait inherited from family now long gone and others still alive. Something of those whose ashes lie in the ground, will forever live on in me, and subsequently in others who come after me. Death is close to life and it is a part of life that is unavoidable. But the genes of my ancestors will always live on. Generations to come will have something of those who came before. It is eternal.

This is a sentiment that I have long believed, but Thomas Hardy has articulated it eloquently for me. My belief is that not only do the visual traits continue to live on as generation by generation continue the line of family, but that if we are wise, we can learn from our predecessors and attempt to redeem ourselves by putting right what was once wrong, by learning from their mistakes, and from living a life that is true to ourselves.

I briefly met a man who was a Pagan and having an interest in nature and the forces of nature, I researched a little in the Pagan beliefs. I found to my surprise that many of those beliefs are mirrored in my own. I am not a Pagan, and I do not follow their beliefs completely, but they do have similarities to my own beliefs. I am beginning to recognise that all these aspects of ancestry, culture, tradition and the language of Wales are included in the research for my project. Maybe at last I am beginning to understand my connection to this land that I call home,and that I call my beloved Wales.

(www.bbc.co.uthe language of Wales are includedk/religion/religions/paganism/)

Paganism..... a reverance for nature, the importance of caring for the environment, cherishing the earth .....a respect of ancestors and the lives they lived .... these are the facets of Paganism that appeal to me and that I am drawn too.