Two ducks were foraging on the loch this equinox. Quietly resting, paddling below the surface. Their reflection could be seen all along the shoreline as the sun rose, and yet, when they poked their beaks below the tide to find food, a ripple rang out from their bodies along the length of the loch, and washed up on shore. They were only two. They were barely moving, and yet circles marked their presence.
A ripple is a common metaphor for how a small act can have gradually larger impacts. We see this all the time today in politics and war: a single sentence having devastating consequences for whole communities and nations. The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull caused air travel to cease in the UK, 1200 miles away, due to the volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide. Smoke from British Columbia's 2023 forest fires rippled out to Toronto, 3000 miles away. And waves can also have more personal, ancestral reverberations over generations and time.
My seanmhair use to say that the dreams we have of a familiar place, a familiar house, the same [unknown] people or event were not made up dreams at all, but the memories of ancestors passed down. That is, when I was dreaming, I was reliving the memories of my ancestors (although not understanding that this is what I was experiencing.) A great, great, great grandmother of my own was passing along support, life knowledge and instincts to survive in even the most basic of human interactions. I was the beneficiary of all those years of loving and learning.
Today, with epigenetics, we find that this is true. Trauma that has occurred seven generations before is passed along through DNA cells to warn descendants of danger, or to allow them the innate understanding of love and belonging to a place. That is what the ripples from these two ducks teach us. The ducks, like our ancestors, may not be with us on the shore, but they are still connecting with us through the waves of time. Be watchful, and thankful, of those that have passed before you - they have honoured you with their gifts of understanding. And know that, when you go, the memories you contain, from this land, carry on in the continuum of time.