I always enjoy your economical style, Mr Holden, and the aesthetic/poignant quality it lends your prose. But some observations.

“[T]here is absolutely no proof that mind can exist outside of the brain”.

True, but nor is there proof it can’t. Indeed, science is still nowhere near accounting for consciousness in materialist terms, and in many quarters it’s conceded that other possibilities cannot be ruled out.
Soon after my wife died and all that trauma was over, my body was ‘occupied’ by a mysterious force one night. I woke up as what I can only call a benevolent energy (I sensed there was nothing to fear) filled my body. Though I felt in no danger, the urge to resist was overwhelming and finally, against my will, I had to struggle against it. It straight away relented and a male voice said, “Rest now”.
Since then I’ve heard the experience is common at the death of a loved one. To my amazement a friend once described her almost identical experience, including the sense of great power and love—nor any sense of threat. I’ve had other extraordinary experiences.

Of course the rationalists can easily dismiss such stories one way or another and in our rationalist age we’re effectively censored from revealing our ‘mystical’ experiences, yet they’re extremely common and compelling, even among scientists.
Such events perhaps punctuate our quotidian lives, but have no material effect. Thus your relation’s cloistered life seems pitiable to me too, even if she had 'mystical relief'.

“In our over-stimulated modern lives very few of us feel any connection to past lives lived before we were born”.

That’s presumptuous too. I suspect nostalgia and reverence for connections and remoteness together, through time, are common preoccupations.

“The core of human nature is basically identical for all of us”.

Ditto—the presumption that there 'is' a human ‘nature’, whatever that means. Surely, what’s common or natural to us is our bestial instincts and appetites and adaptive attributes and capacities ('species being'). The rest is “cultural”—idealistic and derivative—at least according to true materialists, who dismiss idealism as ideology and mysticism as delusion.

This morning a dead woman touched me.

A narrow fellow in the grass

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

Emily Dickinson

I saw a very narrow fellow slithering through a slit in a Styrofoam container on our verandah. Emily caught the feeling.

Brian, thank you for an engaging piece. I share your sentiments about the importance of the family genealogist: I too have persevered in this role despite the apparent apathy of the younger generations and even most of my own. Moreover, I share your holistic impulse to "connect" with not only people of the past, present and future but also the the non-human world.

I suggest, though, that we should be very reticent about "speculating" what the motives and state of mind of our ancestors were. The younger people to whom we hand on our writing may well be inclined to accept it as fact. Such speculation probably finds a more fitting place in historical fiction. Writing short stories or novels, prefaced by a statement that they are "based upon" the life of the particular ancestor but enlivened by the author's imagination, can be a great contribution to the life of our community.

But thanks once again for a good read.

Having once had a very remarkable experience which some would call "spiritual" I see no reason to think that it emanated from anywhere except my brain. Apparently 90% of our brain functions are unconscious and possibly contain inherited attitudes and memories along with more readily identifyable characteristics.

I confess to having no concept of what people mean when they say "spiritual" or "God".

Thanks for the interesting piece.

Brian,

Your article is a refreshing change from the usual "politicking".

I've never had any interest in genealogy and I have no mementos of even my grandparents, so I'll never be able to revisit the past as you have, as result I take the "holistic" approach from a different perspective which is an interest in history. I'm still interested in my ancestry but only from a genetic perspective, one day I'll get my DNA tested.

We're all descended from a few thousand individuals that lived in Africa a few millennia ago-all humans are related. Any ancient artefact is a "letter" from an ancestor.

Squeers,

First I have to say I'm not expressing any opinion on the significance of what you experienced after your wife's death.

In my entire life I've never had any experience that could be remotely described as 'spiritual' or 'mystical', even after my wife's death, so I'm still deeply sceptical in regard to any reality beyond the material world.

Hi there Mr Holden...

I get the sense that you're a very sensitive, emotionally vulnerable gentleman, who's entered into the autumn period of life, and one who tends to reflect upon times past and folk (relatives) long gone.

You describe rather eloquently your many feelings and impressions as you read or re-read old letters, visit those places that revive memories past of happier times, and of the people who you've known, or never managed to know well, nor understand.

You describe a world of tender nostalgia, emotional sentimentality almost cloying to the point of serendipitous unreality.

As a Veteran, and a retired copper, I've seen much death in all it's various forms. Thus, for most of my adult life I've harboured two basic questions. The existance of God ? And is there any life after death ?

Before I retired, I was attached to the Coroner's Office for some 18 months. Subsequently I was stationed at the Morgue. There, I had many opportunities to quietly look down upon the wan, pasty countenance of the dead, with their dilated pupillary and sightless eyes.

There, I reckon I found the answer to my second question...regrettably, there's absolutely nothing whatsoever after death ! And my first and most enduring question, apropos God's existance ? I'd never actually realised it before, however, South Vietnam had given me the answer some forty odd years before...sadly there is no God, there never has been !

I'm sorry Mr Holden, if it appeared that I made light of your article, or I sounded impertinent or impolite. I certainly had no intention to do so. Neither did I intend to pillories or besmirch your account either. It's just that as an ex copper, I tend to look at the evidence...real evidence. And in relation to anything post death, there simply isn't.

Take care Sir, and I did thoroughly enjoy your beautiful account.

Cheers...Sung Wu.