I've been very interested in Carl Jung and his concept of the collective unconscious recently. I've always felt like there was some source of shared memories and instincts, but never had a term to use to describe my ideas. Spanish Moss offered to lend me a book on the subject (Thanks, SM!

Then as I'm walking away forlorn, a book on a neighboring shelf catches my eye. It has a very intriguing title, The Woman Who Gave Birth To Her Mother, by Kim Chernin. I skim the jacket description and since the title is so intriguing I snatch it up and lug it home atop my stack of books on desert biomes and optical illusions.
Imagine my delighted surprise when I snuggle down under the covers last night, flip open this book and discover the opening line is a quote from none other than Carl Jung.
"Every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother, and every woman extends backward into her mother and forward into her daughter."
Keith will attest to my rambling on about the source of women's intuition. A child spends nine months inside of her mother's body, intimately surrounded by her, subject to the changes in her hormones, affected by her emotions and thoughts. Could we inherit our mother's memories? And if she contains her mother's memories, why not the memories back for generations? Could we possibly have access to such a vast bank of wisdom and not even be aware of it? And if time is not linear (and I don't believe it is) then why couldn't we tap into the memories and experiences of our progeny. One of my favorite quotes from Through the Looking Glass is what the White Queen says to Alice, "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards." But unlike the Alice in the story this possiblility makes this Alice a bit giddy.
I certainly have a lot more pondering to do. The first 5 chapters of the book have proven to be a good read. I love it when the Universe hands you exactly what you need right when you need it.
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