Landgenetics: Finding Traces of Ourselves in the Land
I came across the term Landgenetics while reading through the Landspeaks website, and it immediately made me pause. I’d never heard the word before, but it felt oddly familiar—like a truth I’d always felt, just never had the language to describe. Landgenetics, as I now understand it, is about the connection between land and lineage. It’s not about DNA in the scientific sense, but about how land holds memory, and how we, in turn, carry those memories within us—whether through stories passed down, places visited in childhood, or even a feeling that hits you when you stand in a place you’ve never been but somehow recognize. This idea struck a chord with me. Growing up, I often heard bits and pieces of family stories—where my grandparents came from, what the landscape was like, how they lived in rhythm with the land. But those stories always felt like fragments, disconnected from the world I was living in. Landgenetics brought those fragments into focus. It gave me a way to understand tha...