Learning to honor my heritage

Well, I didn't meet my goal to finish that book. I'll have to work harder. However I didn't want to just wait until I had read the book to update this blog. I've been meaning to do some variation on here for some time. The best I can do for today is talking about something I'm still trying to learn how to do: honor my heritage. 

Some time ago, I was visiting a museum close to where I currently reside. There I found something that talked about how a person honored their heritage by participating in the Scottish Dance. That has helped them to feel closer to their ancestors. That reminded me of a video I saw at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, about a boy who learned they were of Scottish descent and decided he wanted to learn to play the bagpipes. It took him a while, but he refused to quit, and his actions led to his sisters learning to do Scottish dances as well. 

Sadly I've known for a while that I was of Scottish descent, but I've never really done anything to honor that heritage. I didn't learn to play the bagpipes, I haven't learned any dances. I'm even willing to try haggis, but I still haven't. If only heritage honoring is a class you can take at school, or a college elective. 

Right now the only way I've been able to do anything to honor my heritage was to start doing family history and genealogy. Yet there are times when I fear that's all I'll ever be able to do, and I want to be able to do more to honor my heritage. Sadly every time I ask nobody seems to have any suggestions other than just adding sources to RootsMagic, FamilySearch, and Ancestry. 

So as a result I've been trying to figure out on my own how I could honor my heritage. I love good stories so I've been trying to read up on the books and tales told in the countries my ancestors came from. Sadly I haven't done a lot of Scottish stories, but I have been looking at lots of stories from England. That country has a rich heritage of storytelling. Many of the classic stories come from England, but I already covered how in a previous blog post. I have also been buying DVDs that have stories that are somehow connected to England and Scotland. I just hope I'm going about it the right way. 

Another way I'm trying to honor my heritage is with the world building I'm doing for my books. I've been looking at the legends and stories of the places where my ancestors lived to get ideas as to how to build up the world of Dymos. I've gotten a lot of magical and prehistoric creatures for those places, but I'm also trying to build the culture similarly. I haven't been able to find any good books that could help with that, but I'm going to keep looking. Hopefully as time goes on I'll be able to find more ways I can honor my heritage. Maybe I should practice making Shepherd's Pie more.