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The Fractal Lineage: The Matriarch Within Us

Writer's picture: Bryony WebsterBryony Webster
Nov 8, 202310 min read

Updated: Nov 10, 2023


“…This is for the Maiden

Longing to belong…

In hopes

to make right the darkened wrongs

Not realizing-blinded by oozing wounds

Her own innate delicious power

Thick within her womb


This is for the Mother

Breaking eons of fettered chains

For the children she has birthed

Through blood and breaths of change

She calls them Redemption

Regardless of their names…”

- Mishi McCoy


If I said, where do you come from, what comes into view? The image of your mother, where you were born, the motherland of your heritage? It is a question that has, at least periodically, captured the interest of almost everyone. It has churned the mental cogs of artists, poets, playwrights, and film makers. It is a question that when unanswered, can leave great pain and suffering in its wake. It begs for an answer. In some, it is the foundational footing that we carry keeping each step stable. A compass bearing. To others, it can have great heaviness, a responsibility of expectation, or perhaps shame. Some have turned their backs to the question, unburdened and emancipated. Some return to this question repeatedly, redefining it each day.

Where we come from is a springboard, an anchor, and tether all at the same time, but it is also the pulses of similarity we share with each other.


Defining identity is a cornerstone of our human experience and something which has certainly captured my attention. It is a lifelong process and is shaped by every thread we pick up along the timeline of our lives. As Chuck Palahniuk pointed out “nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I have ever known” (Palahniuk, 2000). This is a wonderful comment on the debate of how much of our identity is set out by our genetics or influenced by our environment. The great 'nature vs nurture' debate and Jungian psychology are written into syllabuses and referenced consistently in university essays and such alike. Although I am not here to unpick these debates, nor pass judgement on the influence of these concepts, they are good examples of the level of preoccupation the human experience has with questions of identity and lineage.


The Matriarch Within Us

The identity of our lineage comes in many forms but today's focus is storytelling that has been shaped by generations, told over centuries through our body. Our bodies carry stories, most commonly we can feel the ones we have written ourselves through our actions and choices. However, there is a second, given and powerful narrative that began even before our conception. How do we access the ones we were given? What does it mean to be given a story? Well, we can begin to uncover this knowledge through the cellular network of our maternal lineage. It is popular to understand the matrilineage through this thought:

“all the eggs a woman will carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old foetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother's womb, and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother's blood before she herself is born, and this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother.” (Redmond, 1997).

Whilst this is an intriguing and inviting statement, we also have another route of matrilineage that is hinted to here, but less understood from this perspective. The role of mitochondria.


Our Mineral Matrix

Mitochondria are unique cells found within our body that hold mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and are responsible for energy production in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Every single cell of our body feeds on the large quantities of ATP production from mitochondrial cells for energy, and all life processes require a constant supply of this energy (Planck, 2021). We can liken these cells to the batteries of our body, our vitality cells, which also play a major role in our mental health, circadian rhythms, gene expression, process of aging, immune function, brain cell function, metabolism and nervous system function (Whitten, 2023). They are spread throughout our body but are most populated around our heart; our energy centre. These cells are located at the hub of the wheel of cellular metabolism and are dependent on nutrient from minerals, vitamins and hormones to remain strong. They are a network of our body that is “…. regulated according to tissue-specific needs, consist of about 1300 proteins, respond to injury, food quality, exercise, environmental pollution, and coordinate the cell danger response (CDR)” (Naviaux, 2019). Mitochondria are both cellular protectors and energy providers. Most key to note is the importance of iron, copper, magnesium, manganese, glutathione, B1, B2, and B3 in mitochondria. If we are deficient in any of these vital nutrients our mitochondrial health deteriorates over time. They are essential strengtheners to the cell’s ability to produce ATP and activate CDR. Not only this, “…mitochondria actively manage, buffer, utilize, and route minerals in order to maintain homeostatic balance and minimize stress levels throughout the cell. Interruptions in mitochondrial mineral handling are associated with metabolic dysfunction, which if prolonged results in increased cellular stress and consequential disease. Thus a more fitting metaphor for mitochondria, is that they function as central processing units for minerals within the cell. This active control of mineral balance by mitochondria is a key part of an optimized metabolism and cellular health” (Kilillea, 2022).

So How Do These Cells Create Our Story?

“Offspring inherit mitochondria — and as a result mitochondrial DNA — from their mother” (Chadwick, 2023). This means the quality of all life processes, mineral saturation, immune system function, inherent sense of energy, sense of vitality and ability to harmonise and balance our minerals all have a foothold in our maternal lineage. When we consider this lineage and the role of mitochondria in the body, we can reappreciate Chuck Palahniuk quote, “…I am the combined effort of everyone I have ever known”. But it goes deeper than this, we are combined efforts of the centuries of generations of women that have come before us. Each single mitochondrion are a microcosm of the lived experiences, environments, and transference of the nutrient health status of each mother before us. Our foundation of energy, vitality and health are rooted in the strength or erosion of the mitochondria health.


In other words, our maternal line can be seen as the stewards of hereditary vitality, and the course of each life is responsible for building the terrain of cellular cohesion and harmony for future generations. It is a link to our past and our futures all colliding within your presence on the planet.

The National Genome Research Institute explain that “…because you get all of your mitochondria from your mother, they can be used to track your ancestry way back through your mother's lineage by looking at what's called your "mitochondrial haplogroup”” (Chadwick, 2023). A haplogroup is made up of hundreds of generations of women who all share the same line of mitochondrial DNA. Each person’s life experience stamped onto the matrix of mineral information this lineage holds. “If every person living today could trace his or her maternal line back over thousands of generations, all of our lines would meet at the matrilineage of women who lived in eastern Africa between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago…The story of your maternal line begins with her” (23andme, 2023).


It's More Than Vitamins and Minerals

Let’s expand this concept of DNA lineage. When we consider mitochondria on a fractal scale, we begin to see how, not only our energy and mineral levels are influenced by the stories - lived experiences and health status - written by the lives of the women before us, but we can also begin to uncover the impressionist ideas of DNA. Nineteenth century Paris pioneered the artistic impressionist movement, where painters ventured outside of their studios and began to see value in the personal impression of real-life or ‘ordinary’ situations. “Significant to the Impressionists was an interest in the way in which the human mind processes what it sees. When we look at a landscape, or a crowd of people, we do not instantly see every face, or leaf in detailed focus, but as a mass of colour and light. Impressionist painters tried to express this experience” (National Gallery, 2023). In the same vein, science has seen similar value in the personal impression of DNA expression through Epigenetics. “During development, the DNA that makes up our genes accumulates chemical marks that determine how much or little of the gene is expressed. This collection of chemical marks is known as the “epigenome”. The different experiences children have, rearrange those chemical marks. This explains why genetically identical twins can exhibit different behaviors, skills, health and achievement” (Centre On The Developing Child: Harvard University, 2023).


Although the epigenome is a flexible model of DNA expression, it aims to answer the questions of how our lived experiences create hereditary impressions. Another way to understand this is the model of intergenerational trauma. Many researchers and psychologists have observed through studies, that the offspring of mother’s that were exposed to trauma had much higher rates of PTSD, even if the traumatic events did not happen within the offspring’s life (Youseff et al, 2018). In other words, the offspring created an impression of their reality that had roots in the trauma experienced outside of their lifetime by their biological mothers. They were born with a set of 'glasses' on which filtered their lived experiences. This does not mean we are beholden to these glasses and with the right support and healing we can take off the glasses that we no longer want to wear. However, epigenetics and trauma studies help us to understand the influence of our genes when setting the foundations for an individual's impression of experience. This experience is then imprinted onto DNA in return, and passed on to our offspring as their foundation. Thus, it can be deduced that DNA has a capacity for communicating the impression of lived experiences of those who came before us, not just setting the terrain for our biochemistry and vitality.


The Fractal Lineage

It is clear to see that the stories of our lineage live within our cells whether this is biochemically, minerally or through our impressions, and interestingly we can see this mirrored in nature through the existence of fractals. Fractals are nature’s codes, made up of simple geometry to create infinite and complex structures that often spiral. Much like the self-similar shape of DNA. As you magnify a fractal shape, more information, or shapes, reveal themselves in the structure of the whole such as a leaf or tree...or a mitchondrial haplogroup. These codes are vital to the carrying and storing of information of frequency on an incorporeal level, and organism functioning on a corporeal level. Studies on the biological implications of fractals have suggested “….fractal dynamics may be of functional utility in central nervous system cognitive processes” (King, 1991), among other systems and neural processes. When discussing the transference of information through fractals “information is stored in space, not in matter, and is communicated to matter in energy frequency, thus matter takes on the form of the conscious intelligence of energy, which is the matrix of matter” (Melendy, 2023). What this suggests is further thinking into how our mitochondria have even deeper ties to stories through cellular frequency.


Each mitochondrion emits a frequency or charge which has a direct impact on every other cell in the body, carrying information between the generational line and the present being. The electromagnetic frequency of a cell is in direct communication with the impressions of reality, inner narratives, habits and choices of the past and present. In the same light, epigenetics create different expressions of DNA information based on the lived experiences of an individual, it functions as a corporeal manifestation of the fractal matrix of matter. It is not a huge leap to connect the repeating, self-similar patterning of nature, as a mirror of the interaction of the matrilineage of DNA within our body.


So let’s bring this together. Epigenetics tells the corporeal story of the individual, creating a finely tuned code of an individual’s impression of the human experience. This in turn gets imprinted onto DNA such as the mitochondria. This is seen through our sense of vitality, mineral and nutrient balance, and ability to stave off chronic disease. Mitochondria hold the maternal foundation of this story through the imprints of both the health status and lived experiences of each mother in the matrilineage. “The mitochondria are especially susceptible to nutrient deficiencies, environmental toxins, and oxidative damage…factors associated with increased mitochondrial damage: oxidants leaked while ATP is produced, accumulated oxidative damage to mtDNA, toxic metals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), many prescription drugs, alcohol…” (Pizzorno, 2014). The behaviours and habits we nurture in our lives set the tone for the mitochondria of generations before us with the support of epigenetics, and generations to come due to the hereditary nature of DNA. However, the human experience goes beyond just behaviour and habits. DNA also has a fractal ability with the energetic transference of information through DNA lineage. All these factors come together to create a story that is uniquely evolving with every new generation that has been unfurling for centuries. We are the combined efforts of every mother who has come before us and we carry the foundations for every mother after us. We tell stories of identity with each passing moment and each passing thought, adding our own interpretation to them with every new phase, experience and choice we make.


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