Last Summer, in morning ritual with 50+ women, atop a quartz filled mountain, guided by sister-artist, Pooja Prema, I reached back through time and touched the hands and hearts of my last happy ancestors. They were surrounded by green, laughing & dancing, living directly with the Earth, and reminded me of Hobbits so much I actually laughed out loud.
On the next evening, the last night of
Wild Woman Fest ’19, 170 women came together, under the guidance of sister-storyteller, Danielle Dulsky, to remember that the etymology of the word revolution tells a story about
going back.
In that liminal Ritual space, we were asked to imagine 9 generations into the future. What came to me was a vision, not unlike the one of my last happy ancestors: I saw smiling colorful young people surrounded by green, working together, with the help of technology, to heal the planet & sustain their communities. There was no clutter in the vision, just a beautiful simplicity. I named the vision of this distant future the only thing I could: Green Joy.
I cannot possibly explain the depths to which the intimate connection with distant ancestors & distant descendants has been working on me these last nearly 5 months. And I know I am not alone.
Such is the power of Ritual.
I since, have followed the bread crumbs of my curiosity & messages (from inside & out) and wandered into research and contemplation of a long view of human history, which spans approximately 200,000 years.
Who were my last happy ancestors & how did they live?
I have been trying to wrap my mind and my heart around the fact that for the large majority of human history, appr. 190,000 years, we humans (no matter where on the planet our ancestors are from) lived in small hunter-gatherer tribes, who depended on connection to one another & to the natural world for survival.
I’ve been whispering to myself, 90 percent of our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. 90%!
It feels very important to remember that we humans evolved in that very specific way of life.
And now for a tiny part of human history, only the last 10,000 years, we transitioned to adopting the concept of land-ownership & the practice of agriculture which brought about the domestication of plants and animals and I do believe, ourselves. Then just a couple of hundred years ago came Industrial Age. Like so many modern humans, I know a lot about the last few thousand years because that is what I was taught in history classes & text books for the entirety of my education.
When we zoom out to see the long view, that recent history (which I have been thinking about as THE history) is but a blink of an eye.
I’m sure many of you reading are much smarter than I and have been thinking about this for a long time, but just in case, I wanted to say out loud: When I dream into the future, I can no longer do so without reaching my hand and my heart toward the majority of my ancestors.
In his latest book, Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress, Christopher Ryan, Ph.D, helped me to understand more about how hunter-gather tribes lived, citing both anthropological & archeological evidence. For instance, I was both shocked and profoundly comforted when I learned that in most hunter-gatherer tribes around the world, for most of human history, women (and children) had autonomy and equal rights. So this thing of owning women & oppressing them comes out of very recent history. It is not natural.
Going forward with wisdom requires reaching back to our roots.
Research & Ritual, Research & Ritual, Research & Ritual.
As you, wild women, vision for the future, do not let the foolishness & ignorance of this moment’s powerful few knock your light out. You are part of the revolution in consciousness & being that is happening now.
Keep yourself buoyant with Ritual & Research.
Keep zooming out & digging in for the understanding. Keep trusting what your heart sees & feels, even if it appears in an invisible form.
Focus on what is beautiful and healing and bubbling with hope.
Keep visioning what could be in many, many, many, generation to come & let that vision guide your actions, thoughts & speech.
And do remember, you are not alone. At any moment you can reach out your hands and heart to the great family, past-present-future.
We belong to each other and that is a powerful thing.
Your Turn
Do you have a prayer or a vision for 9 generations into the future?
Howl it into the ethers in the comments below!
1st Full Moon of the Decade HOOOWWWLLL,
Chris
P.s – Please join me for
Wild Woman School (Online, Next Monday, January 13th) if you want to connect deeply to the wisdom past and hope for the future through Ritual, Meditation & Spiritual Community. Can’t wait!
I luff ya! and I LOVE this. Thank you, always.
Thanks, beauty! Love you too.
This is so timely and beautifully written Chris. I just scheduled my first ancestral healing session and then your email arrived, so this has landed very powerfully on me. Thank you for sharing this.
Wow, Angela. Hope the session is beautiful. Much love, C
GRACIAS CHRIS! Your words have come to me in a very special time. Thank you! Thank you! Ritual and research. I will never forget that.
De nada, Cecilia! I’m so glad to help. Love, C
Thank you so much for this encouragement, I often feel the same way about the simple future and that we are destined to go back to the land, back into nature and connect again with the insight that technology has taught us, that we are actually all very connected and that the world in an ever increasingly small place. I am HOOOWWLLLLING with you this full moon eclipse, and sending prayers for nourishment for all of the people, plants and animals of this earth and cosmos.
Blessed be wild sister!
Jennifer
Hooowwwllll! So glad to hear we are seeing/feeling similar visions for the future, Jennifer!