You Are the Living Hope of Your Ancestors
Reweaving Ourselves Back into the Web of Life
Each year the Spring Equinox (March 20th) marks a profound turning in the cycle of life. It is the moment when night and day come into balance, when the long inward, underground months of Winter begin to release their stored energy into visible growth above ground.
The Spring Equinox, the moment when night and day are balanced, was felt as a threshold and was celebrated as one. It is the time when Spring suddenly surges forward as the green bursts forth. All Winter long the work has been happening below the surface. Roots gather the energy needed for Spring emergence. Seeds gather the magic of Winter needed to sprout. Water held in snow melts and seeps into the ground and runs along swelling streams. The Equinox marks the moment when that hidden work begins to show itself.
We see balance everywhere at this turning. Night and day, below and above, dark and light. For humans, we experience inner life and outer life, and we are the result of the Ancestors that came before us just as we influence those that will come after. The ineffable quality that has been carried through generations gathers and stores, waiting for the moment it can emerge into form. The energy that was stored through the Winter begins to move up and out again in the plant world. In the language of Chinese medicine, the Winter/Water phase and the wisdom it carries transform into the Spring/Wood phase and brings with it hope.
Thinking about what our Ancestors knew about hope as it relates to Spring, I imagine that as the willows changed color, as maple buds began to swell, and birds started to sing again, hope would have risen in their hearts. This time of year often was the hungry season. Food stores from the Fall might have been nearly gone or spoiled. Winter could have been long and difficult, and loved ones and livestock may have been lost to illness. The return of green things, the melting of snow, and the possibility of finding food again without wading through deep drifts would have brought enormous relief.
For us today things are very different. We live with grocery stores that provide food year-round, and with global markets it is always blueberry season somewhere. Modern medicine also protects us from illnesses that once impacted the rhythms of life and death for our Ancestors. These advances have brought enormous benefits, yet they have also removed us from knowing ourselves to be part of nature’s cycles. We have lost our somatic connection to the Earth and her rhythms. Because our survival is no longer tied so visibly to the turning of the seasons, many of us have slowly forgotten something our Ancestors knew in their bones: that we are not separate from the living world. We are Earth in human form and subject to all the laws of nature that govern Creation.
Our Ancestors lived in close relationship with the cycles of sun and moon. The movement of the seasons, the solstices and equinoxes, and the rhythm of the lunar cycles marked time and directed daily life and planting cycles. There were no paper calendars and no clocks measuring productivity or work hours. Time was not a man-made construct tied to paid labor. It was something that moved them through the days and season. It was a living relationship with the Earth and the Cosmos they knew themselves to be a part of.
The hunger our Ancestors experienced at this time of year does not completely disappear because we have easy access to food and medicine. It simply moves to another level—hunger at the level of the soul. Many people today feel a deep longing that is difficult to articulate. A sense that something essential has been lost or forgotten. A sense that the way we live as a culture is no longer aligned with the deeper rhythms of life. That is because it is true. Our culture is no longer aligned with the deeper rhythms of life.
Our Ancestors lived within the great web of life. They knew themselves to be part of the land, the seasons, the animals, the waters, and the unseen spiritual forces that animate the world. Their ceremonies, their calendars, and their daily lives reflected this relationship. Over time much of that relationship was lost as European societies organized themselves around productivity, industry, and clock time, all systems that gradually separated us from the living Earth. Yet the longing to belong to that web has never disappeared. It is part of what it is to be human and it is our birthright.
In this moment of history many people sense that we have crossed a threshold. The systems and assumptions that shaped the world we inherited are rapidly collapsing. At the same time something new is struggling to be born. We are living between eras. A liminal time where the old ways no longer support life and the new ways haven’t fully arrived yet. This can feel deeply unsettling, and frightening, but it is also the place where emergence happens.
Emergence is the moment when something that has been forming quietly beneath the surface begins to take shape in the visible world. Just as the first crocuses push upward through the frozen soil in Spring, new ways of being human are beginning to emerge in our time. Part of that emergence is remembering our humanity at the level of the soul so that we can be rewoven into the web of life.
This reweaving is literally reweaving the spiritual energy of humanity with the spiritual energy of the Earth, and it is essential for the future of life on this planet. The new era that is struggling to be born requires humans who remember how to live as co-creators with the living spiritual being that is Earth, rather than separate from and above the laws of Creation. Yet this reweaving is also deeply personal. For many of us, reconnecting with the rhythms of the Earth and the deeper current of Spirit is what allows our own lives to feel whole and meaningful. It is how we stay oriented and grounded in these dark and uncertain times.
You are the result of seeds your Ancestors planted through millennia. In your lineage there are thousands of people who lived before you. This can be your literal bloodline but includes those who deeply influenced you and your relatives. They could be teachers, mentors, spiritual teachers, friends, and other beloveds. All of that energy is behind the miracle that is you. Among this expanded Ancestor pool were people who were wise, resilient, loving, and deeply connected to the living world. These are the Ancestors we can call upon now. The ones who knew that for Life to flourish, your life must flourish. The ones who understood their place within the great web of Creation.
At the Spring Equinox it can be powerful to imagine the hope our Ancestors might have felt as Winter loosened its grip. The swelling of buds, the sound of birds returning, the first green shoots pushing through the soil. These were signs that life would continue. We still experience those signs today, and they can be the threads that connect us to them, if we bring our consciousness to them. The birds you hear sing are the same birds your Ancestors heard sing. The trickling snowmelt and the smell of damp earth can become an energetic phone line to the people in your lineage who knew how to live in relationship with the living world around them. They guide us from the Otherworld in the same way that the unseen underground work of Winter emerges as new life in Spring. We are the emerging life of that unseen work, created, guided, and energized by forces we cannot see, which include our Ancestors.
Enjoy this meditation journey at the equinox to your ancestors here
We may not yet know exactly what the full flourishing of our lives will look like, especially amidst the current chaos. We can know that reawakening our connection to the unseen worlds is essential for the energies of Creation to move through us. Only by rooting ourselves in spirit can humanity be a part of the world that is emerging.
As the Equinox arrives, we can listen for the quiet signs of emergence from the other world just as we watch for the first snow drops. The small longings. The unexpected synchronicities. Opportunities to do something new that grabs your interest. The subtle movements of Life asking to grow through you. These are the first green shoots of the future.
In listening for how I am meant to participate in this time of emergence, I have felt called to invite a small circle of companions willing to walk together through the turning of the seasons. My hope is that most of us will be able to attend all four gatherings, although realistically that isn’t always possible.
The Emergence series is an invitation to gather at the seasonal thresholds throughout the year. Together we will realign ourselves with the rhythms of Heaven and Earth through ritual, meditation, energy healing, and connection with the spirits of the land.
Details on the Emergence Retreat Series coming up May 2nd here
We won’t heal the world in a day, but we can take a day for healing ourselves, and that is a start. This is a day for somatic reconnection to the Great Web of Life. To nourish our souls so that we can remain steady in a time of great change. To listen for what is wanting to be born through us as individuals and as a community.
When humans gather in this way, something important happens. Our individual longings begin to weave together. The wisdom of the Ancestors becomes more accessible. The future begins to take shape through our shared presence.
If you feel this same stirring in your own heart, you are warmly invited to join us for the Beltane gathering, May 2nd at Avena Botanicals in Rockport, Maine.