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Kinomagewapkong ~ The Teaching Rocks

5/17/2020

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PEGI EYERS

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Painting © Andres Paabo
Many diverse peoples now share Turtle Island, and as much as we have roots in Canadian soil, our connection to the land will always be preceded by the much deeper attachments of the original First Nations. Their cultures flourished in a reciprocal relationship with nature for millennia, long before the arrival of Euro-Empire, and evidence of their reverence for the land, both historic and contemporary, continues to surround us today.

The Peterborough Petroglyphs, a sacred site of global importance, is the largest known concentration of Indigenous rock carvings in Canada.  Over a thousand years ago Algonquian-speaking societies that travelled widely throughout the Canadian Shield established this holy place, Kinomagewapkong (The Teaching Rocks) on a worldwide meridian of earth energy, or ley line. 

With the creation of a vast visual library, animals, human figures, spirit beings, shapeshifters and other symbols rich with meaning were depicted on a monumental ridge of crystalline limestone. Red ochre was applied to the carvings, an ancient igneous pigment used for illustration purposes and to consecrate sacred space throughout the Americas.  It is thought that the visual literacy encoded in the carvings communicated tribal myth and memory, individual dreams and visions, cultural teachings and guidance to the First Nations who traversed great distances to this pristine and magical wilderness place.
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Kinomagewapkong (The Teaching Rocks)
It was also a sacred site for ceremonies, petition, prayer and healing, as confirmed by the present-day First Nations who claim cultural meaning and stewardship of the Peterborough Petroglyphs site, now an important location for their spiritual resurgence and cultural reclamation. Ceremonies, vision quests, and other events are held regularly at the site, which continues to be a place of pilgrimage for Indigenous and earth-connected peoples from all over the world.

On the north shore of Stoney Lake, accessible from Peterborough or Havelock, Petroglyphs Provincial Park is open from mid-May to October for day use only. In addition to viewing the petroglyphs and touring the Visitor Centre, there is much to do and explore for the outdoor and nature enthusiast. Hiking trails meander through the surrounding forests, wetlands and rocky ridges, biking is allowed on the park roads, and there are beautiful woodland spaces for picnics and relaxing. Home to many rare species, sightings of different kinds of wildlife and birds are common in this pristine and magical wilderness.

“The Learning Place," the interpretive and educational centre, is an amazing storehouse of videos, information, hands-on activities and exhibits based on Anishnaabe history and culture. You can browse the Park Store, which offers nature-themed gifts, and books on rock art and First Nations culture. A 20-minute film “The Teaching Rocks” is shown daily upon request, and visitors are encouraged to see the film before visiting the petroglyphs site.
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"Messages by Moonlight" mixed-media by Pegi Eyers with permission
One of the few rock art sites in Canada to be designated a National Historic Site, the Indigenous cosmological worldview and spiritual belief system is depicted with images of turtles, birds, snakes, plant life, items of material culture such as tools and boats, both men’s and women’s fertility, sacred geometry and characters important to the oral tradition.

The audible flow of water under the sloping rock indicates this outcropping to be the home of animate earth and water spirits in-situ, and the naturally-occurring fissures in the rock are thought to have been revered as the entrance to these underground springs and lower worlds. Many of these fissures have been enhanced with petroglyph carving and red ochre, such as that of a woman’s womb, breasts and body.  To the ancient ones it was obvious that women, with their regenerative cycles, performed the same functions as the earth, which was the source of all nourishment, protection and procreative power.
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Muzzu-Kummik-Quae
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The large figures on the rock that depict kinship, clans or human/animal fusion, the recurring themes of turtle and snake, the importance of the fertility symbols and the relationship of the images to each other, truly come alive through interpretations and narratives by First Nations elders, scholars and wisdom keepers.  

Stunning in their immediacy and evocative expression, these petroglyph masterworks speak directly to us across time and space. Kinomagewapkong is a mystical place that has deep significance to us today as we renew our connection to the Earth, and as allies to First Nations, recognize their foundational claims to the land. 

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For Petroglyph Provincial Park hours, facilities, directions and other information see >Ontario Parks<

RESOURCE LINK  Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg: This is Our Territory by Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams)

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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The Ecomystic Experience

1/28/2020

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PEGI EYERS ~ Ancient Spirit Rising

If we have had an extraordinary experience, or an event we cannot explain, it is reassuring to know that other people have had the same encounter. Such was the case during the research and writing of my book Ancient Spirit Rising. While delving into all the different ways and means to practice nature spirituality, I came upon evidence for the ecomystic experience common to all people, from different eras and walks of life.  Instead of thinking I was just a freaky little kid, I had been blessed with a transformational awakening, just like the great mystics and literary figures of our time!

I’ll return to that childhood day in a moment, but first, a look at ecomysticism, and how it has blossomed into a wonderful earth-connected spiritual path practiced all over the world.  Ecomysticism is the reclaiming of wild nature as central to our appreciation of the Divine, or however we describe the Great Mystery, and is embodied in our reverence and love for the Earth.     

By experiencing the “wild within” of our own ecology and that of Earth Community, we find that we need no intermediaries, special philosophies or religions to know that the Earth is sacred.  By seeing the wonders of nature up close and having primal experiences in the wild, we develop a spiritual bond to the plants, elements and creatures, and realize a powerful kinship with all life. For millennia, it can be said that ecomysticism was the governing force in Indigenous earth-emergent cultures, that lived in balance and harmony with the land.
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When we are in the wild, we are affected by the blessings of nature whether we are aware of it or not. Our senses are heightened, we find ourselves more focused  and in tune  with our bodies, and are more at peace - happy, blissful even.  Mystical experiences in connection with nature usually occur in solitude, far away from the technology and distractions of modern life.

So generally speaking, what is an ecomystic experience?  There is no simple definition, but when we are in the natural world spontaneous experiences or feelings can happen that leave us speechless and awed, knowing that an exalted power has shaped our lives. Touched by a great vision, awakening, manifestation of divinity,  or epiphany similar to the “kundalini rising” experience in Eastern wisdom traditions, it can be described as the expansion experience well-known to many mystics. The ecomystic experience can lead to great feats of physical endurance,  amazing creativity in works  of art,  unforgettable  memories,  and even  a complete change in one’s own life.   As scholars over the years continue to look at the phenomena, they have found that the initial ecomystic experience most often occurs in childhood, and that is exactly what happened to me. 
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One beautiful autumn day when I was about eight years old, I was standing in my backyard on Mary Street in Orillia, Ontario when everything in that beautiful green space - the plants, flowers, birds, insects, gentle breeze and bright sun - all of a sudden became hyper-alive, glowing and luminous. Vibrating with an immense joy that filled my being with a multi-faceted peace and light, it felt like I was part of the divine radiance of the cosmos. This exalted sensation of being part of the fabric of creation lasted for about three radiant hours, before fading blissfully away. Even today this glowing encounter is hard to describe in words, yet I do know that what I saw, felt and experienced that day connected me to the Great Mystery for all time. It also started a pattern in my life, whereby I have experienced countless times of incredible happiness in the deep forest, walking along the river, ambling beside the farmer’s fields, floating in the lake or hiking the trails. So my own definition of transcendence, the heart of my own spiritual journey and contemporary practice, has always originated from, and led back to, the natural world.
 
There are countless examples of those having transcendent experiences in nature both at the formative time of childhood or later in life. These ecstatic moments of rapture remain deeply embedded in our psyches, and can inform our experiences, creativity and goals as we mature and grow.  In the western tradition, the well-known ecomystic Henry David Thoreau embraced wildness with his whole being, and became a “transcendentalist of simplicity and roughness.”  

The Irish writer, mystic and clairvoyant George Russell received dazzling insights into the “memory of the Earth” which he tuned into at will on hillsides outside of Dublin, and at sand dunes by the sea.  At these liminal sites, revelations of the "ancient places and peoples"  were made known to him.
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Nobel prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore also believed in the earth-based unity of spiritual truth, and spent his life observing the human experience and its relation to the Divine. His explorations and spiritual enlightenment began in childhood when he entered a realm of cosmic consciousness in close proximity to the natural fairyland of trees and gardens in his own backyard. He tells us that he  “had been blessed with that sense of wonder which gives a child his right to enter the treasure-house of mystery in the heart of existence.”

British Druid Emma Restall Orr attributes the early beginnings of her life-long spiritual quest to the transcendence of a childhood awakening, also at age eight, to divinity, wholeness and peace. She tells us that she “was lying on a warm stone in rural Spanish sunshine, that  time did not exist, and that everything around me was the wholeness of all that had ever happened in that ancient valley. At eight years old, it was an experience of being completely held in peace and security, to the extent that I recognize my spiritual journey to be a seeking to re-create  that exceptional feeling.”  

As we can see from these narratives, nature spirituality can give us ecstatic experiences, and the ability to see into the heart of things that really matter. We form a deeper understanding of ourselves, our purpose and our connection to the Great Mystery. Reclaiming nature as a mystical mirror of ourselves, and allowing ourselves to have adventures in green spaces are the blessings of ecomystic practice that can assist us in the rewilding of our souls.  Our connection to nature has withered over the generations, but there is an ancestral memory in all of us that, if given the opportunity, can renew our kinship to the Circle of All Life. And, as a powerful expression of sacred balance, Ecomysticism can renew humanity’s spiritual connection to nature and evoke true environmental healing.
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ECOMYSTICISM ~ RESOURCES
Carl von Essen, Ecomysticism: The Profound Experience of Nature as Spiritual Guide, Bear & Company, 2010
 
Emerson on Thoreau quoted in Ecomysticism: The Profound Experience of Nature as Spiritual Guide, by Carl von Essen, Bear & Company, 2010
 
George William Russell, The Candle of Vision, New Hyde Park,
University Books, 1965
 
Amiya Chakravarty (editor), A Tagore Reader, Macmillan Company, 1961
 
Emma Restall Orr, “Pagan Ecology: On Our Perception of Nature, Ancestry, and Home,” The Wanton Green: Contemporary Pagan Writings on Place, Mandrake, 2012
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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press 
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Controversies in the Ancestral Arts

1/4/2020

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PEGI EYERS ~ Ancient Spirit Rising

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image © Meryl McMaster
Exciting new movements to recover ancestral wisdom are happening today, with rejuvenated paths reaching back in time, or forward into the realm of new creations and collaborations. Accessing our direct Ancestors is one option, and yet strict adherence to ethnicity can be challenging, if not impossible, in today’s polyglot world. Historically, humans evolved in closely-connected societies that allowed intermingling with other groups, or adaptations to new and different groups, with the boundaries of the “tribe” being somewhat permeable, and focused on kinship and loyalty rather than skin color or other variations. Today, it may be impossible to re-create one’s own ancestral wisdom in pure form, as our genealogy is a weaving of diversity, and our bloodlines far too mixed. Therefore it cannot be suggested or implied that ethnicity is the complete determining factor for one’s spiritual practice or re-indigenization, in some weird new form of spiritual racial profiling, eugenics, or “biological determinism!”
 
Multicultural family lines are far more common than not, and it is more about being in alignment with self, making conscious choices, and perhaps factoring in the physical make-up of our being and the building blocks of our family tree, that may point to the treasures of an Indigenous Knowledge/European Indigenous Knowledge system (IK/EIK) just waiting to be discovered. Becoming part of a specific ancestral group can give us a firm foundation, and a place to turn to for spiritual guidance, cultural values and familial connection.  If we can pinpoint a path of specific ancestral connection, why not embrace the opportunity? If we are blessed with knowing the details of our heritage, how beautiful and how honoring of ourselves and our Ancestors to re-create our specific traditional roots to the best of our ability!

Cultural diversity is an honorable goal, and to move away from the commodified Pagan and New Age expressions that are not connected to any specific IK/EIK or spiritual tradition. Spirituality with a moral code means restraint and discernment, and the integrity of focus. Since the beginning, Pagan and New Age texts have offered Ancient Ways cobbled together from diverse cultural traditions, and describe practices that are mostly Celtic in origin without identifying the specific source.  Both the assumed default of "Celtic Studies for everyone" and the datamining of the “exotic other” (cultural appropriation) are offensive approaches, when authenticity is so close to hand.  Also, claiming Ancestors from any culture worldwide is problematic, as past-life regressions, experiences and visions may be valid, but appear indulgent as unverified personal gnosis (UPG).  For example, if you have heard the ancestors of the Lakota “calling you,” and consider yourself one of the  Lakota “people,”  you really  have to  wonder  if  the same  ancestors also  informed  the  Lakota  that you are part of their culture? (LOL) Or if you are convinced that your past life as Egyptian, Cherokee, Huichol or Vodun give you special insights, or the entitlement to claim ancestors from those traditions, do you really need to “go public?”  Perhaps it is a private matter best understood over time, as you continue to explore the continuum of your personal mythology. 
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In a sad state of affairs, many contemporary Pagans, Neo-Pagans, Druids, Reconstructionists, Ásatrú and Heathens have conflated ancestral alignment and the preservation of cultural values with isolationism, ethnic nationalism, genealogical extremism,  “religious apartheid,”  “racialist affiliation”  and/or the perpetuation  of racism. However, beyond the white supremacists who continue with their criminal xenophobia and are easily spotted, the modern movement to retrieve and practice specific ancestral traditions makes absolutely no claim to an ethnic hierarchy, separatism, or superiority over others, but rather promotes tolerance, peaceful co-existence and cultural recovery for all peoples. This particular conversation would not even be happening if white Pagans (the descendants of the Settler Society) found the value in restoring what Empire has taken away, or had unbroken connectivity with their ancestors from living in an animist universe, but our identities have been normalized as nationalistic, über-rational, hypermodern and consumer-driven pastiches.

Instead of celebrating our ethnocultural roots, the separatist notion of “racial pride” has become so warped by Eurocentric white supremacy in recent times, that many modern white folks now consider cultural or ethnic integrity to be taboo (for white folks, anyway).  In a new twist deriving from the toxicity of racism, we now have white people attacking other white people (the oppressor) without any people of color (the oppressed) even entering the conversation!
 
Meanwhile the fear is very real that the perverse “racial purity” agenda of the white nationalists, white supremacists, eugenicists and nazi cults could rise again, and we have to be on guard, but ethnicity aligned with cultural traditions is the way humanity has been self-organized for millennia all over the world, long before the fabrications of German occultism, “racial science,” or the invention of white superiority.  When we look to the colonizer/colonized power imbalance that is our legacy, and the reality in the Americas today, racist or anti-racist white folks who are in no danger of dying out from genocidal attack simply sound ludicrous when making the rules for cultural preservation. The psychoses of Eurocentrism, White Superiority and Ethnic Hierarchy (“racial” stratification) are the only issues that need to be called out and addressed, not the reclaiming, celebrating or practicing of a specific pre-colonial earth-rooted ethnoculture by any individual or community.
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image © Meryl McMaster
The same policies of the patriarchal Eurocentric elite who created Empire continue to practice “epistemicide”[1] all over the world, and to destroy ethnic and cultural cohesion in favor of the default of global capitalism. Harmonizing with our own unique earth-rooted ancestors and ancestral group, and recovering a wide variety of human societies in the process, is a blow against this hegemony.  Cultural diversity is natural to the planet, not homogeneity, and you are deluding yourself if you think you can have it both ways, to be a “universalist” while at the same time bemoaning the worldwide loss of human biodiversity  and IK/EIK systems.

In marked contrast to other cultures worldwide, it is only western society that is in complete denial that spiritual practice is usually determined by ethnicity.  Displaced Europeans and colonized diasporans who have had their traditions stripped from them now consider homogeneity to be the “norm,” and have forgotten what it is like to have one’s ethnicity entwined with cultural practice and spiritual expression. Localized ethnic or kinship groups have lost their value, and the white privilege of historical amnesia has given rise to the notion that it is only the exotic “other” who indulges in these kind of antiquations.

Additional factors that have led to the fallacy that alignment with ancestry equals “ethnic racism” or “spiritual apartheid,” is the prevalence of the generic monomyth principle;  the many popularized versions of the "rainbow nation," "one tribe" and universalist we are all one memes; and conflating the newly-found pan-human 99% identical genome with the idea that cultural diversity is outdated  and  irrelevant. And yet the cursory  New Age understanding of  “One Tribe” is not  true IK  or EIK, no matter how much we pretend the traditions are our own, and when we look to Indigenous nations worldwide, we see that their identity is linked to place and kinship group, and Indigenous people know exactly who they are.  It is only members of the entitled white majority who have unlimited choices in superficial lifestyle and spiritual practice from any IK/EIK or ancestors we desire from any tradition, who actually reinforce the goal of Empire, which is to normalize “multicultural” globalization with white homogeneity as the default.

Those in Pagan, Neo-Pagan, New Age, Reconstructionist, Ásatrú and Heathen circles who critique the practices of cultural recovery as aligned with ancestry should be more concerned with those in their own eclectic communities who openly claim a imaginary or UPG-derived “soul connection” to ancestors in a cultural group or ethnicity not their own, as this unsubstantiated behavior can be interpreted in many cases to be racism perpetuated by an oblivious member of the dominant society.  And all the time spent perpetuating false views of what racism “is and is not” should be resolved, and instead of ridiculous debates involving “white on white” racism, white spiritual seekers should invest in the actual pro-active deconstruction of white superiority, and dismantling the roots of the genuine racism that continues to be directed at BIPOC in the Americas today. 
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"Caitlin" photography by Raina Kirn
“The world is populated with people who have lost their seeds.  They are not bad or useless people, but they are not real until they refind their seeds……in some small, never-looked-at-place in the forgotten wilderness of their souls, their Indigenous seeds of culture and lifeways live.”[2]

White privilege has given us automatic access to the intellectual and spiritual property of any culture we choose, but instead of empowering us, I would argue that in the ignorance of our own cultural practices and the assumption of the “other” we are the most bereft of all. The ethics of reclaiming genuine EIK from our own ancestral tradition(s) will automatically gain respect from those already rooted in ancient earth-honoring culture(s), forming both an actual and metaphysical membership in the Sacred Circle of worldwide indigeneity.  Even if you know of only one ethnic group in your composition, you can express elements of that with authentic passion. For those who are aware of their family tree it is incredibly exciting to delve into ancient tribal connections, and unique combinations are going to look quite normal, for instance a mix of Irish and Hawaiian EIK/IK!

Ultimately, knowledge is always shifting and changing, but each human being worldwide has one or more root culture(s) with earth-connected aspects that can be embraced. Working on your bond with nature in the landscape where you are living will validate your IK or EIK, and more importantly, evoke your eco-activism and the protection of the land.  As the ravages of Empire play out, cultural recovery may become our goal again in the future (!) - and we may find ourselves by choice or necessity living in small localized kinship groups once again, looking to our own ancestral traditions for a template to survival.  If nothing else, listening to what the Earth is telling us in our ethnocultural practice, plus embodying the elements of the ancestral traditions that sing to our soul, is to experience the joy that comes from authentic living.

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Taking flight across the centuries by visiting the homelands of your ancestors may spark more of a deep connection to place and the flourishing of your eco-identity than you ever imagined. When you are rapt with wonder  as  you  view  the  mountains on your  way  to  the  Isle of  Skye and never want to  leave that  place[3]  or when  you thrill to  the  sight of  upright  stone circles, or find you are spellbound by the music of the harp, pipes or bodhrán, or have a sense of being “at home” when you study Welsh or Irish mythological cycles, or have been compelled to create a Green Man mask without quite knowing why, then you have found your place in creation. When you are touched by the truth of your ancestral soul, you will know!
NOTES
[1] Colonial dispossession is known as “epistemicide,” or the killing of knowledge systems (epistemologies).
[2] Martin Pretchel, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants, Keeping the Seeds Alive,  North Atlantic Books, 2012
[3] This was the exact experience of John McLeod, who travelled from his home in America to Scotland, and later found out he had deep ancestral connections to the Isle of Skye. James Hunter, Scottish Exodus: Travels Among a Worldwide Clan, Mainstream Publishing, 2007
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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press   
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The Sacred Balance

11/22/2019

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PEGI EYERS

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Moving into Elderhood can be an exciting time.  I’m finding that volumes of learning, research and life experience (all those decades~!) are fitting together with a clarity that evaded me before.  Each stage of life brings extraordinary gifts, but pausing at the plateau of “growing old” can be rich with appreciation. (Breathe~!  Stay humble, and don’t forget to stretch.) Cutting through the distractions and materialism of modern life, I’ve been blessed with direct transmissions from the land, in forms that fit into categories of enchantivism (weaving together our personal mythologies with the magic of the wild), animism, ecopsychology, ancient knowing and plant spirit medicine. Next to the land itself, teachings from Indigenous Elders, knowledge holders, Wise Souls and activists have been my greatest mentors and mentors.
 
Whether our primary work is in social justice, direct action, spiritual growth, wilderness quests, ceremony, rites of passage or connecting to the Ancestors, the threads of right relationship can be woven into everything we do.  Starting with our own minds and hearts, our mission is to unpack what doesn’t really belong to us, which are those thoughts and behaviors we have accumulated from exposure to Euro-Empire. Establishing right relationship with ourselves and healing our inner process (our “neurodecolonization”) can be an incredible challenge, when we are still navigating through the white hetero-patriarchal capitalist overculture.  We have been separated from the external world, there are strict boundaries around the way we think, feel and sense, and with the emphasis on the “head” rather than the heart, our knowledge is supposed to come from intellectual prowess and cognitive ability.  Too much thinking!  We have been taught to ignore our intuition, and the incredible amount of wisdom we receive from our own bodies.

To aid us with our inner transformation, Indigenous Knowledge (IK) from diverse sources teach us other important ways of knowing that have been left out of the equation. The Anlo-Ewe of Africa hold a concept of seselelame,[1] or wisdom “perceived through the sensations of the body.”   A wide range of psychic, intuitive, kinesthetic, sexual and emotional sensations & feelings are all examples of seselelame.  So much of what we know about the world can be felt in the inner realms, and understood by internal knowing~!  There are no boundaries between the self and nature in Indigenous and pre-colonial worldviews, and this vital intra-connection is on the rise again today.   We are channels for energy, and we have always been in the flow!
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As informed by the timeless and multicultural model of the “medicine wheel,” I have noticed that we move through the roles of Warrior, Visionary, Healer and Teacher on a regular basis.[2] In the north, the warrior is the leader, where we take a stand and engage with the issues that matter; in the east, we live in our authenticity and express our truth as visionaries and seers;  in the south we pay attention to the knowledge of our heart for the benefit of all beings;  and finally in the west, we are open to both spontaneity and wisdom, and pass these teachings and epiphanies on to others. Each direction has a special energy that is integral to the whole, and as we move through the cycle we continue to refine the aspects of each role. 
 
Also sourced from the “medicine wheel” or “four directions” framework found in both ancient and modern societies, assigning aspects of the human experience to the four quarters, or quadrants, is an important foundation we can embrace as a life-long practice.  Watching the youth of today struggle, and folks of all ages and demographics experience trauma, distress and alienation, it is empowering to know that balance, or right relationship, can be achieved by understanding the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual aspects of self.   

Shifting or weaving through the four quadrants is not an exact discipline - sometimes circumstances are beyond our control - and yet it is comforting to know that other potentials and possibilities exist.  When we find ourselves dwelling too long in emotional territory, we can try to use our critical thinking skills and sort out the variables, and when we are over-intellectualizing, we can pause for bodily regimes and pleasures.  With time and skill, we may find that some of our thoughts or feelings may not be mental or emotional disturbances at all, but prompts from our own inner mystic, or the innate spiritual potential for myth, magic and meaning we all hold.  Our “higher selves” guide our heart, our heart is informed by our mind and vice versa, and the natural sensate wisdom of our bodies is our unfailing guide.  
 
As we look beyond our own empowerment and healing, we can focus on moving from the “Me” to the “We” - and look to right relationship and sacred balance with our kinship groups and the Ancestors. We have ancient models to follow, and yet it is simplistic to suggest we can renounce ourselves completely as modern people~! We are moving both forward and back, and as we consider the beauty and timelessness of pre-colonial worldviews, many themes and lifeways[3] can be encouraged and embraced, both for ourselves and Earth Community. 
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The Earth Our Mother
The world is a place of sacred mystery, and our relationship with the world is rooted in a profound respect for the land and all life.  Humans are not above creation but part of it, and we flourish within the boundaries of the Sacred Circle. We are informed by the land and our bonds to a particular landscape, and in this animist universe we are connected to the plants, creatures, elements and earth spirits that dwell there.  The love of the land and our community is the only true wealth we have - we are part of the Earth and the Earth is part of us.
 
Patterns of Ancestral Mind
By reclaiming our place within (not above) Earth Community we organically find ourselves practicing a cyclical thinking that is based on spirit connectivity, natural processes, creativity and peace, rather than singularity, ownership or dominance. When we are physically grounded and embodied our restless mind fades, and we find ourselves vibrant and present in a field of mindfulness and awareness.  We begin to perceive time as a spiral, and are more connected and empathic with others. Our learning is purely experiential, as we are empowered to acquire knowledge at our own pace in our own way, and overall self-identity is based on our own experience and self-reflection.  Being a part of earth-emergent community allows us to hold an “everyday” sense of mystery, wonder and awe, and all of our intelligences are combined to fulfill our holistic potential as a “true human being.”  With ancestral or ecocentric mind as the foundation, the whole collective is able to integrate self-discovery, wisdom and responsibility.
 
Reciprocity with the Land and Each Other
Our existence is sustained by expressions of gratitude such as ceremony and prayer, as we unconditionally give thanks for all life and the elements that make life possible.  We are in a symbiotic relationship with the Earth, as everything we need to live a good life comes from the land, and our activities are intertwined with the seasons and cycles of nature. When we embody these principles and have respect for all beings through ceremony and prayer, the cosmic balance is upheld and restored, and the survival of the community ongoing. The reciprocity of maintaining good relationships with each other and all beings is a shared collective value, and our Elders and mentors teach us and model to us the virtues of wisdom, bravery, generosity and selflessness that guide us in these interactions.  It is our responsibility to hold the role of our teachers in the highest regard, and to ensure that the generations following us also become Wise Elders, and continue to pass on their values and wisdom.
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Reclaiming and practicing ancient ways of knowing hold great promise for navigating our most difficult passages and life transitions, either alone or with our guides and mentors. Surrounded by narcissism and other forms of infantalization, trained to compete and embrace the “cult of the individual” over the needs of the collective, we continue to be impacted by Empire.  And yet, as modernists, let’s not be too hard on ourselves~!  Learning to relinquish our western thinking and put the “we” ahead of “me” that is at the heart of decolonization is an ongoing (and life-long) process.  By reclaiming our inner life, the wisdom of the body, the magical and the mysterious, ancestor veneration and the wheel of life, we are finding holistic patterns and building earth-rooted identity.  And cultivating right relationship with ourselves and others allows us to join the worldwide circle of ecocentric knowledge traditions, and our “unity in diversity.”   In the end, these are the ethics that will translate into sustainable societies and well-being for all, as we maintain the sacred balance of Earth Community for the generations yet to come.

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NOTES
[1] Kathryn Linn Geurts, Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community, University of California Press, 2002
[2] Angeles Arrien, The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary,  HarperOne, 1993
[3] Pegi Eyers, Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, Stone Circle Press, 2016
This essay originally appeared in "Right Relations" ~ Confluence Journal  Volume III, Issue 4, Winter 2018 published by Youth Passageways.
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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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Stone Circle Press   
 
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Decolonizing the “Bounty of the Land” Narratives

10/26/2019

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Earth Ritual by PEGI EYERS

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Through the lens of shifting baseline syndrome, we take for granted that Turtle Island is divided into grids, and the landscape “norm” is rolling farmland interspersed with streams and woodlands - fecund “green zones” at the corners where property lines meet. GMO crops like wheat, soybeans and corn are grown with ruthless methods of monoculture and industrial machinery, and “livestock” is utterly controlled from birth to the slaughterhouse ride.

And yet the beauty of Earth Community is still a constant, with the perfect blue sky, swirling clouds, wildflowers, towering trees, ancient watersheds, geoforms, and natural species diversity that surround the “family farm.” In the summer of 2019, many elements - both “positive” and “negative” - were part of my ritual honoring of the land, and the creation of a “nature found” mandala on the floor of a 100-year-old semi-collapsed barn – the same type found all over the Americas. 

The beams that built the barn at Stone Circle Farm are from old-growth pines and hemlocks  - a few over 80 feet long - the same trees that covered Turtle Island at the time of contact.  In a couple of short centuries the forests have been over-consumed by Empire, and many species are now on the endangered list. And yet it is actually comforting to know that the predator and prey relationship still reigns supreme, as evidenced by bones found in the outlier pasture where a hapless cow fell to the coyotes - the same pack I hear howling nearby most nights in the darkest hours.
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Earth Mandala ~ Cow Bones, GMO Wheat and Chicory
I have not yet determined if the GMO “franken-wheat” that is so lovely to look at still carries an archetypal plant spirit, but I like to think it's possible. And the purple flowers of the chicory touch my heart, as even the tiniest plant subject to the “necessary” colonial practice of “lawn mowing” will still bloom and flower, in an attempt to re-seed and flourish itself.

What this mandala represents for me, is a poignant reminder of the original elements on Turtle Island that are able to co-exist with the Anglo-Colonial overlay.  But the overall system is totally unsustainable, built on planned obsolescence, and has morphed into the life-threatening reality of climate disaster and massive change. What was the purpose of Settler-Colonialism anyway?  A couple of decades of happiness and wealth?  Living the illusion of a "good life" for the chosen few, before it all collapses into ruin? Just like the poor old barn on the family farm.

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ANCIENT SPIRIT RISING ~
EARTH RITUAL
Earth Art by Pegi Eyers for
Land {Culture} Climate
Hosted by Youth Passageways

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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Stone Circle Press    
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We Live in a Death Culture

10/19/2019

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PEGI EYERS

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Datlamen B.C. Watershed Clearcut, Photo © Garth Lenz
The wilderness is supposed to be a place of unfathomable mystery, rich with the sacred enigmas of life that are precious and unique to this particular planet. Places of refuge, places of inspiration, places of pristine air, swirling moisture, soil and "natura naturans" - places where our hearts open to the love that dwells in the center of all creation. Places that a million other creatures and species call home, and beings that exist on the periphery of our human senses like earth spirits and mythological figures as old as time. Offering endless shades of green and the ancient grounding of earth tones, the wilderness is home to a million forms of cohesive and flourishing lifeforms. Grandparent trees impart their wisdom; the animal rustlings in the understory - large and small - model the values of eternal loyalties to kin; the golden spiral is found in timeless patterns such as the tender shoots of a fern; and the birds fly in mummerations so beautiful we are on fire in the presence of so much joy. Nourishment for body and soul, the wilderness holds us all in a green embrace, and is the only place where we are truly human.

And yet instead of cracking open in the presence of so much love, what does the patriarchal-colonial-capitalist apparatus do? Annihilate the wilderness in an act of ecocide so evil, it's a wonder our species can look each other in the eye. And yet here we are - removed from the land and wondering why we are so unhappy and uneasy - as our wilderness soul-home is obliterated for lumber, paper, and livestock forage. To monetize and destroy, one must hate, and the hatred of nature in the colonized psyche is the most lethal wound the world has ever known. RIGHT NOW as we face climate disaster and massive change, we must stand again in the love and worship of the wilderness. Or Earth Community, (including us) will not survive the ecocide the [so-called] "civilized" mind has created.
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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press   
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Customary Law

10/4/2019

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PEGI EYERS

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“Decolonization is as much a process as a goal. It requires a profound re-centring of Indigenous worldviews in our movements for political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships, and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet.”[1]

Tslagi/Algonquin activist and scholar Robert Lovelace, in conjunction with the Great Lakes Commons Initiative [2] has developed an excellent decolonization framework situated within the landscapes of the Great Lakes, with the mandate to move into an ecological-based society that is in symbiotic interaction with dynamic, living ecosystems. At the beginning of his presentation "The Architecture of a Decolonized Society: Reindigenizing the Self, Community and Environment," [3] Lovelace identifies the embedded racism and unsustainability of corporate capitalism.

Locke, Kant and the other early designers of capitalist theory failed to see any limitations, failed to see the fragility of nature, failed to see that the land and all beings have intrinsic rights, failed to see the consequences of the domestication of labour, and certainly failed to see the side effects of pollution in the economic paradigm they promoted. Our current political boundaries were created to serve a system of colonial settlement, resource extraction and industrial manufacture, and in the decolonization process Lovelace counsels us to pay attention to our local watersheds and biomes above all, and to reconfigure our governance systems to restore ecological balance.

Obviously, we have had enough of capitalism (!) and in these times of challenge and change, we need to study how the language, governance and social relations of Indigenous Knowledge fit perfectly into local ecosystems. Recognizing that a diversity of Indigenous societies are the “norm” within the landscapes of Turtle Island, it is possible to emulate the health and holism of the Indigenous worldview today, and also moving forward into the future. All the aspects of life we need to consider in our rejection of Empire are determined by, or reinforced by, our interaction with the local environment, and the use of energy, food security, diplomacy, trade, defensive boundaries, customary law [4] and the checks and balances of population levels are all physically defined by the existing watersheds and ecotones of our territory.

Adopting an Indigenous worldview means living lighter on the land, and building a society in which the ideal is to “never consume more than can be replenished in a particular ecosystem, and don’t expend more energy than what can be replaced by what is consumed.”[Lovelace]  Setting these physical boundaries in place will naturally give rise to our own unique cultural expressions, rituals, ceremonies, dances, songs, poetry, stories and art, in short, a thriving ecodigenous tradition incorporating elements from our own ancestral traditions as appropriate, and in syncretisation with the local landbase. With our love for the Earth as our common ground anything is possible, and as Robert Lovelace suggests, being Indigenous to place is achieved “when the human and ecosystem activity support and enhance one another.”[Lovelace]


NOTES
[1] Nick Montgomery, “Monstrous Settlers: Zombies, Demons, and Angels,” Cultivating Alternatives to the Dominant Order (blog), 17/01/2013
[2] The Great Lakes Commons Initiative is “an effort to declare and live the Great Lakes as a commons, a protected bioregion and a public trust.” On the Commons www.onthecommons.org
[3] Robert Lovelace (Tslagi/Algonquin), The Architecture of a Decolonized Society: Reindigenizing the Self, Community and Environment, presentation, Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC), Trent University, Peterborough, ON, January 18, 2013
[4] Customary Law is the cornerstone of Indigenous culture(s) and human rights, and legal approaches for the protection of Indigenous Knowledge should be grounded in customary laws and practices. Ideally, customary law should exist next to national legal systems, and the recognition of customary law is key to regulating the use and protection of Traditional Knowledge.

RESOURCES
Customary Law and Traditional Knowledge - WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)   www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_tk_7.pdf
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ANCIENT SPIRIT RISING
Amazon https://amzn.to/2uSbHN7
With 420 pages, full colour, extensive notes, live links and exhaustive references, the PDF Download of Ancient Spirit Rising is “A Compendium for Change!”  
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Earth Love

6/24/2019

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Pegi Eyers

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“The ecological crisis is deepening our love for the Earth. We are being called to love more fully, and to express our love in more powerful, visionary and effective ways.”[1]  Drew Dellinger
 
“The holiest words I’ve ever read or thought or sung or prayed, were praises, praises for the world. And if I die tomorrow may the last words that I know, be praises, praises for the world”[2]   Jennifer Berezan
In times of massive change, our most important task must be to bond with the land, to revere nature again as our Ancestors did, and to see ourselves as part of this thin and fragile biosphere, Our Earth, the source of all life and our spiritual home. The love of the land has always been central to our most cherished dreams and memories, and if we delve far enough below the surface of the modern mechanistic overlay, we will find that Gaia has been patiently waiting for us to return. As Frances Weller says, “We miss the world and the world misses us.”[3]  By interacting with the Earth through our eco-mind and human senses, our hearts naturally open to a space of unconditional love - full of gratitude for nature’s abundance, and for the gift of life itself.  When we experience the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures that are nature’s enchantment, we naturally realign with the fascination and magic of "naturans” - our luxuriant green world, the kingdom of the plant spirits, and the intrinsic harmony of natural law.
                                                   
Of course, in a humancentric society, there is a huge lack of knowledge about the natural world, and the human/nature separation is painfully extreme, leading to callous attitudes and misguided fears.  “We cannot win the battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature - for we will not fight to save what we do not love.”[4] (Stephen Jay Gould)  Educating ourselves on the landforms, plants, trees, creatures and seasonal patterns in our local ecosystem is a life-long undertaking, and in the meantime, there is so much to love in the natural world.

Graceful horizon lines, stalwart trees, soft breezes shaking the seed pods, animal tracks, sinewy snake tracings, endless variations in leaf and stone, patterns in sprout and decay, feathered shade and bird song all speak to the senses, and we can hear the charm and delight of the creatures endlessly calling their names. Are we listening? What are they telling us? When we hear the voices of Earth Community, we become transfixed by the many distinct expressions of beauty, spirit and practicality, and we also learn that Mother Earth is suffering from our disregard and disrespect. If we hold the ethics of care for all life, the best way to restore balance and peace with the Earth is to feel her, know her, listen to her, be open to her gifts, and ultimately, to love Her. Entering the “timeless time”  of ancestral mind is an excellent way to bond with nature, revere nature, and with love, express the earth-honoring ceremonies that align us with The Sacred that dwells in ourselves, all beings and the natural world.
“The earth is boundless love, a profound source of joy – the earth is humankind’s great educator.”  Daisetz Suzuki
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If we don’t experience nature fully, how are we going to love nature, and if we don’t love nature how are we going to respect and protect Her? Love the land! Go out to the natural places, transmit your love to Mother Earth and all the different spirits, elements and creatures, and practice gentleness with yourself and the land. Both the macrocosm and microcosm of Gaia are sentient in countless unique ways, and Her response to your biophilia, reverence and positive energy may surprise you.  As re-earthing, ecomystic and animist practices confirm, nature spirituality can give rise to ecstatic experiences, and the ability to see into the soul of things that matter.  We are but a humble part of Earth Community, and if human beings started to worship the trees, plants, animals, birds, insects and elements as the “supreme divine beings” of the universe, industrial civilization would probably collapse overnight~! To revere the elements, creatures and landforms of nature as sacred and inviolable divinities might be just the turnaround this monotheistic patriarchal system requires.
 
A wonderful practice to adopt is “Earth Blessing” - the recognition that spirit flows through the land, the elements and all beings, that our entire Earth Community is  sacred,  and that each  moment  is a  gift of vitality and joy. The essence of love is found everywhere in nature, and love is the ultimate vibratory field for the plant kingdom, the kinship of the creatures, the nurturing power of the feminine, and elements such as the water. Blessing and being blessed, expressing our wonder and gratitude for nature and the regenerative life force with song, chant, drumming, prayer and reflection, creates an atmosphere of celebration and love between us and the non-human world. By evoking the spiritual realms, and acknowledging the sacred in ourselves and the land, we are expressing a powerful force of unconditional love that empowers all of our connections in Earth Community.    
“Elders, poets and philosophers in all cultures, including our own, have expressed a similar sense of brotherhood or sisterhood, of mutual compassion and common interest with the rest of the living world - a relationship that can only be described as love.  It's source is ‘fellow-feeling’ - the knowledge that we are, like all other forms of life, Children of the Earth and members of the same family.”[5]   David Suzuki
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Our search for belonging and all things external is the result of our rift from nature. Yet we have the capacity to heal from this disconnect, to “be love” and express a daily appreciation for life, for the food that nourishes us, and for the ecotones where we live. The Earth is part of us, linked to us body and soul, and by spending time in nature we become re-rooted in place, and preserve that timeless bond, or spiritual ecology, at the forefront of our lives. Loving the earth means to cherish wild nature above all, and to honour the sacred elements of earth, water, air and fire. To embrace the Great Heart in nature is to locate an ancestral worldview immersed in the land just waiting to be rekindled, and to be enveloped in The Sacred during the seasonal cycles and daily round of our lives.  Nurturing our own hope and positivity is essential, as we return to right relationship with the earth’s sacred body (of which we are a part).
 
Loving the Earth with a fierce devotion may mean that we view the damage being done to nature as attacks on our own family and kinship group. The despair and rage we feel as witnesses to terracide, animal exploitation and the everyday callous disregard for the land can be channelled into creating awareness, resistance efforts, the earth rights movement, and by rejecting the numbing and destructive values of Empire. “Fighting for our survival in the 21st century is less about defeating the  aggression of  an external  enemy than it is about finding new ways to love the land.”[6] (Taiaiake Alfred) By opening our hearts to the Earth in our thoughts, words, actions and cultural life we find sacred purpose in the co-creation of an earth-honoring society, and restore much-needed balance. Our re-enchantment with the natural world is essential for devoting ourselves to eco-activism, environmental healing, earth restoration and rewilding, and the future rests with us!

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 To the woman in the earth,
 Who is my first and ever beloved.
 Whose smiles and rages and storms and weepings
 And tremblings and lashings and eruptions
 And ripenings and witherings and musings
 Are my life, my terror,
 My thought, my wild joy
 And all of beauty I ever want to know.
 Who takes me into her after every journeying,
 Who is my source, my end, and my obsession.
 Paula Gunn Allen

EARTH LOVE is an excerpt from the award-winning book Ancient Spirit Rising:
Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community by Pegi Eyers 
NOTES
[1] Drew Dellinger, “Study Guide,” Occupy Love: Revolution of the Heart, Dir. Velcrow Ripper, Fierce Love Films, 2013  www.occupylove.org
[2] Jennifer Berezan, Praises for the World Song and Chant,  SOCAN/ASCAP, Edge of Wonder Records, 2002   www.edgeofwonder.com
[3] Francis Weller, “Five Gates of Grief,” Robert Bly’s Minnesota Men’s Conference, November 4, 2013 
[4] Stephen Jay Gould, Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History, W. W. Norton & Company, 2010
[5] David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature, Greystone Books, 2007
[6] Taiaiake Alfred, “Opening Words,” Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence and Protection of Indigenous Nations, Leanne Simpson (editor), Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2008
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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press  ​ 
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The Green Burial Movement: In Conversation With Emma Restall Orr

6/17/2019

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Interview by Pegi Eyers

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Sun Rising Natural Burial Ground and Nature Reserve ~ photo © Emma Restall Orr
Emma Restall Orr is a spiritual teacher and priestess. As former head of the international Druid Network, Chief of the Order of the Yew, and Joint Chief of the British Druid Order, she was a spokesperson for British Druidry for several decades and appeared in a wide variety of TV programs, including Pagan's Progress, Secrets of the Stones, Lost Civilizations, The Unexplained and The Real Merlin, among others. In 2004, she founded Honouring the Ancient Dead, an advocacy group working for the respectful treatment of ancient human remains. The group also speaks out regarding the Stonehenge Visitor Centre and other displays that include or interpret ancestral human remains. Her current focus is Sun Rising Natural Burial Ground, part of the growing movement towards natural, woodland and green burial grounds in Britain. Her most recent book, The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind and the Self in Nature was published by Moon Books in 2012. My interview with Emma Restall Orr was conducted via email in 2013.
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Pegi Eyers
You are best known for work in Druidry, but you are now concentrating on another project. How did your work in both Druidry and the repatriation of ancient human remains lead to your interest in the green burial movement, and the opening of Sun Rising Natural Burial Ground and Nature Preserve?

Emma Restall Orr
Sun Rising is an expression of the practical ethics I feel are fundamental to my spirituality, my religion, to my understanding of both Druidry and animism. It can take a lifetime to grasp and hone our ethics, and to work out just how those ethics do indeed play out in every decision that we make, but if we don't make every effort to walk our talk, we are effectively without ethics: our spiritual beliefs are, literally, valueless.

When my fourteen years of full-time motherhood drew to a close, I needed to forge the next step of my life, and the challenge I set myself was to create a project that was as close to 100% ethical as is possible within the heart of our Western culture. This meant creating a viable business that offered something essential, that left behind more of value than it consumed, that was both environmentally and socially sound. Sun Rising is that project. By providing a simple funeral service, I offer families and individuals an affordable, beautiful and very personal alternative to the funeral industry, which is all too often a profiteering racket without genuine care. In our sixteen acres, we are creating a nature reserve within which people can be buried in peace and serenity, in wildflower meadows or with a tree planted on the gravfe. Such a place of peace allows many the courage to die with grace, releasing themselves into its tranquillity. It is a profoundly healing place.

The landscape here has a great deal of history — Saxon, Roman and older. Being in such serenity, one can feel the ancestors, one can almost hear the songs of our people in the breeze, feeling ourselves walking upon their paths, watching the sun setting just as they did for millennia. It is a place where we can lose the overlays of chronology, and feel utterly connected within the timeless unity of nature in itself.

Of course there are many ways of walking our talk; that a burial ground was my choice is perhaps simply an expression of my Plutonic soul. I feel comfortable amidst trauma where others are not, I am familiar with pain and death. I am utterly incompetent at small talk, but I can sit with the dying for days and can work with individuals shattered by grief. It is an important part of growing into and through our human "self to understand just what, who, how we are as individuals, and to utilize our particular qualities to the best of our abilities. This is how we make our ancestors proud, and offer something to our descendants that is of real value.
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Sun Rising Natural Burial Ground and Nature Reserve
Pegi Eyers
What a beautiful affirmation of how being connected to nature allows for the overlay of past and present. Sun Rising is unusual in that it is both a burial ground and a nature reserve — how did this green vision come to be?

Emma Restall Orr
Yes, the overlay of past and present, and indeed future potential, is fascinating to me. Searching for communion with deity as and within nature, in part what I am striving to understanding is what nature is in itself, in other words, not through the filters and veils of our human and individual perception. My explorations, in line with various other mystics, philosophers and seekers, is that time is a construct of that perception, and not inherent within nature as we perceive it. A religious practice based on such a belief inspires us to work in ways that integrate past, present and future.

With respect to Sun Rising, there was both spiritual vision and very practical elements that guided us to create a site that was both burial ground and nature reserve. Practically speaking, we believe that in a century, a well-established nature reserve is likely to be an exceedingly precious haven within an overpopulated and overdeveloped landscape. We have hares breeding, lapwings nesting, owls and orchids on our ever- growing species list, which is wonderful to witness.

Spiritually, our vision is entirely commonsensical: nature heals. Whether we are facing our own death, coping with a loved one's immanent dying, stupefied with the shock of their death, or standing in the storms and floodwaters of grief, the song of the skylark lifts something within us. The dance of butterflies over wildflower meadow offers a moment's relief. The breaking open of soft green leaf buds reminds us that life renews itself even after the harshest of winters. I find an immeasurable strength in nature.

Pegi Eyers
Can you speak about the popularity of the green burial movement in the UK and how Sun Rising fits into this movement?

Emma Restall Orr
The green burial movement began in Britain almost twenty years ago, and there are now over fifty dedicated natural burial grounds. A natural burial ground offers a beauty that attunes with folk who tend their gardens and watch the birds, who run in the hills and wander the woodlands. It is also good for people who want the absolute simplicity of a good farewell. At a natural burial ground, you can create an exquisitely beautiful funeral for very little expense, with no funeral directors, no hearse, no pretension, just the family and the bird-song, giving thanks and saying goodbye.
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Sun Rising Natural Burial Ground and Nature Reserve
Pegi Eyers
Can you describe the natural means and methods that are associated with green burials?

Emma Restall Orr
First of all, we encourage burial, not cremation. Crematoria use massive amounts of fossil fuels every day to incinerate our dead. Whatever your religious tradition, there is no ethical foundation for using those resources so wastefully.

We also encourage the use of ethically-made coffins and shrouds. Probably the best we offer is a woven willow coffin made from English-grown willow. These coffins are not within everyone's price range (around $1000), so we have less expensive alternatives as well. The latter are wonderful for creative families to personalize: grandchildren paint on them, families and friends write messages and prayers all over them.

Of course, we don't require that a coffin at all: the eco-purist can be buried in an organic hemp shroud, sheet or woollen blanket. What we don't allow is chipboard wood-veneer coffins, plastic linings or handles, coffins that can cost many thousands of dollars. Furthermore, we don't permit the burial of embalmed bodies: there is no good reason to embalm a loved one, other than to line the pockets of the funeral directors.

Burial — as opposed to cremation — recaptures the carbon stored in our body. If we bury without embalming in simple, ethically-made coffins, we are making much less of a damaging impact on the earth with our death.

Pegi Eyers
What has been most rewarding for you, as you attend to the crossing-over process?

Emma Restall Orr
Perhaps the most important is the reward of knowing that we have been of service. It is an extraordinary honor to accompany someone through the last period of their living, facilitating the peaceful release that allows for what we might call a "good death." What I have gained for myself is harder to express, but it has something to do with the recognition of mortality, and the need to live consciously, moment-by-moment. I know more than ever that it is not worth arguing or losing relationships with people I value, because sometimes fate does not allow us the time to mend those ruptures. It is worth working hard to solve our inner conflicts and find ways to enjoy life, because there is no point in struggling so that "one day we'll be okay," when that day may never come.
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Sun Rising Coffin Bier
Pegi Eyers
How can we incorporate the awareness of mortality into our spiritual practice?

Emma Restall Orr
It is important to allow death to be a part of our lives. The death of a loved one is far more traumatic in families and communities where death is kept away from the hearth and home and not spoken of at all. Losing someone in such a situation means that those involved suddenly find themselves in wholly unfamiliar territory, and are prone to needing others to step in and take control. As a result, they are likely to feel disempowered by their experience, and grieving process becomes far harder than it need be.

How do we allow death to be a more comfortable part of our lives? Talking about the ancestors is important, beginning with parents or grandparents. Keeping alive the memories and teachings we shared and gained from being a part of their lives allows us to keep open the possibility of talking about their death, how we miss them and grieve for them. Being aware of the ancestors whose lives, whose skills and needs shaped the landscape around us, is another way of remembering the ancestors.

At Samhain in my family, we remember the dead, and also think of our own death. We review our Wills and update information that will aid those who have to tidy up our lives should we die during the coming year. We consciously think about our own dying.

There are many ways that we can more directly engage with the energies of death and release. There are many gods who embody the processes of dying, of death, of existence beyond death, and of the dead. There are named gods from various pantheons and forces and beings whose presence we may feel but whose names we may never know. Working with these gods can be helpful. But to be honest, there are not many who need to have such a close connection with death.

Pegi Eyers
What do you believe about life after death?

Emma Restall Orr
Over a quarter-century, I've been in conversation with people of many different traditions: learning, seeking deity, engaging in ritual, meditation and visioning and working with death. Over that time I have become increasingly uncomfortable with metaphysical dualism: the idea that mind and matter are different sorts of stuff, and that the soul/ spirit resides in the body and that at death that mind (soul) flies free to be elsewhere.

This idea is deeply embedded in modern materialism, in which the soul or mind is dismissed as an illusion, a mere epiphenemenon of the brain. Metaphysical dualism is an extension of the principles of anthropocentric dualism, a system that devalues nonhuman nature.

I do not believe in the perpetual existence of the soul in any way that perceives "soul" as a coherent individual entity that is separable from matter. I see each apparently-separate form as integral to the whole, from the tiniest particles of being to the totality of the universe. All of it is in the perpetual process of cohering into emergence, and dissolving back into formlessness, within the minded wholeness of nature. On that basis, there is a cycling within the vast becoming of nature, but it is not one we can call "reincarnation of the soul."
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Emma Restall Orr
Pegi Eyers
Your recent book The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind and the Self in Nature is focused on a contemporary resurgence of an animist worldview. How can this transformative perspective be disseminated?

Emma Restall Orr
The animist perceives subjects where the non-animist perceives merely objects. I call myself a radical animist: to me, the very category of "thing" is questionable. Since consumer culture is based upon the exploitation of things, animism poses a serious challenge to it.

If every part of nature is populated by subjects, each of which has a right to thrive no more or less than we ourselves do, how do we survive? Every decision we make must be made with an awareness of the impact we have on those around us, out of respect for the other's right to exist and thrive.

The answer lies in the dissemination of peaceful inspiration. I have found that I am more likely to get someone's attention, and change their attitude towards nature if they can feel my soul as peaceful. Finding that peace — through the dissolution of self in natural integration — is the core of my spiritual practice.
 
Pegi Eyers
Thank you so much Emma, it has been indeed a pleasure. The Ancestors must be very proud of you!

Emma Restall Orr www.emmarestallorr.org
 
Sun Rising Natural Burial Ground and Nature Reserve, Tysoe U.K. (near Stratford upon Avon)  https://sunrising.co.uk

This interview originally appeared in Witches and Pagans Magazine #28. 
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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press  ​
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Letters to the Earth

4/12/2019

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On April 15, 2019 "Letters to the Earth" were read at events around the world. Hosted by Extinction Rebellion and @CultureDeclares, this was an opportunity  to think beyond the human narrative and bear witness to the climate and ecological emergency.  How does this existential threat affect the way we wish to live our lives, and the action that we take? Written to or from the Earth, future or past generations, those who hold positions of power and influence, or to other species, this is my contribution.    #LettersToTheEarth 
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Pegi Eyers 

Dear Mother Earth ~

Humanity is not a monolith, but a very large group of us decided to move away from your embrace long ago. Why any human collective would want to become alienated from our other-than-human relatives in Earth Community, and leave the sacred circle of Indigenous Society is a mystery, and a mistake of the highest order. Without the reciprocity we had always known, the misguided among us broke natural laws and built vast civilizations misusing your elements, minerals, metals, mountains, forests, plants, watersheds and animal labour.

Without any care or respect for the well-being of the natural world, artificial cities were created by domination, greed, waste, ecocide and plunder. And as the insatiability of all this urbanity continued to attack Indigenous people and the land, the agenda of the Colonizer led to more abuse from fantasies like the endless growth paradigm, and dangerous new forms of industry and technology. Today, the dark engines of our destructive civilization have culminated in a worldwide Empire that encircles us like a snare, and continues to shape human reality. And yet, here at the 11th hour, millions of us are waking up to the impossibility of believing in the lies, and we are acknowledging that the systems of capitalism and endless growth are not compatible with the life-generating design and natural systems of the planet.

Dear Mother Earth, please know that many of us have never stopped loving you, being embedded in you, and knowing you as Sacred and the source of all life. We now see that there are countless ways the living magic and primal matrix of the Sacred Earth Mysteries are returning to our lives, in the shape of things, the ancient shadows and the hidden meanings. The eternal Indigenous archetypes that weave natural law into human life continue to arise, and are showing up RIGHT NOW in profound expressions of resilience, resistance, and the return to Earth Community. Beyond the toxicity of the rectangular-steel flatline, concrete-girded industrial world, the truth of the tribal human soul and the touch of the tribal human hand continue to manifest, and guiding forces are already in place for the collective recovery of our Ancient Spirit and eco-selves.

Because of you, Our Beloved Earth, we continue to access a deep well of ancestral knowing, and your Web of Life continues to sustain all beings with the everlasting restoration of healing and new growth. And even though some humans among us accept the illusion of separation from the natural world, please know that the earth-emergent ones are awake and aware, and ready to embrace your harmonic intelligence once again. Dear Earth, as your Great Heart continues to thrive, please do not give up on us.

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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    ~ BLOG ~
    Ancient
    Spirit
    ​Rising

    Pegi Eyers

    Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community

    ஜ
    The recovery of our ancestral roots, and the promotion of social justice & environmental activism as interwoven with our spiritual life. Engaging with the interface between Turtle Island First Nations and the Settler Society, rejecting Empire and embodying the paradigm shift to ecocentric society.




    Ancient Spirit Rising
    is the recipient of a
    2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award
    in the Current Events/ Social Change category!     

    ARCHIVES

    Kinomagewapkong ~ The Teaching Rocks

    The Ecomystic Experience

    Controversies in the Ancestral Arts

    The Sacred Balance

    Decolonizing the “Bounty of the Land” Narratives

    We Live in a Death Culture

    Customary Law

    Earth Love

    The Green Burial Movement: In Conversation With Emma Restall Orr

    Letters to the Earth

    I Walked and Walked

    Sacred Tears

    Taking Issue With "We Are All One"

    Dear Greenmantle ~ Review Rebuttal

    Finding Our Long-Lost Ancestral Traditions

    Ancestor Quilt

    Our Struggles Are Not the Same

    Ally Mistakes - Oops ~!

    Love from the Earth

    The Problem with Far-Away Ecotherapy and Nature Connection Retreats

    Earth-Emergent in the City

    Voices of Earth ~ Archaic Whispers

    Good Allies 
     
    Song of the Ancestors

    Decolonization ~ Meaning What Exactly?

    Animism Unbound

    More Settler-Colonialism: Boomers and the Rez (True Story)

    What is Cultural Appropriation?

    The Story Behind the Story

    Cultural Appropriation in Goddess Spirituality & Matriarchal Studies

    Climate Disaster & Massive Change 

    We Are the Ancestors of the Future

    Earth Mother Magic

    True Reconciliation Requires Restitution 

    Are White People Indigenous?

    Full Disclosure/My Positionality on New Age!

    Allyship and Solidarity with First Nations

    First Nations on Ancestral Connection

    Pagan Values - "Know Thyself" 

    Welcome to Stone Circle Press!
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