Blog Posts - Stone Circle Press

We Live in a Death Culture

10/19/2019

PEGI EYERS

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.

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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Customary Law

10/4/2019

PEGI EYERS

“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

ANCIENT SPIRIT RISING
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With 420 pages, full colour, extensive notes, live links and exhaustive references, the PDF Download of Ancient Spirit Rising is “A Compendium for Change!”

Earth Love

6/24/2019

Pegi Eyers

“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

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

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!

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

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

The Green Burial Movement: In Conversation With Emma Restall Orr

6/17/2019

Interview by Pegi Eyers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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

Letters to the Earth

4/12/2019

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

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.

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

I Walked and Walked

4/3/2019

PEGI EYERS

I walked and walked until I was “me” no longer. The runoff sluice glistening and tinkling through farmer’s fields became my right arm, the sprouts on dead branches my fingers, the abandoned field – slowly rewilding – my face, the vultures overhead tracing the cloud lines my hair, the faded straw bales my spine, the circle in front of the grandfather tree delineated by a tractor my belly, the mandala of ferns my breasts, the maple buds flung half-way down the long clay driveway my buoyant right leg, the dancing sky my ice-blue eyes, the dog on the leash my scars from surgeries long gone, the layers of birdsong my teeth for sweet grinding, the fallen spruce boughs – still green – my splintered left leg, the catnip in luscious clusters my toes in the sand, the blackbird swooping in circles my lungs, the deer track winding through bracken my left arm, and the bones of the land that were once living flowers and trees my heart.

04/27/2020
Otonabee Watershed, Ontario, Canada

Art © Andreas Lie

Writer and visual artist 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. She lives in the countryside on the outskirts of Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory (Peterborough, Canada) on a hilltop with views reaching for miles in all directions. www.stonecirclepress.com

Sacred Tears

4/2/2019

PEGI EYERS

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton is a spectacular novel replete with fairy tales, and in one story by the "Authoress" Eliza Makepeace, the tears of a Princess heals a wounded fawn. "The Princess knelt by the fawn and so great was her distress at witnessing his pain that she began to weep over his body, and the truth and light from her tears caused his wound to heal." (Page 99)

In our contemporary lives, who hasn't cried buckets over the pain or death of a loved one, and wished for healing or revival to occur? What interests me is the stirring of a long-lost ancestral memory, and a deeply-felt potential for magic. Perhaps one of our animist pre-colonial human abilities was to evoke healing or revival with our beautiful and sacred tears.

Does anyone know of any other myths, narratives or fairy tales that focus on this miracle? I would be very interested to hear from other sources. Last summer when my landlord cut down a beautiful young Poplar tree for no reason, within the hour I had also fallen to the ground, and was keening and sobbing at the site of this senseless murder. For me, each tree has a soul and a personality, and is the embodiment of natura - the perennial love and joy of the green world, freely given to all.

I mourn the loss of trees more than any other living being. So imagine my surprise when the next spring multiple shoots had sprung up around the base of the fallen tree. Of course this is a natural growth process that happens all the time, but what if (!!??) my tears, keening and deep grief contributed to the healing and revival of my beautiful kindred spirit the tree? How deep is the magic in our souls?

With gratitude for these responses on social media:

Joyce Anna Belle last spring my neighbors cut down a perfectly healthy, probably 75 year-old pine tree just because it "littered their yard with needles." I cried at the pointless loss.....later that evening I wandered over to the side fence and found the remnants of a new bird's nest.....the sobs that welled up came from such a deeply primal place as I carried the nest and small stray bough to place on my altar.....where it sits and is honored still. I completely understand your love of trees - they have shown me so much, and taught me so many nameless things.

Arielle Kaph I had a tree out in my backyard. I’d sit outside often. The tree started singing. Like whale songs but woody. Then the same tree species in the next door neighbour’s backyard started singing too. They’d sing back and forth to each other for about two weeks. Then suddenly there was an enormous crash sound. I ran out - the tree had fallen over taking out fences. It had died. I felt honored to be listening to the tree songs, as what they said I don’t know. I cried, it was such an incredible experience, one I don’t think I will ever experience again. But I will never forget them singing to each other. Bless.

Nathalie Frickey In "The Miller's Daughter" she weeps over her amputated hands so they are cleaned, and the devil cannot take her. And in a version of Rapunzel she cries over the prince's blind eyes, and they heal. Those are the ones I can remember offhand. Interesting topic!

Pegi Eyers Thank you so much for these gems Nathalie Frickey ~! I have a huge interest in collecting narratives like these from now on.

Leilani Navar Yes, Rapunzel is who came to mind for me too. Your question is a deep one - can our grief heal someone? Bring new life? In the stories, tears restore what was lost, but in our day-to-day life, perhaps its more like this tree, that our tears are supporting the next birth.

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

Taking Issue With "We Are All One"

12/17/2018

Since the early beginnings of the hippie era, teachings have appeared from diverse sources (including the prophecy of Indigenous elders), that emphasize the message of a collective movement toward world peace and harmony - a unified consciousness or “One” - and that the qualities of kindness and compassion will be integral to the survival of our species.

“As we move into the future we will work, laugh, play, study, vote - to renew democracy and renew the lives of all. The new mestizaje is the joyous birth of a new humanity. No more barriers, no more racism. The past will not be forgotten but will be blended into the new bodies and cultures that will emerge out of our coming together not in battle or conquest, as in the days of old, but in Love, which is the only force that can unite us without destroying us. That is the way to world peace and harmony, and we struggle, dream and work for that future.”[1] Virgilio Elizondo

The concept of the "One” can refer to a “unified consciousness” either within or without, and can be examined from different angles. The great mystery traditions and literary canons worldwide confirm that humanity shares knowledge of the “One,” a vibratory field that connects all things, a place of universal love and enlightened rapport with the Divine. Alternatively described as “the cosmic unity of One energy,” “cosmic consciousness,” “the unmanifested absolute,” the Over-soul, Indra’s Jewels, “the mind of God,” “The Word,” “the music of the spheres,” the Tao, shizen (Japan), the Akashic Records, “the unified field,” “the field of compassion,” “the universal essence,” “the source,” “pure being,” “the global brain,” “the holographic realm,” “the conscious universe,” “the great chain of being,” Gnosis, Logos, Unio Mystica, uBuntu, “embracing all that is,” “a unity of being that underlies everything,” “the frequency domain,” “the power of creativity that supports all life,” “zero-point field” or the primordial OM, this field of energy is found in the inner worlds of human awareness and our core being, which aligns with the invisible realms and outer worlds of tangible form.

Variations of the “unified consciousness” can be reached by opening the heart, prayer, fasting, visioning, dreaming, drumming, focused intent, magical workings, “in the zone” creative or athletic pursuits, yoga, and meditation practice. I have experienced the “One” many times myself, in dreams, meditation, reverie, focused creativity and times of intense illness. There is no doubt that this multi-level, multidimensional state exists and is within reach, and has been accessible throughout human existence. Many versions of the indigenous “shamanic journey” enter this layered space for healing, spiritual guidance and problem-solving on behalf of the tribal group. However, the contemporary use of language is inadequate to describe the “One,” and better lexicon choices may be “matrix” or “web.”

The term “oneness” is also problematic in that it assumes a universality to human experience, whereas there are utterly endless ways to experience, interpret and assign cultural meaning and cosmologies to the web. “Oneness” also implies that accessing the matrix tends to be a communal activity with a group of people (which can happen) but when fully examined, experiences are often of a solitary nature.
“Spirituality started to emerge from within us, rising up in each person like a great tide of love, inspiration and Oneness with the source of our being, activating us by the millions. I felt the great light that the mystics speak of radiating outward from within us all. Then in a flash, I felt all people on Earth, and the Earth itself, being healed spontaneously. In that moment of revelation, I felt waves of unconditional love for the whole planetary body and all Earth-life spreading through millions of us.”[2] Barbara Marx Hubbard

The contemporary movement toward universal unity, “Oneness,” “The Law of One,” “One Spirit,” “One Mind,” “One Vision,” “One Energy,” “One Blood,” “One People,” “One World,” “One Tribe” or “Unitribe” is emerging from all directions - multifaith theology, perennialism, New Age spirituality, noetic philosophy, alternative lifestyles, pop culture and yes, even Turtle Island Indigenous Knowledge. Manifesting today as the collective impulse toward a global consciousness, the “One” implies an ideal and utopian coming together of humankind in love energy, mutual cooperation, harmony and peace.

Contributing to this ideology is the work of scholar and visionary Joseph Campbell, who as a beloved “change agent” created the opening for many contemporary seekers to embrace the spiritual life and “follow their bliss.” Campbell promoted the idea that the mythology from any cultural tradition could be seen as an aspect of the universal “One Myth” or “monomyth.” Now critiqued as an over-simplification, and the “profoundest flaw in mythological thinking,”[3] this kind of reductionism leads to the breaking down of cultural diversity, and also allows for the normalization of cultural appropriation. Being immersed in the ethics of Eurocentric patriarchal scholarship, Joseph Campbell could not see that the specific religious property and/or spiritual practices unique to each cultural group should be preserved, not stripped of ethnographic context. Diversity should be the priority, not universalism, and contrary to the popular “One” meme, “all religions are not different paths up the same mountain – they’re different paths up different mountains.”[4] (John Beckett)

From mythology to the study of the human mind, the new philosophy of Noetics, metaphysic theory and contemporary quantum science have all suggested that the interaction of human thought and the connectivity of our belief systems (known as the “noosphere”) can actually impact the biosphere, pointing to a form of shared consciousness. Many visionaries claim that 2012 was the beginning of a new era for humanity, as we evolve into a group consciousness more in alignment with universal law and focused on unconditional love, “which does not judge, exclude nor adhere to one perception.”[5] (Jan Porter) The ethereal idea of a Golden Age for humanity does seem to have taken root, and many believe that it is possible to emulate the way of the universal mind, the “One” beyond all physical limits. Variations on the “One” meme promote a “new dimensional shift,” an “evolutionary transition,” a “quantum leap forward,” and a “new world dawning” for both humanity and the planet itself. But, as the exalted concept of the “One” continues to find popular usage, we need to bring clarification and examine it from a more grounded perspective.

“One Tribe” or the “One” should not mean coming together in a uniform monoculture or some kind of “global order.” All beings are subject to the laws of nature which stress that species diversity works better than homogeneity, and that diversity is essential to a healthy ecosystem. This principle applies to the human community as well (however much we have distanced ourselves from nature), and diversity is the keystone to healthy, thriving human populations. Traditional Indigenous societies were well aware of this natural law and established the clan system, also putting taboos in place to prohibit marriage within one’s extended family. Today, it is extremely important for us to develop an appreciation for cultural diversity, and a tolerance for different peoples, stories and sensibilities. But if in actual fact humanity did come together into “One Tribe,” it would spell the end of us. As Daniel Quinn says in “The Story of B,” “a multiplicity of tribes and cultural groups in diversity has worked for millions of years and hopefully it will continue for millions more.”[6]

For further clarification, those in the spiritual community may want to re-examine their over-use of the meme “We Are One,” as it could, on some level, be associated with or linked to secular thinking i.e. the neoliberal globalization that perpetuates the hegemony of Empire, colonization and capitalist control. The current push toward globalization actually promotes inequality between cultures and nation-states by applying unrealistic undemocratic standards of homogenous economic exchange, and denies the importance of locally-rooted culture, which naturally gives rise to a healthy diversity of Indigenous Knowledge and ancestral wisdom systems.

It is also troubling when we notice that the neo-liberal concept of “inclusivity” and the contemporary meme of “Oneness” is led by a majority of privileged white people, some very wealthy, suggesting yet another form of white hegemony, or perspectivism. It is mostly the dominant society that promotes universality, and white people are leading the charge, making sense of the interrelations for “One,” interpreting it for everyone else, and moving us all forward into a utopian future. Also, as Ward Churchill points out, the overuse of the Lakota expression “mitakuye oyasin” (we are all related) and the “One” meme by New Age capitalism allows for cultural appropriation. “We are all related, we are all the same, which means we are entitled to anything of yours we want.”[7] The beautiful illusions that the “love and light crowd” hold dear come from a place of privilege, which makes it easy to ignore their shared history with the disenfranchaised, and to deny any accountability for their white racism. In reality, the “One” concept may work for the privileged, but it is hard to imagine marginalized groups having the agency to pursue the interconnectivity of “Oneness” with the oppressor, while engaged in counter-racism work, resistance, and daily survival. What an insult it must be for people of colour to hear “We Are One” coming from the dominant society that is the source of their unrelenting oppression!

“You asserting to me, especially in the face of me critiquing your privilege and racism, that you consider ‘all people equal’ and that you ‘treat all people the same,’ denies my experience, and affirms to me your complicity in white supremacy. We do not have an equal experience of the world, and your supposed equal treatment can never be experienced equally.”[8] harshbrowns

To reinforce the “One” vision it is easy to find obvious similarities and commonalities between cultural groups, but this is hardly the point. Perhaps it is only people devoid of spirituality that need to find similarities between cultural traditions to buttress their own miniscule understanding and practice of holistic ancestral thinking. Beyond a basic knowledge of and respect for the sacred keystones in other Indigenous groups, I have noticed that First Nations folks do not indulge in comparative multifaith theory, and it may be a good idea to examine why. Knowing they already have ancestral alignment with their own traditional knowledge, they embody the tools and treasures of their own specific worldview and Indigenous Knowledge, or are in the process of unpacking them. Why call yourself a member of the “Rainbow Tribe” when you already belong to a specific First Nation, the Michi Saagiig Nishhaabeg, for example? Fortunately, the more appropriate memes of “Different Yet All One” or “Unity in Diversity” are gaining currency, which is also in accord with the phrase “All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer.”[9] as put forth by Chief Arvol Looking Horse.

Perhaps the utopian dream that the world will someday exist in peace and love is just more magical thinking, as there is another aspect of natural law that avows our entire existence to hinge on the balance of opposing forces. Beyond any cultural understanding, interpretation, worldview or philosophy, natural law states that by default, the introduction of any concept automatically summons its opposite. As Pagan leader Selena Fox says, “harmony is not the absence of conflict, but the balance of forces.”[10]

And, despite what New Age philosophy advises, the Americas are not going to mystically “wake up” one fine morning. There is no “Oneness” in the quotidian world right now and no amount of ethereal prayer, visualization or wishful thinking is going to make it so. The way that the concept of the “One” continues to be touted by the spiritual community as a philosophic solution to every problem of human life allows spiritual seekers to disassociate themselves from any type of meaningful activism, resistance or political activity. “What changes culture is legislation, regardless of how much one pleads for divine intervention.”[11] Derek Beres

Parroting over and over that “We Are All One” allows the “spiritually enlightened” to imagine that this is already the case, and enables the privileged majority to ignore the activism “in the street,” “on the ground” or at the grassroots level that would create the conditions for equality or the metaphysics of unity to actually unfold. The most reprehensible aspect of New Age thinking is spiritual bypassing, or the refusal to look at uncomfortable realities (“only focus on the positive – by examining the negative you add more negative!”) which implies a serious level of solipsistic self-deception, and encourages the indulgent behavior of living in a fantasy world. Overlooking the human rights struggles of our fellow humans is morally wrong, and what spiritual seekers perceive to be a move toward enlightenment in the collectivity of the “One” is actually the position of a coward, who has no interest in confronting injustice, or engaging with the reality of serious social issues beyond their cocoon of privilege.

“What I want to criticize are not New Age practices - some of which strike me as possibly beneficial, others as grossly counterfeit - but the way New Age notions discourage engagement with social problems and political realities.”[12] Michael Parenti

It can also be argued that members of the Settler Society should clean their own house first, by claiming their ethnic karma and becoming accountable to the oppressed peoples of Turtle Island. Equity comes before equality, and placing ourselves behind First Nations peoples in a subordinate position that propels the most oppressed forward is the only solution. Follow the Turtle! Working toward real change by being responsible for our white privilege and serving to end racism in the real world are the steps we need to take before we begin to think about such abstract and colorblind concepts as “Oneness.”

“There will be no social justice, no anti-racism, no feminist emancipation, no liberation of any kind for anybody on this continent unless aboriginal people win their demand for self-determination.”[13] Sunera Thobani

“The most misused phrases among self-proclaimed ‘allies’ of indigenous peoples are ‘we are all related’, ‘all my relations’, and ‘we are all one.’ Most often it seems to mean ‘we are all the same’ - a mantra used to sidestep the discomfort of discussing colonialism, and the fact that there are those who suffer from colonialism, and those who benefit.”[14] Barbara Low

“I am a little bit tired of all my non-POC friends posting the endless feel-good ‘We Are One’ memes, while they never lift a finger to change the status quo, which they benefit from every single day. I have a handful of friends who realize the price of their privilege and walk their talk, and are true allies in making change, but literally, it's a handful. In my experience, the ‘love and light’ brigade tend to be very hyper-focused on their own personal growth while rarely extending that effort to the greater community. Only privileged people can afford to be that way. Some of us have to deal with the reality of ‘what is’ on a daily basis, and no, it's not unicorns and rainbows.”[15]
Juliana K'abal-Xok

“By denying the spiritual and political autonomy of native people, the New Age rainbow people subvert whatever good intentions they may have about multicultural community. What gets created is multicultural white middle- class dominance in yet another form.”[16] Myke Johnson

“I call on white people to admit that the Rainbow Nation is a myth, and until we truly are able to recognize the humanity of all people, we cannot claim to be post-racist.”[17] Gillian Schutte

"We are many, not just one. And, that's where all our beauty, power and sacredness lies. The same eagerness to conflate all spiritual realities into one all-devouring "God," obliterating any other possible vision in order to place every human under control, is now being adopted at the cultural level. Because our faceless, insipid modern pseudo-culture is in fact unable to acknowledge, respect and treasure differences. Because it's anonymous face just fears to look at the face of anything that is otherness." [18] Giovanna Rodda

When white people say “unite,” they mean “beneath us.” [19] Kitanya Harrison

As I see it, the true danger in practicing the consciousness of the “One” is to ignore or bypass what is precious and sacred about the specific place and community where we are actually living. At the core of the Indigenous Knowledge common to all human groups is a revered focus on the environment, plants, creatures, cycles and elements of nature in our homelands, not on gratuitously importing other things that are pleasing. The “One” principle may work on an etheric level, but like angelic visitations, extraterrestrial assistance, starseed messages, galactic guidance, planetary alignments, “ascension” and other lofty New Age beliefs, it reinforces an abstract, vertical spirituality away from and separate from the Earth, instead of promoting a horizontal vision which encompasses the Earth, our one beautiful and precious home.

According to eco-visionary David Abram, New Age thinking and scientific reductionism share the same misguided principles that separate us from the land. “New Age spiritualities abandon nature entirely, inviting their adherents to focus their intuitions upon non-material energies and disincarnate beings assumed to operate in an a-physical dimension, pulling the strings of our reality and arranging earthly events according to an order that lies elsewhere, behind the scenes. Commonly reckoned to be at odds with one another, conventional over-reductive science and New Age spiritualities actually fortify one another in their detachment from the Earth, one of them reducing sensible nature to an object with scant room for sentience and creativity, the other projecting all creativity into a supernatural dimension beyond all bodily ken.”[20]

In a society detached from nature, popular claims such as “the purpose of human life is the pursuit of happiness” can be seen as more liberal navel-gazing, and I also take issue with the New Age concept of “evolving to a higher state,” as I feel it to be a hubristic and delusional goal focused entirely on humancentric objectives, with an arrogant disregard for the human place in creation. We don't need a new and more enlightened way to inhabit the earth - Indigenous cultures (including our own in Old Europe) existed comfortably and sustainably on the planet for millennia, exactly the way human beings are supposed to be living. We already have an honourable niche within the circle of all life, and it is supercilious to suggest that we transcend it, or place ourselves above or beside the interconnected web. It is our responsibility to use our human intelligence in service to that network, and to embody reverence in our relationships with the more-than-human world.

It is not about the narrow confines of the self, our shadowplay with other human beings, our imaginary connection to a “divinity” outside the earth’s sphere, or our incestuous interactions with our own linear concerns, creations or technological wizardry. Clearly we have lost our respect for other beings and the natural world, the very elements that give rise to life itself, so how can anyone claim that humanity is “evolving to a higher state?” It seems to me that the moment we step outside of the Sacred Circle, give up our connection to the Earth and our humility in the face of the Great Mystery, and start to dominate and control creation, we immediately lose any potential to actualize a spiritual existence.

“We have to stop with the idea of creating peace on earth and begin with creating peace with Mother Earth. We have tried the first alternative for thousands of years and look where that has led us - now is the time of the Original Ways, the Native Ways.”[21] Tiokasin Ghosthorse

As we move away from the alienation that was imposed on us by the scientific paradigm, we become empowered to reconnect to the land and the cycles of life, and to engage in the recovery of our essential eco-self and ancestral knowledge. An important part of our practice is to reflect on the love and harmony between people, and to honor the unique diversity that is the human experience. All beings are distinctly separate but forever connected in the Circle of Life and Earth Community, and we would do well to embrace our “Unity in Diversity.” Perhaps there is a groundswell of consciousness that is birthing the next cycle of our collective human journey, but if our communities evolve into tribes, may our spiritual practices reflect our “Oneness” with nature and our beloved landscape, the place we call home.

“What many people – even spiritually alert people – seem to miss is that we are all creatures of this earth, this planet, this biosphere. And there’s no escaping this condition. Wisdom is epi-phenomenal to life on the Earth - any claim to wisdom that doesn’t make us more cognizant of our relationship to trees, insects, dirt and water, is probably a false claim. This is not to say that there’s nothing ‘transcendent,’ but that whatever ‘transcends’ our earthly condition must be rooted – like a Great Oak, Ash or Willow Tree – in Air, Fire, Water and Stone.”[22] Montague Whitsel

NOTES
[1] Virgilio Elizondo, “The Sacred in the Latino Experience,” Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, by Edward James Olmos, Lea Ybarra, Manuel Monterrey and Carlos Fuentes, Little, Brown and Company, 1999
[2] Barbara Marx Hubbard claims that the planetary birth epiphany she experienced in 1992 signaled the “next turn on the spiral of evolution, the planetary shift, the birth of a new Earth and a new universal humanity.”  From Birth 2012 and Beyond: Humanity’s Great Shift to the Age of Conscious Evolution, Shift Books, 2012
[3] According to Robert Ellwood “a tendency to think in generic terms of people or races is undoubtedly the profoundest flaw in mythological thinking.” The Politics of Myth: A Study of C.G. Jung, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell, SUNY Press, 1999
[4] John Beckett, “Unfortunate Effects of Joseph Campbell,” Under the Ancient Oaks: Musings of a Pagan, Druid and Unitarian Universalist (blog), March 2, 2014  (www.patheos.com)
[5] Personal communication, Rev. Jan Porter, author and Spiritualist Minister, 2011  (www.inspiredsoulworks.com)
[6] Daniel Quinn, The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Bantam, 1997
[7] Ward Churchill, Indians are Us? Between the Lines, 1984
[8] “Good White Person,” harshbrowns, (blog), September 13, 2011
(http://harshbrowns.wordpress.com)
[9] Statement in solidarity with the Idle No More movement by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, NDN News - Daily Headlines in Indian Country, December 31, 2012
[10] Selena Fox, transcript, Pagan Spirit Gathering Press Conference re: Dianic Rituals and Transgender Inclusion, June 2012.   (www.selenafox.com)
[11] Derek Beres, “Why Marianne Williamson Needs To Face Reality,” Yoga Brains, 2012
[12] Michael Parenti, “The New Age Mythology,” Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America, St. Martin's Press, 1994
[13] Sunera Thobani, speech at the conference “Women’s Resistance: From Victimization to Criminalization,” 2001, Herizons Magazine, Winter 2002 (www.herizons.ca)
[14] Barbara Low (Mi'kmaq), Facebook comment, 2013
[15] Juliana K'abal-Xok (Mayan), Facebook comment, 2013
[16] Myke Johnson, “Wanting to be Indian: When Spiritual Searching Turns into Cultural Theft,” Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory and Practice, 2011 (https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com)
[17] Gillian Schutte, “Dear White People,” Thought Leader, Mail & Guardian Online Network, 2013. (www.thoughtleader.co.za)
[18] Giovanna Rodda, Facebook comment, 2020
[19] Kitanya Harrison,"When Feminism Dovetails with White Supremacy: Are We Truly Equal if there is a Pecking Order of Privilege?" ZORA on Medium, October 9, 2018 (https://bit.ly/2UUP3SJ)
[20] David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, Vintage Books, 2011
[21] Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Cheyenne River, Itazipco/Mnicoujou and Oglala Lakota) Facebook comment, January 2013
[22] Montague Whitsel, Wellsprings of the Deer: A Contemporary Celtic Spirituality, 1stBooks, 2002

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for neurodecolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change. Amazon.com
Stone Circle Press

Dear Greenmantle ~ Review Rebuttal

11/14/2018

PEGI EYERS

Well it was bound to happen. All the positive reviews from experienced activists, academics, community peoples, and folks willing to take up the social justice learning curve, and boom (!) my book Ancient Spirit Rising falls into the hands of someone who is, well, uninformed. I’m open to valid critique on style or content of course, but when a review contains outright errors based on bias, it’s hard not to speak out! This was the case with publisher Paul Pearson, who recently reviewed Ancient Spirit Rising in his UK-based Pagan magazine Greenmantle.

Not to generalize, but I've noticed that folks in the UK make predictable errors when it comes to Settler-Colonialism and contemporary native/non-native intersections here in the Americas, and carry a lot of normalized racism. So here goes, as I address the more glaring misconceptions in Paul Pearson's review.

Dear Greenmantle, here is your full review, with my comments on each section:

[PP] "Drawing on cultural studies and contemporary social justice, Ancient Spirit Rising examines the loss of our vital ethno-cultural connection to tribe and place, and why there is a trend to borrow identities from other cultures. To be sure, this is a passionately written volume, as most dealing with cultural appropriation will be, and there is much to ponder and learn here. The author’s relationship with the Turtle Island First Nations is fascinating, deeply felt, and supported by some thoughtful analysis. As one would expect, her discussion of historical colonialism and its effects on the indigenous cultures in Part One is not an easy read."

[PE] Nice - thanks! Very good so far, but we must continue.

[PP] "However, Eyers not only details the racism, appropriation and cultural destruction of the indigenous culture, but also looks at how such wrongs can be repaired. Part Two of the book falls into a recognizable Pagan “How-to” mode for Animistic practice and Bioregionalism - and most particularly into the 'make it up as you go along' school, which is widespread and perfectly valid within modern Neo-Paganism. It is a shame, however, and not acceptable to all
modern Pagans, to discount the past altogether. Much more could be said about eco-spirituality, and this merely scratches the surface."

[PE] OK fine, but the last two sentences are totally puzzling, as I do write three full chapters - the core of the book - on the different features of Ancestral Mind, Animism and pre-colonial worldviews, in thought and action, and how to recover those dynamics in our lives today. I'm not sure how ASR is contributing to "discounting the past" for modern Pagans (or any other movement) but perhaps you missed those passages entirely. And how exactly can a book that is titled Ancient Spirit Rising discount the past, anyway? (LOL) As for including more on eco-spirituality, there are countless sections scattered throughout the book that fit squarely into that genre, so I'm thinking that you may have missed those as well.

[PP] "While most agree that 'appropriation = bad,' the reality is a highly contentious spectrum of opinions and, self-evidently, not everyone will agree with her position on it. To me it strays slightly too far into self-loathing and racial guilt, and yet without addressing the issue posed by her as a white person writing on behalf of the First Nation in question. There is no acknowledgement of the true complexities of the issue such as, to give just one example, those tribes who have fully welcomed respectful and sincere students, or indeed those individuals within a tribe who have done so while others have not. Thus the book can seem a little heavy-handed and biased, limited in its scope without a balancing counterpoint."

[PE] OK, so here is where I get to defend my thesis (LOL) and discuss your most serious misconceptions and errors. 1) Cultural appropriation is NOT a set of opinions (newsflash!) but a systemic system of dominance, and the final process in the colonization agenda, within a colonizer/colonized dynamic. This is explained at many points in the book, and that regardless of opinion - either native or non-native - the actual definition of cultural appropriation still applies. (You know, the definition that is agreed-upon by the overwhelming majority of activists, academics and community peoples. But you have yet to catch that nuance, unfortunately.)

2) I can't break the news any better on "self-loathing," but unfortunately this phrase is shorthand for white supremacy, as it points to your inability (and that of many other uninformed white people) to consider that critiques of "whiteness" are maybe NOT taboo. To your mind, being white is beyond reproach, which indicates on your part some seriously embedded white superiority and racism. The reality in today's world, is that White Studies is an official department in academia, and the unpacking of white supremacy, racism and white fragility is growing by leaps and bounds across the entire social justice spectrum. Examining our own whiteness, our role in Settler-Colonialism (especially for those still living in the UK - the seat of Empire), our ongoing complicity in those systems, and what we can do to address historic and contemporary injustice is NOT "self-loathing" but a necessary step toward making amends and moving forward into a decolonial future. A dark and ironic aspect of your "self-loathing" statement is that yes, it does exist, but it develops from the internalized colonization and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that people of colour and other marginalized groups carry from being oppressed by Empire. (You know - the same Empire created by YOUR country and forced upon the world.) And here's where your statement falls completely apart, as white people have not been socialized to see ourselves as white, so if we do experience "self-loathing" it certainly has nothing to do with ethnicity. You cannot hate what you do not know! I take great care in Ancient Spirit Rising to stress that instead of "white guilt," responsibility is the best way forward. It is evident that you did not actually read the book, Paul Pearson, as you would have found that I advocate for self-empowerment and love for all people, and that I hold the vision for a healthy coexistence, and our "Unity in Diversity."

               "Being honest about Empire isn't self loathing,
             it's accepting responsibility for how we perpetuate it."
                           Lola Archer Pickett, Wild Playground

3) As for "tribes or individuals who welcome respectful and sincere white students" of course I discuss this dynamic widely in Ancient Spirit Rising, and advocate for cultural sharing. There is no counterpoint required, as my entire thesis is devoted to learning from the values of First Nations! We need to absorb all we can about First Nations to practice good Allyship, but the difference however (and the nuance that you seem to have missed), is that when the white person takes on elements of the Indigenous cultural or spiritual property as part of their own identity, this crosses the boundary line and falls into the exact definition of cultural appropriation (as already discussed). There are other issues of "adopting in" that I don't need to go into here, but again, identity theft is considered to be the worst form of cultural appropriation by the overwhelming majority of activists, academics and community peoples - both native and non-native.

4) As for "heavy-handed and biased" (!) three whole years of research into the most accurate and up-to-date definitions within social justice today, and synthesized for the benefit of readers everywhere, can hardly be described as "biased" - and dealing with serious issues in our society is never a walk in the park. There is probably no kind way to offer these truths, and calling them "heavy-handed" is just a reflection of your own fragility, and your inability to hear them.

[PP] "It is noticeable that anti-appropriation sentiments are sometimes identical to aspects of 'folkish' (racist) rhetoric, and arguments that they come out of a different history have validity but can only be taken so far. (Are the Celtic or Saxon cultures, as those of a conquered people, unavailable for use by those of Norman descent, or whose parents emigrated to another land? Some Celtic reconstructionists believe so.)"

[PE] Wrong again Pearson. I am fully aware of the xenophobic “folkish (racist) rhetoric" on white ancestral recovery that goes on today in white supremacist and Neo-Nazi spaces, and I address it head-on in the section "Ancestral Origins and Cultural Recovery." By conflating anti-appropriation work with folkish rhetoric it sounds like you are sympathizing with the latter, or at least that you have no clue on how to differentiate between the two, which are completely opposite in terms of harm and healing. And since you missed that part in Ancient Spirit Rising, here is a brief synopsis.

"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. Unfortunately, instead of celebrating our ethnocultural roots, the separatist notion of 'racial pride' has been 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). 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 fabrication of 'racial science,' German occultism, or the invention of white superiority. When we look to the colonizer/colonized power imbalance that is our legacy, and the realities 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 specific pre-colonial earth-rooted ethnoculture(s) by any individual or community."

[PP] "From my own experiences with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, I am fully aware of the adoption and cultural theft of practices and spirituality, and have written passionately about it myself. As such I can appreciate much in this book. Well researched and crammed with references and footnotes, this is a volume that gives food for thought, but no easy answers."

[PE] Why thank you! I can only hope that you become more informed and equipped to write about cultural appropriation in the future. In terms of critiquing whiteness, we have to hold the tension between acknowledging inner and outer white supremacy without becoming defensive or over-emotionalizing the challenge, as we can easily continue to replicate racist behavior. And it is telling that there is a common thread in the English perspective, that makes you the only reviewer of Ancient Spirit Rising so far, to object to a dialogue on whiteness. The unpacking of racism in the UK is only at the very beginning stages, and there is a lot of work to do~!

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for neurodecolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
www.stonecirclepress.com

Finding Our Long-Lost Ancestral Traditions

9/26/2018

PEGI EYERS

Transcript of my presentation at the conference Shatitsirotha Boodiwewin/ Re-Igniting the Sacred Power of Creation: Essential Knowledges for Transformative Action hosted by Trent University, Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences, April 22-24, 2016. Such an amazing time!

My name is Pegi Eyers, and I am the author of the award-winning book Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community. I live here in the Peterborough area - Nojogiwanong in the language of the Michi Saagiig Nisnaabeg, who are the original Earthkeepers of this land. As I wrote my book I also went on a personal learning journey, and I would like to invite you to travel with me through the many themes in Ancient Spirit Rising, and how I discovered the links between them.

I have been blessed with a wide range of learning experiences and close proximity to First Nations friends and community over the years, and the starting point for my book began right here at Trent University. At an Elders Gathering in 2010, I heard revered teacher and traditional Midewiwin leader James Dumont say that, "Everyone needs to get back to their own Indigenous Knowledge.” I was stunned by this remark, and how he was referencing two important points at the same time. First, he was referring to the harm that is being done by white folks who take on the spiritual and cultural property of First Nations and assume native identities, and secondly, he was giving us a great blessing by implying that Indigenous Knowledge IS the collective birthright of all humanity, and that we all have original Indigenous Knowledge (or the acronym IK). And what resonated with me on a deep level in James Dumont’s monumental directive was the unspoken understanding, and the paradox perhaps, that reclaiming earth-connected cultures and recovering tribal ways will be the best way forward for all of us, in times of massive change.

Yet just where was our IK located as non-native people, and how did those of us descended from the Settler Society lose our ancestral connections in the first place? Like a long-lost trail gone cold, this inquiry is what drove my research and writing toward the completion of Ancient Spirit Rising. What I found out is that in our rush to colonize the Americas, we gave up our bonds to our places of ethnic origin, and our indigeneity as connected to those lands. Consciously or not, with the founding of the Americas, we sacrificed whatever spiritual ecology and ancestral knowledge we still held from our homelands, and the result today is a serious lack of interest in having any ethnocultural identity whatsoever, or even why that would be important. Belonging to a giant nation-state like “Canada” or the “USA” is not an “ethnicity” or even a “culture” in the strictest sense of the word, unless you count patriotism or capitalism as your ideals, which in my view are questionable loyalties. Finding our long-lost ancestral tradition is a huge challenge, but this is exactly what is being asked of us by James Dumont and countless other First Nations academics, thought leaders, activists and visionaries.

Now as a deep thinker and spiritual person I had spent many years observing and sometimes even participating in the world of New Age Spirituality, and even though I was put-off by the white folks pretending to be “shamans” or Indigenous, I did not fully understand at the time how “Native Spirituality” had been normalized as just another genre or niche modality in our endless array of spiritual choices. But thanks to a great deal of “tough love” from my strong First Nations teachers, plus my own research on cultural appropriation, I soon learned the truth about this modern phenomena.

Of course, the first objection social justice activists hear over and over (mostly from people who don’t want to give up “Native Spirituality” because it is just so much fun) is that intercultural sharing is normal and has always happened throughout time. Yet the truth is, that healthy cultural exchange can only take place between societies that are on equal footing, without one dominating or oppressing the other, and that the sharing is done in a respectful way under the direction of the sharer. This is certainly not the case here in the Americas, as the oppressor/oppressed and colonizer/colonized dynamic has been the driver for building Empire, and guess which side of that relationship we are on as white people? And just because one is spiritual, or Pagan, or New Age, or feminist, or neoliberal, or whatever, does not give that person a “pass card” from being a member of the dominant white society.

As an extension of the racism we hold and our white privilege and power, cultural appropriation goes on without the permission of First Nations, and is just another extension of the same colonial agenda, which moves first to seize the land, then the resources, and finally, elements of the Indigenous cultural identity that have already been subjected to genocide. More than just the lifting of ideas, practices or physical objects, cultural appropriation and identity theft dominates the way oppressed groups represent themselves to the world. This interference, stereotyping and loss of basic human dignity violates fundamental human rights, and in response to the problem, First Nations worldwide have come together to formulate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a document that protects spiritual property and re-instates much-needed cultural boundaries.

Learning how the widespread and seemingly innocent New Age “Native Spirituality” genre was such a serious issue, I went on to explore in my book the full range of questionable and delusional beliefs, in what I have come to call "New Age Capitalism." After that highly volatile chapter I then connect the dots by examining Settler-Colonialism, the origins of racism, the erroneous science of “racial theory,” white privilege, false nationalist narratives, and the need for ethics and a moral code in all walks of life.

Concluding with a section on giving back to First Nations instead of take-take-take, I outline how we can engage in Allyship, solidarity and social justice work, and I even throw in a poem or two for good measure! The 16 chapters that comprise the first part of the book are hard going - challenging many of the assumptions we hold and shaking up worldviews - but in contrast, Part Two of Ancient Spirit Rising I assure you is very uplifting and empowering.

The good news is that the call to reclaim our own IK can be reframed by the many new exciting movements already happening in Rewilding, Primitivism, Deep Ecology, Animism, Paganism, Druidry, Ecopsychology and Celtic Reconstructionism, and our cultural recovery is well underway. There has never been a time before in human history when DNA testing, genealogy, historical records, myth and archaeology have been so readily available, and if somewhat challenging, reclaiming our own ancestral knowledge is not all that difficult. Yet the process of re-indigenization and becoming connected to place must also mean rejecting Empire and the dictatorship of the western paradigm, with its unsustainable economic system, religious dominance, white supremacy, intersectional oppressions, harmful technology and all the philosophies that are killing the planet.

By unsettling the settlers, and declaring ourselves as earth-connected peoples once again, we are reaffirming a return to ourselves, to a respect for all life, to earth-connected culture, and to honoring the Earth in all we think, say and do. What could be more important?

To truly walk the talk of the new paradigm will mean spending a lot more time in nature than we already are, to see the world again as an interconnected part of the whole, and to experience creation as our Ancestors once did. In Ancient Spirit Rising I set out in clear and detailed charts the aspects of Western Mind that we may want to revise or discard, and elements of Indigenous Mind that we may want to encourage or embrace on our healing journey. If reclaiming our own ancestral wisdom traditions just don’t make any sense to us whatsover, there are other movements to adopt such as earthing, permaculture, post-peak living or the Transition Town movement that can reconnect us to community, land and sustainable values. And ultimately, we cannot do the work of ethnocultural recovery without working as Allies for First Nations in social justice at the same time, and moving together toward retribution, reconciliation and hopefully in the end, peaceful co-existence.

In closing I would like to say that I am not a self-proclaimed “spokesperson” for First Nations community. I am simply passing on information and data that I have gathered over time, and you can do the exact same thing should you feel the urgency of this important knowledge. And in accordance with what First Nations are telling us, it is up to those of us in the Settler Society to inform and educate our fellow white citizens on the colonialism, racism, genocide, oppression, assimilation and cultural appropriation that has decimated Indigenous societies in the Americas since Columbus made landfall, and that is exactly what I am doing. First Nations are experts on their survivance and resistance to Empire, yet it is time for Settlers to also take up the struggle. It is the members of the dominant society that need to reverse racism, and finally, to take responsibility to clean up the mess created by the white supremacist founding of Empire in the Americas.

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for neurodecolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.

Dan Longboat/Roronhiakewen/He Clears the Sky (Haudenosaunee),
Event Visionary, with Team (R) and Pegi Eyers (L)

Keynote by Vandana Shiva