PEGI EYERS
The Great Cycles ~ Everlasting & Antediluvian
What is the essence of life? What causes the seed to sprout, new growth to unfurl and babies to be born? To our primordial ancestors, they honored the life spark as sacred, and embraced the cycles of life with reverence and awe. Knowing themselves as equal members in Earth Community, they acknowledged the miracle and mystery of life, and surrendered to the forces that provided the sustenance they needed to survive and thrive. In contrast to the western worldview that seeks to analyze and dissect, our ancestors were comfortable with boundaries and limitations, and with knowing how impossible it is, to articulate The Sacred. The western mind loves to understand concepts and define terms, but these efforts weigh down the celestial, and concretize what is in the end, unsayable.
According to Sean Kane, author of Wisdom of the Mythtellers, the most generous focus for myth involves a sense of mystery. He tells us that myths are about “something mysterious, intelligent, invisible and whole.” And what is more mysterious than the essence of life itself? Showing up in ethnocultures and mystery traditions worldwide, perennial myths and origin stories draw close to the inexplicable, and pay tribute to the life spark in story-cycles redolent with beauty and renewal. Here in Anishnaabe territory, “something mysterious” is the best translation for the Ojibway term “Manitou.” It can mean a Spirit Being whose presence is felt, or it can mean a feeling of “something mysterious” as connected to landscape or place.
According to Sean Kane, author of Wisdom of the Mythtellers, the most generous focus for myth involves a sense of mystery. He tells us that myths are about “something mysterious, intelligent, invisible and whole.” And what is more mysterious than the essence of life itself? Showing up in ethnocultures and mystery traditions worldwide, perennial myths and origin stories draw close to the inexplicable, and pay tribute to the life spark in story-cycles redolent with beauty and renewal. Here in Anishnaabe territory, “something mysterious” is the best translation for the Ojibway term “Manitou.” It can mean a Spirit Being whose presence is felt, or it can mean a feeling of “something mysterious” as connected to landscape or place.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
But before we look at origin stories that illuminate the essence of life, let’s go back to the very beginning.
Before the earliest myths of a “golden age” or an “earthly paradise” that are found all over the world, there existed an original perfect world of nature, long before the gods, or humans arrived on the scene. Let’s call this primordial place the Green World - a place we can scarcely imagine - a version of Earth where the mountains, forests, oceans and sky were pristine, and the elements of earth, water, fire and air were interpenetrated with each other. Our planet was new, but sentience was there at the beginning. Arising from a mixture of water, saline and minerals - the building blocks of life on Earth - primal forms were beginning to emerge from the lowest levels of the ocean.
Before the earliest myths of a “golden age” or an “earthly paradise” that are found all over the world, there existed an original perfect world of nature, long before the gods, or humans arrived on the scene. Let’s call this primordial place the Green World - a place we can scarcely imagine - a version of Earth where the mountains, forests, oceans and sky were pristine, and the elements of earth, water, fire and air were interpenetrated with each other. Our planet was new, but sentience was there at the beginning. Arising from a mixture of water, saline and minerals - the building blocks of life on Earth - primal forms were beginning to emerge from the lowest levels of the ocean.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
Many ancient legends reaffirm the presence of the Green World, and that life originated from the water, in combination with oxygen, protozoa and other organic molocules. By a lucky coincidence that is still beyond the ability of science, or the Gaia Hypothesis, to fully articulate, the temperature of the oceans allowed the Earth to have a rich atmosphere, and to be self-regulating. The Earth supports a magnificent biodiversity of life, and in fact, countless species have already come and gone, from our beautiful green world.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
In mythologies that speak of the “life spark” in terms of fertility, new scholarship in Matriarchal Studies by Maria Gimbutas and others chart a direct path from our ancient communal past, to a living symbiosis that is being evoked and remembered today. In terms of procreation, it was the Primordial Mothers who were birthing primal life forms from the elements and waters. Holders of the oldest consciousness on the planet, these Creatrixes moved in fluid streams of energy through the primal “muck,” that evolved into earthy and material bodies.
The lifegiving properties of their transmissions were held within the collective “prima materia” of the Divine Feminine, an eternal voice in the wisdom body that still reverberates today. Women continue to hold a deep connection to the sacred essence our biological bodies arose from, so many eons ago, and by embodying this truth in our lives, are returning to a interdependent relationship with Gaia. This form of ancestral wisdom can guide our choices and actions from an energetic place / deep cellular level, in our current era of collapse and environmental destruction.
The lifegiving properties of their transmissions were held within the collective “prima materia” of the Divine Feminine, an eternal voice in the wisdom body that still reverberates today. Women continue to hold a deep connection to the sacred essence our biological bodies arose from, so many eons ago, and by embodying this truth in our lives, are returning to a interdependent relationship with Gaia. This form of ancestral wisdom can guide our choices and actions from an energetic place / deep cellular level, in our current era of collapse and environmental destruction.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
To our Paleolithic Ancestors, it was obvious that women, with their mysterious cycles, performed the same functions as Gaia, who was the source of all nourishment, protection and procreative power. Mythologies from ancient matrifocal societies such as Minoan Crete and Catalhöyük in Turkey, or today in Nubia in Sudan, Khasi in India, Mosuo in China, the Island of Women in Mexico, or the Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers in the Americas, Indigenous societies honor the life-creating power of the Sacred Feminine, and revere women as an extension of the miraculous divinity of creation. Women are held sacred, and our fertility and nurturing abilities are known to be the same as the Primordial Mothers who created all life.
It’s fascinating to see how origin stories from diverse cultures point to the essence of life arising from the elements of earth, fire and air – in addition to water – and important aspects of the life force such as seeds and eggs. In the Hopi origin story the collective lived beneath the surface of the earth, and when it was time to emerge into the world they met up with Maasaw, the Caretaker and Creator of the Earth. A promise was made during that emergence, that the Hopi would be stewards of the Earth for all time, and they have held that sacred covenant to the present day.
It’s fascinating to see how origin stories from diverse cultures point to the essence of life arising from the elements of earth, fire and air – in addition to water – and important aspects of the life force such as seeds and eggs. In the Hopi origin story the collective lived beneath the surface of the earth, and when it was time to emerge into the world they met up with Maasaw, the Caretaker and Creator of the Earth. A promise was made during that emergence, that the Hopi would be stewards of the Earth for all time, and they have held that sacred covenant to the present day.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
A bond to the perennialism of Earth’s forests and plant life also appear in hundreds of mythologies worldwide, most importantly within the Tree of Life narratives, as a symbolic axis mundi connecting the planes of the Underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial world. In Bantu mythology the universe and the animals are eternal, so there are no creation myths about their origin, but the first human was born from a bamboo stem, and in Herero mythology (also in Africa) the first human was born from the roots of the "Omumborombonga" Leadwood tree.
The element of fire also plays an important role in creation stories, such as the ancient myth of the Maya, that describes the emergence of human beings when the Maize Mountain was opened by the lightning deities. In the Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee creation story, air is the force that creates life. Kitchi-Manitou, or The Great Mystery, has flooded the earth, and a Giant Turtle offers Sky Woman a place to land. Riding on the turtle’s back, She asks for a small amount of soil, but a tiny muskrat is the only creature capable of bringing a handful of earth up from the deep waters. Sky Women then blows the breath of life, growth, fertility and abundance into the soil, and infuses it with the eternal lifegiving attributes of the nurturing Mother. Only then, do the continents rise and human beings flourish.
The element of fire also plays an important role in creation stories, such as the ancient myth of the Maya, that describes the emergence of human beings when the Maize Mountain was opened by the lightning deities. In the Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee creation story, air is the force that creates life. Kitchi-Manitou, or The Great Mystery, has flooded the earth, and a Giant Turtle offers Sky Woman a place to land. Riding on the turtle’s back, She asks for a small amount of soil, but a tiny muskrat is the only creature capable of bringing a handful of earth up from the deep waters. Sky Women then blows the breath of life, growth, fertility and abundance into the soil, and infuses it with the eternal lifegiving attributes of the nurturing Mother. Only then, do the continents rise and human beings flourish.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
Another powerful motif for fertility are seeds that contain the force of life, and the overwhelming drive to flourish. The magic of all four conditions being present for germination to occur - water, light, oxygen and temperature – is a miracle that should never be taken for granted. Without the correct timing, seeds can lie dormant for thousands of years. A supreme consciousness must certainly be at play, when all the elements come into balance for a seed to sprout at the optimal moment.
Of course we all know about the abduction of Persephone by Hades in classic Greek mythology, and how in her grief Demeter withholds the “green fuse” that germinates the land. Demeter represents the primordial mother power, the ancient archetype of feminine regeneration, and with the eating of the pomegranate seed that allows her to co-exist in both life and death, Persephone affirms the importance of fertility and the cycles of the seasons.
Of course we all know about the abduction of Persephone by Hades in classic Greek mythology, and how in her grief Demeter withholds the “green fuse” that germinates the land. Demeter represents the primordial mother power, the ancient archetype of feminine regeneration, and with the eating of the pomegranate seed that allows her to co-exist in both life and death, Persephone affirms the importance of fertility and the cycles of the seasons.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
Eggs as symbols of fertility also appear in creation myths and Indigenous Knowledge worldwide. In the ancestral wisdom of the Vietnamese people a story details how two progenitors, a man known as the "Dragon Lord of Lạc" and a woman known as the "Lady of Âu" give birth to a hundred eggs, fifty of which hatch, settle on the land and eventually become the Vietnamese people. In pre-colonial African traditions, the two great sources of life are the Earth and Her waters, which originally emanated from the universe during creation. The Earth occupies the original space before time, and is part of the “egg” of the world – a giant sphere or oval that encapsulates us and our universe. The earth and the universe are inextricably linked, bound together to the past, in both physical and spiritual union. The Earth is sacred, divine, and alive with immense power, and the purpose of human life is to accept the sentience of the Earth, and give Her the proper respect through ceremony and care.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
My own Celtic heritage is drawn from the beauty of the pre-colonial traditions of England and Scotland, and with all the resources at our fingertips today, it is possible to access the primordial memories of our kinship with the cosmos, and to re-mount the worlds of animism and inter-existence that our tribal ancestors knew. The history, poetry and myth cycles that survive, tell us that for the Celts, our beloved Earth and Her abundant diversity gave rise to an entire spiritual continuum, and we regard the Earth and our embeddedness in the natural world as Sacred, both in our everyday deeds and elaborate rituals. Mother Earth is the source of all, and her Cycle Of Life encompasses the birth, growth, decay and fallowness common to all beings. Dwelling in an interconnected appreciation for the land and grounded in the everyday sacred, the ancient Celts did not value an ascensionist spirituality, but found the extraordinary in their ordinary lives. If the gods or elementals were seeking to visit across the Sidhe, they could reach us in the “here and now” of everyday life, the earth-bound time and space, that is at the same time luminous and holy.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
Thanks to the Cartesian rupture, the industrial revolution, the rise of science and modernity in general, ancestral traditions worldwide have been denied, penetrated, dissected, analyzed, disembodied and turned into quaint reminders of long ago. Since the time of the Greek philosophers, an emphasis on the “mind” and all that is linear, left brain and cerebral has been reflected in the macrocosm of our civilization, with its unsustainable disregard for natural law. The top-down authority of "analytical over embodied," and "intellect over instinct" is at the root of our humancentric society, and has led to the cascading economic and environmental crises we face today. Western ideology has tried to separate us from using our own senses, intuition and wild nature to locate our own intrinsic knowledge of the sacred mysteries, and the complexity of the Cosmos.
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
As Dylan Thomas reminded us in 1934, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower, drives my green age.” Human beings are just one strand woven into the complex systems of Earth Community - a perspective fundamental to the recovery of ancestral wisdom today, and the paradigm shift to ecological civilization. The term “Animism” is a good way to describe how humanity has been connected to the land and its seasonal cycles for millennia, in deep rapport with the animals, plants, elements, earth spirits and Ancestors with whom we share our lives.
Still, in today’s world, at any given moment, when we are inspired by the cycles of nature and embrace a cyclical view of time, we immediately return to our primeval origins, to the Gods and the Cosmos. According to the ancient Egyptians, the present is a series of recurring cycles, based on previous epochs of linear time, when the myths set the pattern. Current events repeat the mythic episodes, and in doing so renew Maat, the fundamental order of the universe established at creation (also personified as the Goddess of truth and justice). Said another way by Ramon Elani, the author of Wyrd Against the Modern World, “Through myth and ritual, we are constantly in a state of repeating and reenacting cosmogony.”
Still, in today’s world, at any given moment, when we are inspired by the cycles of nature and embrace a cyclical view of time, we immediately return to our primeval origins, to the Gods and the Cosmos. According to the ancient Egyptians, the present is a series of recurring cycles, based on previous epochs of linear time, when the myths set the pattern. Current events repeat the mythic episodes, and in doing so renew Maat, the fundamental order of the universe established at creation (also personified as the Goddess of truth and justice). Said another way by Ramon Elani, the author of Wyrd Against the Modern World, “Through myth and ritual, we are constantly in a state of repeating and reenacting cosmogony.”
Painting © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
Many of the magnificent achievements of our civilization pale in comparison to the magic in nature, the green mysteries that empower seeds to germinate and grow, babies to be born and new life to manifest season after season. In reality, the essence of life and the originator force is so mysterious our only proper response can be a mythic one. It is infinitely better to acknowledge the inexplicable with a mytho-spiritual conscious-ness, than to approach the Earth as “lifeless resources” at our disposal. Coming to know the processes of nature through an everyday intimacy, and the Gods, entities, and deities as connected to place, is to re-sacralize our awe and wonder at the powers of regeneration. This worldview, or ancient spirit rising, may be the only belief system that stands between us and climate disaster or massive change, caused by our own techno-industrial society.
Throughout history and across cultures, humans have relied on myth to make sense of the world. As we revive the oldest myth of all - the perennialism of the Green World - and make new meaning, we align with our own resilience and creativity. Against all odds, the driver for the life spark continues to rise in Earth Community - including human fertility - even as the actions and attitudes of western society continue to attack and decimate the natural world. Will the trajectories of unlimited capitalism, artificial intelligence, or DNA tampering put the “green fuse” at risk? Through millennia, rising and fading away, the foundation of our unique planet has always been fecundity. Let us work to stop the assaults on our Mother, remediate the Earth, and be inspired by the wisdom of the Hopi People, that informs us “Everything will come to good again.”
The Life Force: Restoring Sacred Myth ~ Pegi Eyers
RESOURCES
Paintings © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
ASWM - The Association for Women and Mythology,
Wisdom Across the Ages: Celebrating the Centennial of
Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas, Symposium 2021
Owen Burnham, African Wisdom, Piatkus Publishers, 2000
Chalquist, Craig Ph.D. “Practical Uses of Mythology.” Pacifica Post,
Pacifica Graduate Institute, Aug 21, 2017
Ramon Elani, Wyrd Against the Modern World, Night Forest Press, 2021
Pegi Eyers, Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring
Earth Community, Stone Circle Press. 2016
Pegi Eyers, “The Primordial Mothers,” She Summons: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Mago Books, 2021
Heide Goettner-Abendroth, Societies of Peace: Matriarchies Past,
Present and Future, Inanna Publications, 2009
Richard Heinberg, Memories and Visions of Paradise,
Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1989
Basil Johnston, The Manitous: The Supernatural World of the Ojibway,
Key Porter Books, 1995
Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers, Broadview Press, 1998
“The Tree of Life,” Parabola the Magazine of Myth and Tradition,
Vol XIV, No 3, 1989
RESOURCES
Paintings © Friedrich Hechelmann, Used With Permission
ASWM - The Association for Women and Mythology,
Wisdom Across the Ages: Celebrating the Centennial of
Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas, Symposium 2021
Owen Burnham, African Wisdom, Piatkus Publishers, 2000
Chalquist, Craig Ph.D. “Practical Uses of Mythology.” Pacifica Post,
Pacifica Graduate Institute, Aug 21, 2017
Ramon Elani, Wyrd Against the Modern World, Night Forest Press, 2021
Pegi Eyers, Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring
Earth Community, Stone Circle Press. 2016
Pegi Eyers, “The Primordial Mothers,” She Summons: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Mago Books, 2021
Heide Goettner-Abendroth, Societies of Peace: Matriarchies Past,
Present and Future, Inanna Publications, 2009
Richard Heinberg, Memories and Visions of Paradise,
Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1989
Basil Johnston, The Manitous: The Supernatural World of the Ojibway,
Key Porter Books, 1995
Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers, Broadview Press, 1998
“The Tree of Life,” Parabola the Magazine of Myth and Tradition,
Vol XIV, No 3, 1989
 | "The Life Force: Restoring Sacred Myth" by Pegi Eyers is a transcript of my presentation at the 2021 Fates and Graces Mythologium >website< |
| Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for social justice, uncolonization, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change. Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. |
