PEGI EYERS
Homecoming ~ Aurochs Underground Press
In this article, author and artist Pegi Eyers describes her experience of finding an authentic way of relating to the land as a person of Celtic descent in in her home of Ontario, Canada. All illustrations are original mixed media artworks by Pegi Eyers.
Today, epic statements by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, James Dumont and other First Nations Elders, wisdom keepers and academics [3] are offering us a great blessing, with the implication that Indigeneity is the collective birthright of all humanity, and that we all have ancestral knowledge. Before the rise of monotheistic religions and techno-capitalism, all cultural groups were Indigenous, often matriarchal, and came from societies deeply connected to the land and the cycles of all life. At one time we all lived in tribal groups that acknowledged the sacred in every activity, and emphasized the bonds of the community over the cult of the individual. Our Indigenous world was perceived through our history, traditions and kinship groups, and we experienced deep relationships with the animals and the wild. We were comfortable in the natural world, and were in unity with the spirits, elementals, Ancestors and spiritual forces with whom we shared our lives. And yet, at some point in everyone’s history, Empire took hold and decimated our traditional, earth-connected way of life.
Today, we see that the drivers of manifest destiny and the myth of progress have created an illogical, unsustainable quagmire, destructive to all beings and ecosystems that share the planet. As societal problems worsen and environment degradation intensifies, we see that the dominant paradigm is unsustainable, and millions of us are waking up to the impossibility of continuing to believe in the imperialist lies of Empire. Our system of capitalism and endless growth is not compatible with the life-generating design and natural systems of the planet, and the sooner we come to terms with this, the better. The time has come to challenge the colonial legacy of domination, resource extraction, eco-fascism and corporatism, and to take responsibility for the fact that our society was created by an agenda of slavery, genocide and stolen land.
As we shake free of our colonial past, it is essential that we all become protectors of Mother Earth, to stop the destruction and plunder of what has become our ancestral lands as well. And as we actively move away from Empire and uncolonize, the original voices of First Nations – their history, narratives and experiences on the land – are of primary importance to us all. Beyond our urban cocoon we learn that Gaia is a four-season paradise, and that there are cultural groups who have lived on the land happily for millennia, and have survived and thrived and flourished. But more importantly, we learn that human beings are meant to honour the Earth in all we think, say and do, and that there is a better, more harmonious way for us to live, interconnected with the other-than-human world, and Earth Community.
READ MORE >HERE<
Today, we see that the drivers of manifest destiny and the myth of progress have created an illogical, unsustainable quagmire, destructive to all beings and ecosystems that share the planet. As societal problems worsen and environment degradation intensifies, we see that the dominant paradigm is unsustainable, and millions of us are waking up to the impossibility of continuing to believe in the imperialist lies of Empire. Our system of capitalism and endless growth is not compatible with the life-generating design and natural systems of the planet, and the sooner we come to terms with this, the better. The time has come to challenge the colonial legacy of domination, resource extraction, eco-fascism and corporatism, and to take responsibility for the fact that our society was created by an agenda of slavery, genocide and stolen land.
As we shake free of our colonial past, it is essential that we all become protectors of Mother Earth, to stop the destruction and plunder of what has become our ancestral lands as well. And as we actively move away from Empire and uncolonize, the original voices of First Nations – their history, narratives and experiences on the land – are of primary importance to us all. Beyond our urban cocoon we learn that Gaia is a four-season paradise, and that there are cultural groups who have lived on the land happily for millennia, and have survived and thrived and flourished. But more importantly, we learn that human beings are meant to honour the Earth in all we think, say and do, and that there is a better, more harmonious way for us to live, interconnected with the other-than-human world, and Earth Community.
READ MORE >HERE<
Aurochs Underground is a small press and literary journal set up in 2022 by the author and recovering intellectual Jack Wolf. It aims to publish high quality long and short form literary and speculative works of fiction and creative non-fiction that draw upon Environmentalist, Socialist, and Animist philosophies, and to showcase ways of perceiving and thinking about the Human and Other-than-Human worlds that acknowledge the web of relationship that stretches between humanity and all things.
It aims to function according to an ethical framework which acknowledges the close relationships between Social and Environmental Justice, and which facilitates the dissemination of important ideas which could make the world a better place for all species to live in, while working to further the best interests of both writer and publisher.
Buy our Books: https://aurochspress.co.uk/store
It aims to function according to an ethical framework which acknowledges the close relationships between Social and Environmental Justice, and which facilitates the dissemination of important ideas which could make the world a better place for all species to live in, while working to further the best interests of both writer and publisher.
Buy our Books: https://aurochspress.co.uk/store
AFTER THE HALL OF THE BULLS, LASCAUX by Jack Wolf
