Offerings for our collective vigil

A collective rite of passage is upon us, we are in underworld terrain. This is the realm our souls have an innate capacity to navigate by dropping into our wise, wild wisdom to weave with mystery thorough the trustworthy unknown. At this threshold time, we have an opportunity to root in and hold vigil with the world, human and more than, to harvest the medicine in this fertile darkness. As we so inherently know, we are intimately and vulnerably in this together. May you remember your innate belonging and know how vitally important you are to our web of life.  On this page, I will be contributing invitations to support the navigation of this liminal time to you who wish to receive them. 

A Collective Rite of Passage

A collective rite of passage is beckoning us, on a mythic, soul level we are being called into the underworld. Our familiar way of being in and of the world is being severed. Can we move deeper into what is being asked of us and loosen ourselves from the roles, identities, and ways of being we have relied on for our foundation of reality and our world view, call into question everything fixed in our understanding as true and even unmovable, except what is essential, what is soul- the seed of true nature and the essence animating all of nature? How do we make a conscious sacrifice of what was and move into the hands of Mystery to be reconstituted by the trustworthy unknown? Toko-pa Turner reminds us in her book ‘Belonging’ that the word sacrifice comes from the root ‘to make sacred’. “In order to make an honest encounter with the unknown, something of great value must be given up, lest we cling to an old version of ourselves... We are invariably made vulnerable for a time so that we can perceive a more mythic calling. The challenge is to surrender our own plans for getting ahead so that the greater good can come through. If we can take a step outside of time, renouncing our ego's urgency for progress, we have a chance at being danced, being sung into the greater song of things…Sacrifice is a show of trust in the unknown. It is the pruning that redirect your energy toward the life of becoming. "

May we make this descent together, unravelled from the binds that keep us in a too small, oppressed and misfit story of separation on the topside world, to instead be connected to the Anima Mundi, the soul of the world and interconnecting the soul of all beings. May we hold vigil, to be in liminal wakefulness, listening, and devotional observance to the vision or truths rising out of the fertile darkness in this time. May we make ourselves a libation of listening in council with the more-than-human world. May we make ourselves receptive to the gifts being offered in this time, and to hearing what is ours to rightfully carry to the world.

Can we collectively make this pilgrimage into a radical remembrance of who we are here to be and re-member our true belonging to each other? Will we take this invitation to be re-membered wildly diverse, well, whole and as an eco-soulcentric connected culture, resilient and visionary enough to thrive through a potential time of a Great Turning? 

Reconnecting w/ Soul + the More than Human World

The lie of separation is not sustaining. When the lungs of the world, our rainforests, are burning, and the lungs of marginalized communities living in disproportionate levels of air pollution are under attack, do we feel it personally, collectively? Do we change our behaviors to remedy the illness? When we learned that 1 million species are on track for extinction, how slow were we to take action at some future date? When the lungs and lives of humans in power and privilege are under attack now, when our family and neighbors are at risk, how is our response different?

The true story is that all us earth beings are in this together. How can each of us contribute now to re-membering our interconnection with all beings? As we move into the trustworthy unknown together, we each carry medicine that is needed in this time, this gift is our responsibility to carry to the world however possible. How do we stay healthy, aware, and close-in to care for ourselves, our families, and communities while reaching for ways to serve the whole for which we are inextricably interwoven? 

In this time of physical distancing, feeling isolated can be painful since connection is essential to our thriving. It is so important in this time to stay connected to our human community in a way that honors the health of ourselves and the whole. Many are bringing their gifts froward to connect people virtually in the ways of council, family/kid connection, group dances, etc. Thank you all for bringing these weavings forward! 

For me, I commit to continuing to bring my gifts as a connector to our community as a Soulskin guide, and "mother" in ways that hold generative life at the center for all beings. I will continue to carry guidance for ways to be in communion with soul and the more-than-human world. This is a time we can remember our deep belonging to other than humans. I will be sharing ways to find connection that asks you to venture through the threshold of your door, to “nearby nature”, or can even be accessible within your dwelling. You do not have to have access to a wild open space, a park, or a yard to connect to nature, I will share opportunities for deep connection to our more than human kin accessible to everyone with the desire. What I want to offer is nothing you do not inherently know, it is a way of remembering your true nature and the animist alive in your bones and roots. The simple invitations to communicate with nature and soul will be brief and probably unedited and imperfect, because I too am committed to making plenty of space to be available to be-ing in vigil at this time, alongside mothering, working, and tending life. I pray we all may generously make an offering to the world by turning listening hearts and attention towards the wisdom of the wild and rooting into soul, so we might live into a more generative existence holding the heart of the world at the center of all things. 

Reciprocity + Offerings

I see Coronovirus as a more-than-human guide who is carrying us into this threshold with much to teach us should we make an offering of our attention and listen. As climate changes and humans disrupt ecosystems, this life force has made their* way to our human bodies and spread globally. One of the aspects of the virus that my attention has been brought to is their impact on our lungs, our respiration- the inspiration and release that maintains life. Our lungs carry an innate rhythm of giving and receiving, and thus are etched with the intelligence of reciprocity. It is in this rhythm of reciprocity, that I invite us to bring our attention- How can we bring harmony by way of reciprocal exchange with all beings for which we are intwined? Our consumerist, extractive, colonial, human supremacist overculture has disrupted this natural rhythm of reciprocity, and it is time to reorient towards what we can give back, instead of solely what we can take, acquire, and use.

So, I invite us to begin with orienting towards offerings we can make to the more than human world. Giving gratitude in recognition to all that brings us life moment to moment broadens our awareness to how abundantly gifted we are. One of the most precious gifts we can give is our attention. With all the demands and distractions competing for our attention, this is generous offering. To extend further than silent acknowledgement, speak aloud to them. You may already do this to your pets or houseplants, but what about the trees providing oxygen and beauty? Your well ancestors offering the wisdom of adaptability you are relying on right now? What about the weather, your food, pollinators, and stones? This speaking aloud breaks down divisions and brings equilibrium as you begin to be reorganized by the legitimate relationships you have beyond humans alone. It is a humbling process, and humble comes from the root ‘humus’, meaning the soil and ground. Can we bring ourselves to this foundation, leveled equally with all life? If you already do this, extend further, share with your children and house mates this ordinary, relational way of being. What you say, or sing, or offer is not critical, it is the act of doing it, the gesture of acknowledgement, of exhaling to bring into harmony all the abundance we unknowingly inhale moment to moment.

*I prefer to use 'they,’ 'them,’ and 'their' pronouns to not prescribe a gender, and because there is not an animate word for ‘it’, which fails to acknowledge these beings as animate.

Fear

Of course fear is here! We are in the unknown and being asked to leave our comfortable, and “safe” way of being. There are no guarantees that this will all end up ok, we have no idea how this will turn out, (and I encourage us to be cautious of any projections defining the outcomes). There is loss of life, loss of livelihood, loss of security in our familiar way of operating. Fear and anxiety are fundamentally normal under these vulnerable circumstances! However, there is a lot of condemnation of the fear and anxiety humans are acutely experiencing right now. There is, understandably, a desire to bypass and outcast the “negative” focusing instead on the positive, the light and hope. However, when there is not a place for the vast and natural spectrum of our emotions and experiences, our inherent wholeness is fragmented. If we turn away from the aspects of our selves that are deemed undesirable, cast them into a psychic prison, our shadow, they do not go away, they morph and grow hungry and sneaky in effort to get our attention. Like in nightmares, when we run away from the dark energy they get more frightening and the fear grows, but when we turn and face it, we see what it is comprised of, we can see its shape and form and then we can navigate relating to them. If we can turn towards our fear as an ally of self awareness and self respect, and converse with them, they can tell us what we value, what we care about, what we hold dear, treasure, and are terrified to loose. 

"Fear is an old word that derives from the same roots as “fare,” as in “thoroughfare.” Although it often causes people to run away, fear means “to go through it.” Fear used to be called “the awakener,” for healthy fear intends to awaken the soul and guide it to greater connections to the living Soul of the World. The hidden purpose of fear involves bringing us closer to inner resources and a greater knowledge of what carries us throughout life. In the end, what we fear will not go away, for it indicates what we must go through in order to live more fully." —Michael Meade, The World Behind the World

Below I offer an invitation to allow fear a safe place to be welcome and in conversation with you, to get at the root of your fear’s function, message, and medicine:

Find or create for yourself a nest where you can relax and receive the gift of being held. You are inviting in an opportunity for the vulnerabilities of yourself to be held by the greater web of interbeing for which you belong- Earth, Source, the archetype of the nurturing parent, well ancestors, or however you might feel/name the energy. You can access this by asking a place on the land that feels like a nest to find you, create a nest for yourself with blankets and pillows, or in your deep imagination find a place that represents this safety and comfort to sink in. 

Give thanks in an authentic way for those who are holding you, then sit or lie comfortably, allowing all your muscles to relax into being held. Bring your awareness to the present and receive the generative energies bestowed upon you. Fall into the felt sense that you are unconditionally loved, and you are abundantly cared for exactly as you are. Breathe in the life giving air being offered to you and feel it move through your lungs and feeding the cells of your body. This is your time to receive, so open your heart, open yourself. 

Next, invite yourself to bring forward your emotions- in this practice we are inviting your fears. The vulnerabilities of your feelings are completely welcome and accepted here. Let yourself feel, move with, speak aloud, emote. What do you hear yourself saying, what is coming through? Just as a well parent holding their child, feel the acceptance and co-regulation, let this energy reflect and validate your feelings. Give yourself a slow and spacious time to move through as much as feels accessible in this sitting. 

When you feel complete. Give thanks to that greater source that is always present in and around you. Perhaps ask how you can call on this energy moment to moment, to feel the grounding support in your body and wrapped like a nest around you. 

Take time to journal, or reflect. What did you learn about your fear, or any other vulnerable feelings that arose? In reflection, what did you become aware about what you value, what/who you love, what you care about, what you need, etc.? Are you now aware of an aspect of the function, message, or medicine of the fear/feelings?  Journal how you can access this acceptance, protection, and nurturance when you vulnerabilities rise for you day to day?

Paradox

Wandering in the unknown, we are invited to become fluent in paradox, the language of the liminal, liquifying the overculture's prescription for binaries, dichotomies, polarities, oppositions, and borders. In the underworld, there is an opportunity to disentangle ourselves from the either/or construct and embrace a both/and perspective. From this vantage, we can see the true nature of multifaceted wholeness, embrace multiplicity, and celebrate diversity. In the betwixt and between realm, where paradox is alive, an old life transmutes into new, one goes into the dark to find light, there’s recognition that the unknown holds truths, and becoming utterly lost makes one available to be found. In threshold spaces, we find ourselves dancing between intersections like attraction & repulsion, the rational & mythic, fear & faith, seduction & repulsion, the literal & imaginal, life & death, desire & despair, knowing & not knowing, joy & sorrow, feminine & masculine, doing & being, the unique & universal… 

Wildness cannot be fixed, it adapts, evolves, migrates, and shapeshifts. Will we expire in the virus of separation, isolation, bordering, and othering, or thrive by the wise and wild ways of interconnected solidarity and diverse wholeness? We have the capacity to hold complex multiplicity, and thus dismantle the fragmentation that breaks us down and makes us easy to be preyed upon and manipulated by overculture norms. May we bring an elixir of healing to the divisions that we have been prescribed, and have even perpetuated, to reunite with our paradoxical, wild soul. 

I invite you who wish to explore this further, to reflect on your own paradoxical nature by peering into the mirror of the more-than-human world.  Bring your attention to natural rhythms from sunrise to sunset, seasons, and cycles. Listen to the soil & sunshine, grass & breeze, fire & water, stone & moon, child & elder, bird & squirrel, and whoever your attention is drawn to- what are their qualities, what paradoxes to do they embody, and what is the spectrum of their essence? Follow curiosity inward to that which comprises your own dual nature, and thus your wholeness. How do the wild aspects of yourself merge and mingle? How do they serve your resilience, and adaptability? Widening your lens to culture, can you see with more clarity the sneaky ways divisions are tempting us at this vulnerable time? In what ways can you find access to dissolving the illusion of the nature/culture dichotomy? 

Grief

THE WELL OF GRIEF
Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water 
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source from which we drink, 
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering, 
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.
- David Whyte

The well of grief begs to be accessed in this time of such loss. We have lost the world as it was, and our life as we knew it. Regardless of this having a silver lining, there is an honoring of what was that is inviting our attention. To be in healthy relationship with our grief is so essential as we navigate so much literal death, and little, transformative deaths; As we sit with our unknowing of what is going to happen next; As we reckon that we cannot hold and be held by our beloved friends and family; As we witness perpetuation of oppressions such as the disproportionately greater impact marginalized people are experiencing, and the ecocidal liscence to pollute and pillage our earth community. The weight of all that is to be grieved is immense, and each of us is experiencing it differently. 

“Each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn't mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.” - David Kessler

Should you desire an opportunity to be present with your grief, here is an invitation for being in council with earth:
Ask for consent from the spirit and ancestors of a place on the land, or on the ground of your home, or in your deep imagination where you feel safe and where the nurturing, generative energy of the earth welcomes your grief and council. Make a heartfelt, authentic offering and gratitude. Speak your intention aloud to be with and express the grief you are carrying, and asking to not hold it alone. If a place on the land is holding you, ask if you can make a hole a few inches deep, and as round as your face. When you place your face into the earth there should be enough space for air flow, but totally dark. If indoors, create this space as feels appropriate. Then, lying on your belly invite your grief to come forward to speak, cry, scream, etc. What needs to be said, expressed, and emoted? What truths need to be heard? You might feel your grief for the earth, or the impact of the harms that have been done. Remember that no one else will hear. Move at the pace your grief leads. When you feel complete for this time, give thanks for the loving and holding. We pray the tears feed new life and what was released be composted well and in service to life. Take care to replace the soils that were moved, or repair any disruptions to the land. Give thanks to your brave and tender heart, and take care of yourself after this vulnerable experience. Grief does not end, it is an enduring energy below the surface of life, so may we learn to keep tapped into the deeply alive, life giving waters that grief brings us access. 

—I give thanks and acknowledgment to School of Lost Borders , where I first experienced a version of this council with earth, and also Francis Weller who offers a variation of this ritual he calls “Speaking to the Earth” in his book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow”.

Vigil

I have been asked to share more about how to hold “vigil” in these times, and while I have considered how to answer this, for over a month now, I am finding myself extremely cautious and hesitant to define such a wild thing, particularly while we live it. I have not yet, until now, lived the way of collective vigil, only personally initiated “wilderness vigils”. For either, and for ceremony in general, it is alive, co-created by the mysterious entanglement of each soul and spirit involved, and thus to define is to confine and bring parameters to that which necessitates vast freedom of imagination and a unique remembering by each who carries intuitive wisdom, informed by place, ancestors, spirit, and the moment. 

Each of us is being (un)done by mystery uniquely, just as each soul occupies a particularly meaningful ecological niche. In collective vigil, each has the potential to receive a piece of the collective vision, and insight about their soul’s own particular belonging and expression of the soul of the world. So, in this threshold, each being’s unique perspective or vantage is essential and a part of our collective vision, which contain truths that we are being made available to receive, should we surrender to humbling receptivity. 

Living into questions that may guide an authentic vigil might sound something like: How do I make myself open to being dreamt by my place here rooted in earth/my ancestors/spirit? How do I nourish, and be nourished by the holy/my people/my planet? In what ways do I stay awake to the suffering and beauty in the world? How do I engage in conversation with the sacred, pray my own prayers, and sing my own songs, enact my own ceremonies? How do I maintain a clear channel to be in liminal wakefulness and devotional observance to what is? What are the messages carried through the dreamtime, and how can I usher these messages into consciousness? What does the wisdom of my body speak? How do I behold the messages arising from the voices of my children? How do I sense and know the interconnection with all of life? Who are the inner and outer protectors threatened by this terrifying and fundamental change, and how may I transmute them from enemies to transformational allies? How do I maintain an openness to the language of soul, symbol, metaphor, synchronicities, dreams, etc. while walking on the topside/mundane world in recognition that all is sacred and everything matters? 

Then, listening, listening, listening… what we hear is not to be made sense of in the threshold time, nor even uttered aloud in words that truncate the wisdom and scope of what is still ripening. Even well past the return, wrapping a neat bow upon a “vision” suffocates vital force, one can spend a lifetime unwrapping the gifts and apprenticing to the visions of vigil.

I am no elder, I do not know “the way”, nor is it my place to pretend to do so. I am here liquifying into imaginal cells too. Every time a part of me wants to start to dictate how this should be done like, “Sacrifice distractions! Don’t replace your old habits with new ones! Anesthetizing the discomforts of threshold time, evades you from wholeness and insight!…” I shutter at the sneaky ways I can believe a method that may actually control, or avoid the vulnerability of not knowing, of being with true mystery and dissolution. Everyone has something to say, something they know, and this terrain here is asking for something much more humble, to be made humus/soil/foundational, perhaps even prima materia/base matter available for alchemy, not necessarily to be spun into gold, (another goal-oriented trap), but we will see…