For the past couple of weeks the Elders have been visiting me in my dreams on a regular basis. The other night they came, showing me charts of climate change and speaking about our contemporary loss of languages with which to interact with the Land. “Who are you,” they asked, “if you can’t speak with the Land?” “How can you possibly hope to understand your life if you have no language that roots you in Place?”
The elders had charts. On these charts global temperatures were rising an average of just .06 degrees F., annually. I shrugged my shoulders and wondered why they were concerned. They responded, “Do the math!” I did the math. At that rate of increase, global temperatures would rise 6 degrees F. in a century. Yet the rate of increase is not stable; it is quickening.
From their point of view, our loss of language for place equates to the loss of our essential humanity. They suggested we have rejected our rootedness in the world, and with it, our capacity to understand ourselves as Immense Beings, connected to all life, and responsible for Life’s continuity. We have adapted a language of isolation, separation, and consumption. We are a lost age.
Of course, we are not TOTALLY cut off from our deep roots in Creation. After all, the Elders are still visiting and coaching us, encouraging us to awaken to the Living Earth of which we are both autonomous parts and a fully connected expression. We might yet remember the languages of the places where we live and love. We might, they suggested, soothe the fever in which we rant and rage, and the Earth burns. We might even remember who we truly are and become Real People.
Have you been visited by the Elders recently? Will you share their teachings with us?
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