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The Wheel and the Virus: Teachings from the Dark

January 13, 2021 by Fowler

Here we are again, in the darkest time of the year. After our holiday celebrations (most of them based on the land-connected traditions of our ancestors), now we settle into the rhythm of short days, dark evenings, and cold weather, already dreaming of spring. And indeed, the dawning of spring is always a riotously happy time, on the land and within ourselves. But, in the meantime, every year most of us do our best to avoid the lessons of winter.

On the 4-directions wheel that centered the inner and outer lives of most ancestral peoples, winter is the time for reaffirming the lessons of the North (in the southern hemisphere, the South). The opportunity for this comes around every year. And every winter, life in the human-created world is devoted to living the same way we do year-round—working, accomplishing, accumulating, staying busy, getting ahead. All winter, most people worldwide continue to align with the principles of “progress”: rapid growth and ever-increasing consumption, powered by ceaseless, short-term change. This impetus is nicely modeled by the South of the wheel, the summertime, when, in fact, most of Nature is also devoted to these principles.

But the land and creatures know that they can’t sustain the South’s pace continually, and we humans must learn that too. For us to become our full authentic selves, participating in generous, life-affirming societies, it’s essential that we submit annually to the North’s lessons.

Along with winter, in many traditions the North is associated with the element of Earth. The Earth element gives us our base, our foundation. Earth is solid, dependable, stable, supportive, slow to change. The North is also the time of Elderhood. A true Elder meets the winter fully. She is content to be still, patient and inward. She knows the value of stability. The wise Elder also knows, however, that this stability is not lifeless and inert. Instead, it nourishes and engenders necessary, timely change, in us and in the land. This change is rooted in Gaia’s laws and cycles, and prepares all beings to emerge into full, vibrant life again in the spring.

Thus, the Winter, every year, presents us with a cauldron of rebirth and regeneration—a cauldron that is manifest in the resting Earth and tended by the patient, faithful Elder. In this sacred cauldron of fertile darkness are the seeds of new life, lovingly held within calm, rooted stability. If new life—not only plant seedlings and baby animals, but the works and ideas of humanity—isn’t birthed from this nurturing, restful ground, it will never generate a balanced, inclusive, truly abundant future. And every year, humans ignore this lesson and continue to serve a life-denying, unsustainable way of living.

Who among us thought, last spring, that the Covid-19 pandemic would still be active 9 months later? And, all these months, human people and institutions have been struggling to maintain business as usual, despite the virus’s damaging, far-reaching effects on the human-created world. It almost seems that Covid has been imposing the harshness of winter, but without winter’s gifts.

As 2021 arrives, however, we are once again being presented with the chance to learn from the true Winter season, from the North on the wheel. The stakes are higher than ever this year: without these teachings we cannot birth the new, resilient, post-Covid world we yearn for.

Those of us who are still able to live more or less abundant, stress-free lives in this pandemic—besides counting our blessings daily and doing what we can to help our neighbors—have a Gaia-sent opportunity to sink into Winter’s cauldron. This is the most important spiritual work we can be doing right now. Both the Earth around us and the Elder within us can show us what we most need to learn. Let’s embrace this task, now, so that in a few months we can help the human and more-than-human worlds emerge from North to East, into a beautiful, exuberant, liberating Spring.

Filed Under: Ancestral Spirituality, Home Featured Right

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Mary Janet Fowler
Mary Janet Fowler

I am a sacramental ceremonialist on behalf of Gaia

I grew up roaming the mountains and mesas of northern New Mexico. Out there I came to know that the earth and its creatures and places are not only alive, intelligent and beautiful, but are an essential part of who I am. I also learned firsthand about the spiritual beings of the Sacred Land, and felt their promptings and protective presence for years before I even knew a language to describe it.

I was intrigued and excited by the Gaia Hypothesis—which proposes that the entire planet is a dynamic, self-regulating being—when it was first explicated 50 years ago. I found this idea both radical and obvious. I’ve always known that there is a living, interconnected presence in Nature, a vibrant physical and spiritual wholeness, grounded in both change and continuity, ever seeking harmony and balance.

After a lifetime of earth-centered explorations, I’ve come to focus my entire spiritual life around Gaia Herself—the vast, vital, planetary being who generated me and the lands, plants and creatures I love. My calling is to do whatever I can to strengthen Gaia’s regenerative, transformative powers, on behalf of all future generations of human and non-human beings.

Click here to visit my companion website, www.greenchrist.com. The Green Christ, a primal being of Nature who has a special relationship with humanity, is another manifestation of Gaia’s sacred, regenerative energy.

Blog Topics

  • Ancestral Spirituality
  • Deep Ecology and Earth-Centered Philosophy
  • Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies
  • Gaia and the Divine Feminine
  • The Sacred Land’s Wisdom

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