Ancestral Wisdom

Ancestral Wisdom

"We who have no elders, come

To your strong knees for counsel."

___ Caitlin Matthews, "Avebury Easter"

Most of us are sufficiently distanced from our own ancestral wisdom to feel disoriented in a time when indigenous knowledge is being reevaluated. How do we rekindle the ancestral fires once again? Where is the wisdom that will help us through the night of ignorance and doubt? Instead of elders, we now have elected politicians who speak with corrupt and self-serving voices; instead of fragrant local wisdom, we have homogeneous civil law and institutionalized religion to guide us.

Ancestral wisdom does not cease because the elders are no longer important in our society. Indeed, the wisdom is retrievable and implementable now. Part of the solution lies with ourselves. By changing the way we think - extending our planning to include the next ten generations rather than our own lifetime and vigorously upholding the rights and privileges of elders in our community - we shift from a basis of neglect to a more respectful and empowered position.

If we genuinely want to look to our recent or ancient past for wisdom, then we must give time, effort and study to our own spiritual and indigenous traditions, or to the traditions of those lands whence our ancestors came. Whatever is useful, whatever is practical, whatever is wise will never be lost as long as one person is practicing it.

"Ask one of your own ancestors - someone known or unknown to you - to come to your circle of meditation. Ask this wise one for help about some aspect of your own life that is problematic. Then implement the advice you are given and see what results."

[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]