Have you ever considered your connection with land? Not just the place where you are living at this point in time, but all land, Mother Earth, Gaia, our planet?
And when we turn our thoughts to the land where we live, have you ever considered all those beings (both human and non-human) who may have lived there before you ~ some of whom may have even been removed to eventually enable you to be here?
These are just some thoughts that have been seeding in my consciousness of late. They may have stemmed from my recent workshop for the College of Psychic Studies where we were exploring the concept of "spirits of place". Then again, they have always been there in my subconscious and now have starting bubbling to the surface following the recent new moon.
Yet, regardless of what has ignited them, land, a sense of connection to it especially in an era where we see so much disconnection has been much on my mind.
We have ideas of ownership, seeing land as an investment, or a resource, yet we do not have any true connection with it. We do not see us belonging to the land ~ instead. we see land belonging to us. We have lost sight of it, Mother Earth, Gaia, being our most ancient of all ancestors.
Land has been here before everything else. It is the collective ancestor for each and every one of us. Land also has its own ancestors ~ all those who have been wounded, those who have been dishonoured, and those who have been forgotten.
When we eat the plants grown in a place, we are taking into our bodies the minerals, the nutrients, the essence of that place. We are also allowing the ancestors of a place to become part of us, our physical bodies.
All around the world there can be found creation stories that tell how we, as humans, were formed from the land itself, from pieces of clay that was carefully and lovingly shaped, and into which life was breathed into by divine beings.
When we return to the understanding that we all belong to the land, that the land is sacred and alive, we are able to reclaim and honour that part of our soul that we also have been disconnected from.