Separation from kinship with nature is relational trauma.
If each of us were to sit down and trace our ancestral lineages back we would discover many things in common. But the one I want to focus on today is that earlier in our lineages our ancestors saw plants, trees, and fungi as having consciousness. Perhaps that perspective continues for you today. And was taught to you by your living ancestors. Which in that case, what a blessing! But for many of us, myself included, that worldview has been severed and lost. Broken and diminished.
Recently during a personal ceremony to start healing my next ancestral lineage I found where the severance happened in my Celtic ancestors. The trauma was deep and the grief was vast.
As I connected with my elder ancestors, they revealed that our family made a vow that had been broken. A vow with the Earth and the land where they were from to support the spiritual health of their community. They maintained an orally transmitted lineage of healing with plants that had been broken. And as they showed me more about this tradition, something deep cracked open in me. An ocean of grief.
I’ve worked with this grief many times over the years. But this time I sensed both my personal grief and the grief of my ancestors.
Regardless of our lineage’s personal stories, this grief and yearning for our original kinship with Earth calls out deep in our bones. Signaling to remember our people once were in intimate relationships with the animate earth around us. And saw plants and animals as kin.
This severance from kinship with nature and earth is one of the core roots to human suffering in the modern era.
Fueling the violence we see on the news. The environmental destruction of our planet. The painful relationships we have with parts of our very own selves. And the deep seated hidden grief that aches in our bones through a desire to belong.
I see returning to relationships with plant spirits as the medicine many of us need to heal this traumatic wounding.
During the current episode of Tune In with Marci, I explore this original trauma further and one of its symptoms: staunch self-reliance.
Want to heal this relational trauma with the animate Earth? Join my Patreon where each month we foster meaningful relationships with plant spirits. Next week I’m leading a live online Summer Solstice ritual to connect with a plant spirit to guide you on the months ahead and share a powerful attunement practice.
Learn more and sign up HERE.
Much love,
Marci
PS. Never miss an episode of Tune In with Marci. Subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.