It is hard to see a whole civilisation lose its way, becoming buried under the debris of its consumerist dreams and patterns of exploitation. But what has been lost can be found in a new way, as a reawakening of the soul of humanity and the soul of the world. For many years to come the outer world will continue to pay its price of social and economic collapse as this civilisation encounters climate crisis. But for those whose hearts are open there is a seed of a new way to be, and this is what draws my attention: holding a connection between the worlds, the outer world of form and the inner world of spirit, bringing them back together in a dance of love. And while this has been the way of shamans and seers since the very early days, there is a new note present now, a call and a response: the cry of the Earth has been heard by those who belong to love and something can be given to the heart of the world to help it to sing.This is why the return to the first day is so essential, because in that time before time is a place of purity and healing, “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal.” And from this water something new can be born—not from the structures of the past, with its patterns of power and inequality, its split between masculine and feminine, spirit and matter, but in the wholeness of life as it was in the beginning.Yes, we will have to learn how to live at the end of an era, at a time of increasing insecurity, disturbance, even chaos. We will see more and more the value of care, compassion, and community, and develop the tools of radical resilience, as we are already recognising. But most importantly, we will discover again what it means to work for a future seven generations or longer. We may try to imagine a future of clean energy and locally grown food, of shifting to more of a gift economy. But for life to regenerate, for this seed to grow, we have to be first open to unknowing and insecurity, allowing the deeper organic wisdom of the Earth to resurface, a wisdom that knows the wholeness inherent in all things, in which humanity is not seen as separate from the land and its many inhabitants. Without this return to what is essential we will remain in the ruins of this fragmented, desolate world we have created.

Llewellyn Vaughan Lee