Ancestors and the Collective Consciousness
The time of renewal coincides with the time of the fall equinox. A time when the days shorten, the leaves turn, the wind is crisper, the squirrels gather their nuts and humans reflect. The Days of Awe in Jewish tradition are during this time of year for a reason, celebrating the birth of the world, our planet Earth. The time when the world was created, whether it be from a speck of dust or from the Creation fable written down to provide a possibility of answers. It doesn’t really matter because inherently; we know we have ancestors who have lived before us. Ancestors who have lived through droughts in the desert, famine with only mana to eat, natural disasters destroying communities, and inexplicable plagues. We have been here before and we are here again.
We are here because of our ancestors. It has been pummeled into me year after year to honor the ancestors, “L’dor v’dor“ (generation to generation), “acknowledge the ancestors,” “know where you come from,” “don’t let history repeat itself.” While I always heard it, it has never meant more to me than this year. Our ancestors are not only the ones from our immediate families. They are the collective of every single person living in this present moment, connected as human beings walking the Earth.
As I looked upon my Rosh Hashanah dinner table, I noticed the 100-year-old white, modest platter with the delicate small blue and pink flowers at the top border, light cracks of the top porcelain layer, given to my great-grandmother on her wedding day. What an auspicious day that must have been in 1920, the year women gained the right to vote (west of the Mississippi), there was a de facto woman president (Edith Wilson), they were together celebrating life and love! My grandmother was born a year later, and then my mother was born 27 years later. Four generations of women, connected to that plate living through family gatherings unbroken, serving them a range of nourishment.
“We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it.” — Hannah Arndt
We are here at this time of year again to reflect for the 10 Days of Awe, and this year feels much more significant. The Collective is so lost, so far from its own humanity, integrity, and decency. While we celebrate the creation of the world, it’s as if we are still in the process of birth. While we have not learned from history and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over because we do not honor our ancestors and remember. Like a toddler who needs to be redirected repeatedly to stay away from the edge of the pool. While the pandemic rages, and the turbulent storms of fire and snow swirl, it’s as if the earth is begging us to push through. Or is Mother Earth saying, you think you own me with your drilling and deforestations, I’ll show you. I gave you this place and I can take it away, you are nothing but insignificant humans who have pillaged and ravaged me enough.
And I liken this feminine quality of Mother Earth, pushing her way through to be heard and seen like all the women who have come before us unseen or stifled. It is the women who are the strength, the rocks, the compassion, the empathy that was pushed away when religion came into the world created by men simply because they were feared. Moments of history blur through my mind; Native American women who tended and respected the earth, the nomads in the desert walking for 40 years waiting to go to the Promised Land, the pagans foraging herbs and plants for healing, all part of our ancestral history.
Our most recent hero, Ruth Bader Ginsberg (RBG), passing on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the eve of the holiday and while in Judaism, the afterlife is not believed, her memory will be for a blessing. While the “do good things, be redeemed is not part of this tradition when Jews speak of righteousness, it is never with the idea of an eternal reward. We don’t know what happens next, but we know what happens here and that is enough. The pursuit of justice is one of the highest callings of Judaism, and it should not be misinterpreted as vengeance or punishment. The ideas of justice and sustainability are inextricably linked in Judaism. A system that is unjust cannot sustain, and a system that is unsustainable cannot be just.” — author unknown
Now that RBG is one of our ancestors, we must uphold her memory by living righteously, exemplifying “tzedakah” or “tzedek” which means charity or righteousness. This is put into action by one of the tenets of Judaism of “tikkun olam,” repairing the world and we can only do this by giving, extending ourselves not so we can be in favor of exchange but to balance the scales of the great injustices that surround us daily. RBG worked tirelessly until her last breath to balance the scales by repairing our world from the injustices of inequality. For us, it may simply be to give a Trader Joe’s gift card to a homeless person or donating food or clothing as everyone has a right to their basic needs of food and shelter. We can all do our part to balance the scales and these are our righteous acts.
During this time of the New Year, if we consider that the earth is being re-born and demanding, we push that one last push like in labor when you feel like you simply cannot push any longer or you will die. Collectively, we all must push. Push through. Push beyond. We are in twilight, hanging in the balance of light and dark, with the never-ending lucid dreaming in a vast galaxy of sparkles of light waiting to be birthed. We are those tiny lights lost in the darkness, waiting to shine and be seen so brightly that the collective comes back together to form a new world. A new world that is righteous and just, fair and true, and most of all balanced in the best possible way. That when there is an injustice, a child unfed, a sick person who needs care, we see them as humans and we take care of them because that is what humans inherently do. We care, we love from our very souls that somehow have been lost.
I acknowledge the plight of our ancestors before us, of all religions, gods and goddesses, backgrounds, colors for we are all made up of energy and dust and the things that separate us on earth. What part of the shift of the collective consciousness are you going to play?
