What will be your legacy?

This time of year leads naturally to the question of what kind of ancestor will I be? What will be my legacy?

This autumn more than others, I’ve really felt the presence of the ancestors. It’s fitting that I would, this time of year. My Celtic ancestors would have celebrated Samhain, the ‘day-of-the-dead’ (popularised as Halloween), as autumnal leaves fell and dark descended for the winter. I’ve felt it this year in the stillness and quiet of the forest, in the sense of my centre of gravity drawing downwards, in the work of the abundant fungi helping everything return to earth. I’ve been drawn to this task too; turning my compost, feeding it crumpled leaves and worms.

It’s been more personally felt in the altar we made on the north facing window sill for the very present ancestor in my home sphere, the mother of my two step-children, who died a year ago last week. In her honour I made a simple meal that was her children’s favourite - quinoa, salad and boiled eggs with mayonnaise. Coincidentally, this day was also the day that Jon Young and I dived into the archetype of the South-West in our current Mentoring for Gifts course, the direction which in the southern hemisphere speaks of the time of life of approaching elder hood and late Autumn, of the ancestors, and of what we call the 'heritage species' - those that hold strong cultural mythology that inspire us to protect our wild relations into perpetuity. 

As well as remembering what has past and passing, the time of year with its quiet introspection leads naturally to the question of what kind of ancestor will I be? What will be my legacy? What quality of soil shall the actions of my life leave for the next generation to grow into, or perhaps, for seven generations hence?

This question, perhaps more than any other time in human history, is one important to ask. We live in a time unlike any other, that which Joanna Macy calls The Great Turning, where collectively we are choosing whether we will turn the wheel of civilisation from one of Industrial Growth to one of life affirmation and regeneration.

A friend of mine, I heard this week, keeps a calendar printed on his wall of all the weeks he will hopefully live up to his 90th. Each week he crosses off another from his wall. Has this week been lived in service to one’s soul work? Has this week been lived in service to the future generations, the future ancestors? Is my life in alignment with what my heart leaps towards? What I value most?

They’re questions hard to feel into during life’s frenetic busyness. And they’re questions best asked in conversation with a wild other - a river or mountain, a midnight owl or mossy rockface. It’s their future too.

I invite you to join with us this second half of the year and invite these questions in.

May your winter be dark and deep in the best possible ways,

With love,

Claire