Today is Memorial Day. This is the day in the United States when many people visit the cemetery and honor their deceased loved ones with a plant placed at their grave site. Parades are part of the celebration, mostly with a patriotic theme and a tribute to fallen soldiers.
In your white American culture, you don't use the word ancestor. So many cultures include maintaining an ongoing relationship with their ancestors. They believe they are still with them, although in physical form.
How different would your culture be if you brought in a continuum of lineage that included the past, present, and future? Your Western culture focuses on the present with the exception of honoring previous wars and victories from the past.
The focus on future denies the demise of the planet, humankind, and animals, and exclusively focuses on scientific accomplishments meant to create the future we desire. The future of life on the earth and the quality of life here is startlingly absent in conversations.
We see the future in terms of goals and accomplishments and see that as progress. We neglect the glaring reality of how close we are to following the path of extinction that thousands of species have suffered.
What if we brought into daily experience and conversations the gifts and guidance of our ancestors?
What if we made a daily choice to take a seat in the natural world and listen to the wisdom and guidance of Mother Earth?
What if we moved out of this despicably self-centered, comfortable perspective that we and those like us are the only ones that matter?
What if we experienced Memorial Day as a true day of remembering all of our relations on this realm and others?
Tuning in, focusing, and listening is not such a difficult thing to do. It merely requires quiet, focus, and intention.
The guidance is there for us. Let's step out of our familiar comfort zone and tap in.
The lives and the life of everything and everyone depends on it.