ANCESTRAL DEVOTIONS
by Iona Miller, (c)2016
by Iona Miller, (c)2016
All individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors. However, these generations remain nameless and profoundly unconscious, yet so primal that they may exert the greatest influence on us in ways we have forgotten to remember.
In both contemporary and ancient human societies, stone piles are often used to mark natural cavities in the landscape for caching food, as well as paths and important places1, and can hold a more symbolic meaning for burials2, ceremonial counting3, and the establishment of shrines4. Through archaeology, analyses of stone assemblages have provided us with insight into the technological and cognitive abilities of ancestral hominins5. It is therefore notable that the use of stone tools has also been observed in wild populations of nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees, one of our closest living relatives.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22219
In both contemporary and ancient human societies, stone piles are often used to mark natural cavities in the landscape for caching food, as well as paths and important places1, and can hold a more symbolic meaning for burials2, ceremonial counting3, and the establishment of shrines4. Through archaeology, analyses of stone assemblages have provided us with insight into the technological and cognitive abilities of ancestral hominins5. It is therefore notable that the use of stone tools has also been observed in wild populations of nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees, one of our closest living relatives.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22219
CLIMBING THROUGH MY BRANCHES
"I was especially interested in palaeontology; you see, my life work in historical comparative psychology is like palaeontology. That is the study of the archetypes of the animals, and this is the study of the archetypes in the soul. The Eohippus is the archetype of the modern horse, the archetypes are like the fossil animals." ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters, Pages 205-218
'Sacred Trees' may be an older 'notion' than mankind. Marking pathways and territories with signposts such as piles of rocks is an important step in human history. Chimps have been found hurling rocks at certain trees. Figuring out where chimps' territories are in relation to rock throwing sites could give us insights into whether this is the case here.
Accumulative stone throwing may be the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees. Indigenous West African people have stone collections at “sacred” trees and such man-made stone collections are commonly observed across the world and look eerily similar to archaic chimp behavior.
https://theconversation.com/mysterious-chimpanzee-behaviour-may-be-evidence-of-sacred-rituals-55512
Does this chimp behavior presage the interaction between human activity and the natural environment -- of Trees and Earth Shrines? Perhaps we should be speaking of a culturally mediated “landscape” rather than a “natural environment.” For creatures with arboreal roots, the main shrines dedicated to the Earth are in forests or the middle of a grove of trees, and later, stone circles representing trees/ancestors.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22219
Large Trees in Shrine Forests
Trees are born out of Mother Earth and reach upwards towards the heavens, making a sacred connection between the Lower and Upper Realms. Like trees sprouting upwards from the earth, our roots as humans and living beings share a common origin, and our actions in life shape the world that our children inherit. We are not isolated; we interact with the world, its ecosystems, its society and its people, like the branches of a tree growing and extending outwards. At once simple and profound.
Is this a signpost on the pre-human path to expressing unbroken relationships between the land, symbiotic land spirit relationships, vegetation, animals, and human land appropriation and territorial claims? Is it a primordial biography written in the landscape? How do we relate today to our land, mobility, and belonging? Where are our places of power and pathfinding -- our earth priests, earth-shrine stone(s), and earth shrines?
We now know memories can be passed along through epigenetic changes in our DNA affected by previous generations. Such intergenerational ancestral experience, echoes Jung's notion of archetypes, encoding, and their psychobiological substrate. Many cultures still hang rags or mirrors on sacred trees for connection, blessings, healing, and veneration.
Research suggests we might be able to modulate our genes and DNA with brainwaves, thoughts, placebo, and neuroplasticity at the intracellular, environmental and energetic level. We are learning to feed knowledge directly into the brain through neurostimulation. But we can also learn to access direct knowledge from our ancestral stores and stories.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/03/01/scientists-discover-how-to-download-knowledge-to-your-brain/?sf21765462=1
"I was especially interested in palaeontology; you see, my life work in historical comparative psychology is like palaeontology. That is the study of the archetypes of the animals, and this is the study of the archetypes in the soul. The Eohippus is the archetype of the modern horse, the archetypes are like the fossil animals." ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters, Pages 205-218
'Sacred Trees' may be an older 'notion' than mankind. Marking pathways and territories with signposts such as piles of rocks is an important step in human history. Chimps have been found hurling rocks at certain trees. Figuring out where chimps' territories are in relation to rock throwing sites could give us insights into whether this is the case here.
Accumulative stone throwing may be the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees. Indigenous West African people have stone collections at “sacred” trees and such man-made stone collections are commonly observed across the world and look eerily similar to archaic chimp behavior.
https://theconversation.com/mysterious-chimpanzee-behaviour-may-be-evidence-of-sacred-rituals-55512
Does this chimp behavior presage the interaction between human activity and the natural environment -- of Trees and Earth Shrines? Perhaps we should be speaking of a culturally mediated “landscape” rather than a “natural environment.” For creatures with arboreal roots, the main shrines dedicated to the Earth are in forests or the middle of a grove of trees, and later, stone circles representing trees/ancestors.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22219
Large Trees in Shrine Forests
Trees are born out of Mother Earth and reach upwards towards the heavens, making a sacred connection between the Lower and Upper Realms. Like trees sprouting upwards from the earth, our roots as humans and living beings share a common origin, and our actions in life shape the world that our children inherit. We are not isolated; we interact with the world, its ecosystems, its society and its people, like the branches of a tree growing and extending outwards. At once simple and profound.
Is this a signpost on the pre-human path to expressing unbroken relationships between the land, symbiotic land spirit relationships, vegetation, animals, and human land appropriation and territorial claims? Is it a primordial biography written in the landscape? How do we relate today to our land, mobility, and belonging? Where are our places of power and pathfinding -- our earth priests, earth-shrine stone(s), and earth shrines?
We now know memories can be passed along through epigenetic changes in our DNA affected by previous generations. Such intergenerational ancestral experience, echoes Jung's notion of archetypes, encoding, and their psychobiological substrate. Many cultures still hang rags or mirrors on sacred trees for connection, blessings, healing, and veneration.
Research suggests we might be able to modulate our genes and DNA with brainwaves, thoughts, placebo, and neuroplasticity at the intracellular, environmental and energetic level. We are learning to feed knowledge directly into the brain through neurostimulation. But we can also learn to access direct knowledge from our ancestral stores and stories.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/03/01/scientists-discover-how-to-download-knowledge-to-your-brain/?sf21765462=1
Archaic devotional works include:
Land Spirits:
These are entities in symbiotic relationships with a given place. They nurture and are sustained by locations ranging from a single flower to an entire continent, depending on the entity in question. We can visit them in nature and our household to show them hospitality, respect, and offerings, or celebrate them in music or art.
Spirits still dwell in unusually shaped rocks or trees, or in caves and earth mounds. The land connects and grounds us here and now to the wisdom of the earth and primordial nature. Earth and its spirits are coterminus and cannot be imagined apart from one another. Earth shrines can be made of stone, earth, trees and any other earthy kinds of materials.
Ancestors:
The ancestors are everywhere -- entities in symbiotic relationships with a bloodline or tribe. They’re also usually dead (though not 'gone'), but may include tribal spirits and totems, too. For most of human history ancestor veneration has been a core religious practice around the world because the debt we owe to those who came before is staggering.
We like to think they remain devoted to nurturing their descendants, that death is no hurdle for love and concern. These spirits nurture and are sustained by a given family lineage, certain families of choice, and/or specific clans/tribes within larger cultural groups. Adoption into a line is definitely possible, both before and after death, so the lines aren’t quite as clear-cut as they might seem.
Some people strictly honor those on their family trees, or even only their direct line, for as far back as they can trace but no further, but we can also include the nameless millions who remain in the dark. We can respect and bless all those who have been lost along the way, continuing the association, by exploring and building our known tree, pilgrimage, and working with our ancestors in integral ways.
Deities:
Entities in symbiotic relationships with larger cultural groups nurture and are sustained by a whole people. Those of us not born into a specific cultural group can almost always “seek citizenship” (although how that happens varies by deity and culture), allowing us to join with a people in a way similar to adoption into family lineages.
Land Spirits:
These are entities in symbiotic relationships with a given place. They nurture and are sustained by locations ranging from a single flower to an entire continent, depending on the entity in question. We can visit them in nature and our household to show them hospitality, respect, and offerings, or celebrate them in music or art.
Spirits still dwell in unusually shaped rocks or trees, or in caves and earth mounds. The land connects and grounds us here and now to the wisdom of the earth and primordial nature. Earth and its spirits are coterminus and cannot be imagined apart from one another. Earth shrines can be made of stone, earth, trees and any other earthy kinds of materials.
Ancestors:
The ancestors are everywhere -- entities in symbiotic relationships with a bloodline or tribe. They’re also usually dead (though not 'gone'), but may include tribal spirits and totems, too. For most of human history ancestor veneration has been a core religious practice around the world because the debt we owe to those who came before is staggering.
We like to think they remain devoted to nurturing their descendants, that death is no hurdle for love and concern. These spirits nurture and are sustained by a given family lineage, certain families of choice, and/or specific clans/tribes within larger cultural groups. Adoption into a line is definitely possible, both before and after death, so the lines aren’t quite as clear-cut as they might seem.
Some people strictly honor those on their family trees, or even only their direct line, for as far back as they can trace but no further, but we can also include the nameless millions who remain in the dark. We can respect and bless all those who have been lost along the way, continuing the association, by exploring and building our known tree, pilgrimage, and working with our ancestors in integral ways.
Deities:
Entities in symbiotic relationships with larger cultural groups nurture and are sustained by a whole people. Those of us not born into a specific cultural group can almost always “seek citizenship” (although how that happens varies by deity and culture), allowing us to join with a people in a way similar to adoption into family lineages.
A seal showing a tree shrine from ancient Minoa
The Last Branch that Supports Me
Individuation is a natural process. It is what makes a tree turn into a tree; if it is interfered with, then it becomes sick and cannot function as a tree, but left to itself it develops into a tree. That is individuation.
--Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters, Pages 205-218
Because of the way genetics and family trees work, every single human alive on the planet today can trace their family lines back to one common ancestor, one who lived from 8,000-2,000 years ago. As observed in a 2004 paper on the Most Recent Common Ancestor:
“No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu.”
If a common ancestor of all living humans is defined as an individual who is a genealogical ancestor of all present-day people, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past1, 2, 3. However, the random mating model ignores essential aspects of population substructure, such as the tendency of individuals to choose mates from the same social group, and the relative isolation of geographically separated groups. Here we show that recent common ancestors also emerge from two models incorporating substantial population substructure. These analyses suggest that the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.
Last Twig On the Branch
Invisible Loyalties
We Are Alive; It's All We Know
Life is a luminous pause between two great mysteries,
which themselves are one. --C.G. Jung
Over the course of the millennia, all these ancestors in your tree, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time--to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind? History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all. --Laurence Overmire
“The neurosis is as a rule a pathological, one-sided development of the personality, the imperceptible beginnings of which can be traced back almost indefinitely into the earliest years of childhood. Only a very arbitrary judgment can say where the neurosis actually begins. If we were to relegate the determining cause as far back as the patient’s prenatal life, thus involving the physical and psychic disposition of the parents at the time of conception and pregnancy—a view that seems not at all improbable in certain cases—such an attitude would be more justifiable than the arbitrary selection of a definite point of neurotic origin in the individual life of the patient” (Jung, CW 16, 257-258).
"It isn’t primarily a practice of thinking of one’s last hour, or of death as a physical phenomenon; it is a seeing of every moment of life against the horizon of death, and a challenge to incorporate that awareness of dying into every moment so as to become more fully alive."
—Brother David Steindl-Rast Parabola, 1977.
Individuation is a natural process. It is what makes a tree turn into a tree; if it is interfered with, then it becomes sick and cannot function as a tree, but left to itself it develops into a tree. That is individuation.
--Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters, Pages 205-218
Because of the way genetics and family trees work, every single human alive on the planet today can trace their family lines back to one common ancestor, one who lived from 8,000-2,000 years ago. As observed in a 2004 paper on the Most Recent Common Ancestor:
“No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu.”
If a common ancestor of all living humans is defined as an individual who is a genealogical ancestor of all present-day people, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past1, 2, 3. However, the random mating model ignores essential aspects of population substructure, such as the tendency of individuals to choose mates from the same social group, and the relative isolation of geographically separated groups. Here we show that recent common ancestors also emerge from two models incorporating substantial population substructure. These analyses suggest that the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.
Last Twig On the Branch
Invisible Loyalties
We Are Alive; It's All We Know
Life is a luminous pause between two great mysteries,
which themselves are one. --C.G. Jung
Over the course of the millennia, all these ancestors in your tree, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time--to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind? History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all. --Laurence Overmire
“The neurosis is as a rule a pathological, one-sided development of the personality, the imperceptible beginnings of which can be traced back almost indefinitely into the earliest years of childhood. Only a very arbitrary judgment can say where the neurosis actually begins. If we were to relegate the determining cause as far back as the patient’s prenatal life, thus involving the physical and psychic disposition of the parents at the time of conception and pregnancy—a view that seems not at all improbable in certain cases—such an attitude would be more justifiable than the arbitrary selection of a definite point of neurotic origin in the individual life of the patient” (Jung, CW 16, 257-258).
"It isn’t primarily a practice of thinking of one’s last hour, or of death as a physical phenomenon; it is a seeing of every moment of life against the horizon of death, and a challenge to incorporate that awareness of dying into every moment so as to become more fully alive."
—Brother David Steindl-Rast Parabola, 1977.
The soul tree or Nyame Dua of the ancient Akan of Ghana was a sacred tree that served as the village shrine connecting the community to the Goddess Nyame through the ancient ancestresses of the clan. The ancestresses were worshiped and fed at this shrine and served as intermediaries between the clan and Nyame, the genetrix Goddess of the original fire.This shrine was tended to by the Queenmother as this tribe was matriarchal. The Queenmother was the one who facilitated the relationship between the ancestral realm and the living by making offerings to the tree shrine and carrying out her divinatory work.
The soul tree or fire-tree, gya dua, was often a fig. The fig tree was seen to be a representation of Nyame. The red fruit represented her original fire. The women must have either carried the tree from the former location or used its branches or seeds to maintain the continuous connection with the roots and medicine of original tree.
Fig trees were also worshiped out in sacred groves removed from the village. There, together with her priestesses, the Queenmother performed sacred and special rituals for the good of the community. Initiations and group “soul washings” also took place out in this grove.
As time progressed, the palm tree also became a symbol of Nyame and her original fire.
In The Akan of Ghana, Eva Meyerowitz writes of how at later dates, when the encroaching patriarchal worldview and European colonization was already taking place, in every compound except the Queenmother’s, there was still kept an altar dedicated to the Supreme Being, Nyame. It is called Nyame Dua (Nyame’s tree). These shrines are active and honored in many tribes in West Africa yet today. The shrine is constructed of a tree branch placed into the earth with three or four cut branches at the top creating a basket shape in which is placed a vessel containing water and Nyame’s axe, “a symbol of strength and power. The people in the compound bless themselves with this water, praising Nyame and also give her thank-offerings as protectoress of their dwelling.”*
The astounding part about this information is that I have the exact shrine in my shrine room. In the West African tradition I am initiated into, it is called a Nyur shrine. Nyur is translated to soul rootedness and the installation of the Nyur shrine is a ritual to root the medicine deeply into the earth for the good of the community in which a diviner works. This is clearly an Nyame Dua, Nyame’s tree, a fire tree or soul tree. It is clear that the Nyame Dua and the Nyur shrine are continuation of this ancient practice of soul trees carried out by the Queenmothers of the ancient matriarchal Akan.
Soul rootedness and rootedness of a medicine lineage can only happen by being rooted to source, original fire, as well as deeply in the earth. When we understand our place in the vastness of the cosmos, our deep connection with that which gave birth to all, and are able root this connection to the earth plane for the good of our communities, only then are we truly rooted. Understanding that this is a tree dedicated to the Goddess of original fire, Nyame, has only deepened my appreciation for this ancient medicine.
~Theresa C. Dintino, * The Akan of Ghana, Eva Meyerowitz, Faber & Faber, London, 1958
The soul tree or fire-tree, gya dua, was often a fig. The fig tree was seen to be a representation of Nyame. The red fruit represented her original fire. The women must have either carried the tree from the former location or used its branches or seeds to maintain the continuous connection with the roots and medicine of original tree.
Fig trees were also worshiped out in sacred groves removed from the village. There, together with her priestesses, the Queenmother performed sacred and special rituals for the good of the community. Initiations and group “soul washings” also took place out in this grove.
As time progressed, the palm tree also became a symbol of Nyame and her original fire.
In The Akan of Ghana, Eva Meyerowitz writes of how at later dates, when the encroaching patriarchal worldview and European colonization was already taking place, in every compound except the Queenmother’s, there was still kept an altar dedicated to the Supreme Being, Nyame. It is called Nyame Dua (Nyame’s tree). These shrines are active and honored in many tribes in West Africa yet today. The shrine is constructed of a tree branch placed into the earth with three or four cut branches at the top creating a basket shape in which is placed a vessel containing water and Nyame’s axe, “a symbol of strength and power. The people in the compound bless themselves with this water, praising Nyame and also give her thank-offerings as protectoress of their dwelling.”*
The astounding part about this information is that I have the exact shrine in my shrine room. In the West African tradition I am initiated into, it is called a Nyur shrine. Nyur is translated to soul rootedness and the installation of the Nyur shrine is a ritual to root the medicine deeply into the earth for the good of the community in which a diviner works. This is clearly an Nyame Dua, Nyame’s tree, a fire tree or soul tree. It is clear that the Nyame Dua and the Nyur shrine are continuation of this ancient practice of soul trees carried out by the Queenmothers of the ancient matriarchal Akan.
Soul rootedness and rootedness of a medicine lineage can only happen by being rooted to source, original fire, as well as deeply in the earth. When we understand our place in the vastness of the cosmos, our deep connection with that which gave birth to all, and are able root this connection to the earth plane for the good of our communities, only then are we truly rooted. Understanding that this is a tree dedicated to the Goddess of original fire, Nyame, has only deepened my appreciation for this ancient medicine.
~Theresa C. Dintino, * The Akan of Ghana, Eva Meyerowitz, Faber & Faber, London, 1958
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20120914&page=23