Pegi EYERS Ahmadreza Ghafari / Unsplash We are all part of the old stories. And whether we know the stories or not, the old stories know about us. [1] Leslie Marmon Silko I have always been attracted to the primordial building blocks of human existence, and my guiding light - or happy place - is my affinity for ancestral ways. The elements of earth, fire, water and air, stone, bone, shells, clay, carved branches, baskets, red ochre, the hand on the cave wall, feathers in my hair, and the land's dreaming, all continue to nourish my soul. Ignited by sojourns in nature and my deep time memories, I spontaneously seek to revive the primordial, and to express the wilds of my own imagination by weaving text, mixed media and storytelling - and even digital tools - into my writing, art, and craft. My resonance with the paleolithic and neolithic were unusual in my early years, but I grew up surrounded by lakes and rivers, luxuriant forests, the great stone outcroppings of the Canadian Shield, and other wild places. Over the decades, I began to find models in archaeology and mythology (of course), but also in the worlds of literature and fine art. With so many beautiful inspirations – each a joyful discovery - I found that I was not the only one occupied with the primal and the “time before time,” as the monolith of civilization kept advancing. Today, we find the symbols of our primordial past everywhere, as this iconography continues to flourish like a perennial garden. Forms, symbols and textures from pre-colonial cultures worldwide show up in our fashion, furniture, food, décor, art, music, games and tools. In many ways this re-emergence is a much-needed return to animism and nature spirituality. But the popularity of tribal content is not merely a reflection of our communal yearning for a simpler time. It is also an expression of our timeless heritage as people of the land, and the primordial legacy stored in our DNA. Over the ages, we have always been both human and animal, and have a well-defined place of belonging in Earth Community.
As an animist, I know that my Deep Time Ancestors embraced the wheel of the year, the phases of the moon, and the cyclical forces of birth, life, death, and rebirth. In terms of my own cultural and spiritual path, I make every effort to align with sustainable practices, and to reject the “status quo” of capitalism and consumerism. Living on a rural property surrounded by hedgerows and forests, I observe the activity in nature around me, celebrate the ever-changing phenomena of climate and the cosmos, and keep my love for the land front and center. Despite the demands and challenges of modern life, I applaud all those who are able to fully rewild themselves, and join ecovillages or intentional communities. Today, the rise of the ancestral arts frames the irony of a cultural renaissance based on hope, just when western civilization seems to be collapsing under its own weight. Apocalyptic omens are everywhere, and warnings of monumental change and the breakdown of ecosystems have been part of the public discourse for decades. A civilization that destroys the natural world to live, will destroy itself. The annihilation of wild places alters the balance, and chthonic powers are unleashed through climate disasters, pandemics and other forms of collapse. Our attraction to the primordial points to the timeless needs of human beings, but it could also be an unconscious pull toward the future, when our post-civilizational reality may include such things as bone hooks, stone blades, woven clothing, black earth pigments, face paint, feather altars, vine ties, carved paddles, copper elements, and animal clans.  Voices of Earth ~ Archaic Whispers hands in earth, green growing cavern sweet with flowers and leaves (diving deep) earth that is her body ten thousand things rise and fall Ancestors! Ancestors! the deepest sound is silence next to hard rock she can remember listening ~ not with the ear with the spirit Ancestors! Ancestors! the trail is cold cave walls echo ……….. summoning blissful hallowing voices of earth, archaic whispers guided, protected and inspired rhythmic drums and sacred songs homelands etched on the heart Ancestors! Ancestors! diving deep earth that is her body ] [ (wings to fly) rising up to meet the light  To be fully informed in the sphere of the ancestral arts, is to understand the controversies in the Americas (aka Turtle Island), that point to the original apocalypse First Nations endured, with the arrival of the European powers. The legacy of colonial violence is still being reckoned with today in cross-cultural dialogue, bridge-building, and discourse in social justice. Today’s “Settlers”[2], the descendants of Euro-emigration, immigration and diaspora, continue to cause harm with habitual patterns such as racism and oppression, but also with less obvious actions such as cultural appropriation. Untethered from one’s own heritage, and blessed with access and privilege, many folks have taken the spiritual and cultural property of living First Nations – such as the Lakota or Anishnaabe – to create their own faux identity. Such a shocking phenomena has led academics, activists and practitioners to teach and write about better choices, and more positive action toward reconciliation. My own book Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community arose from my fascination with colleagues who were pretending to be Cree and Haudenosaunee, when they were clearly of European descent! In terms of a silver lining, First Nations Elders, vision keepers and community leaders have been urging all peoples - from any ethnoculture - to recover, reclaim and revive their own Indigenous Knowledge.[3] We are being directed - like a mandate or manifesto - to discover our own roots, and to make that expression part of our contemporary lives. This of course, is the antidote to the harm caused by cultural appropriation. And yet, a serious scholar would have difficulty finding an ancestral European culture completely free of coloniality. Religious persecution, economic oppression and other brutalities have been happening for hundreds, if not thousands of years. We can clearly see that horrific events such as the witch burnings, Highland Clearances, Potato Famine and Magdalene Laundries resulted from a long history of oppression, and were also trial runs for what happened in the Americas. With centuries of interference, the pathways back to an authentic European indigeneity are hard to find, if not non-existent. So what would our primal return look like, for those of us who have been “civilized” for millennia? If First Nations - with worldviews immersed in nature and the sacred - are correct in their assessment, civilization is an aberration, and a wrong turn in our overall human journey. The First Nations position is clear, and yet why is this so difficult for the “civilized” to see? Detached from the natural world, modernists are firmly planted in a self-created reality of religion, culture, philosophy, science and Empire-building. Civilized life is now “the norm,” along with the techno-optimists and “humans by design” on the rise in our new era of the Anthropocene. And yet, if we can truly reach back to pre-colonial times, there is no question that indigeneity can be located, at some point in our ancestral line. In my own case, I had my mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), or motherline, traced through Oxford Ancestors[4] to a tribal group that existed 30,000 years ago in the Lascaux Valley of France. From generation to generation they thrived, chose the migration journey, and eventually crossed to what is now the Scottish Highlands. Through the mists of cyclic time and geography, I am the recipient of a wealth of blessings from my ancestors. Their resilience has empowered me to self-identify with my own haplogroup and claim my tribe. It may take much dedication and imagination, but at least there is no argument that I am not Indigenous to Old Europe! I am finally at home, with my primordial belonging, my clan mothers, and my kinship to Earth Community.
It is fascinating to think that we can reach back to the Upper Paleolithic to decolonize and re-indigenize ourselves, and what we can learn from that process going forward. Delving into deep time also leads us to the question – what is the nature of primordial mind? According to China Galland, “Our basic mind is like water, its nature remains clear and unpolluted, and that no matter what distressing emotions arise, our primordial nature – our ‘basic’ mind – remains unaffected, beginninglessly good. Goodness without beginning, goodness without end.”[5] Also, Haridas Chaudhuri writes, “When a person discovers his ultimate ground of existence, his authentic individuality emerges. He begins to feel a spiritual kinship with the entire universe. He experiences a sense of responsibility for the entire living creation. His heart beats in unison with the all of existence. His soul is aflame with the spirit of dedication to cosmic welfare, and he becomes cosmocentric.”[6] I find these assessments very reassuring, in the face of recent critiques that consider past-cultural revivals to be based on fantasy and cosplay.[7] Any rationalist can pull together a case study that discounts our deep time memory and place within the ecosystem. But there are clearly positive attributes of the human psyche that have kept us alive through the millennia. Basic human goodness - still visible everywhere today – has been a constant, especially in societies with a moral code that place kindness and hospitality first. These are the best qualities of “indigenous mind”[8] that we hold from ancient times, and that we can still uncover in ourselves and others today. The challenge of the polycrisis means reconnecting with what is most important, and reviving our ancestral wisdom to adapt and thrive. The power of Earth Community is rising once again. The gifts of the Ancestors are manifesting in every sphere – in the revival of the gift economy and egalitarian social organization, the emphasis on the “we” instead of the “me,” and the supremacy of unconditional love. We are re-discovering our skill with animist lifeways, interspecies communication, reciprocity with the more-than-human, plant-spirit medicine, important rites of passage, honoring the sacred in all life – and finally, making decisions that honor the generations yet to come. The Old Ones - the weavers embedded in the land - are summoning us back to our most ancient selves, to our Ancestors and wild nature. The natural world remains the foundation of all life, and the wisdom of our indigeneity has not wavered. Even in modern times our true power is found in our ancient communal past, when we remember the sacred essence we held, so long ago.  ENDNOTES [1] Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, Simon & Schuster, 1997 [2] Referring to the various diasporans and descendants of the original colonizers as “Settler” has gained wide usage in the Americas, and is an appropriate reminder of our status as seen through the lens of Empire-building. “The term Settler is used to denaturalize our status on this land, to force colonialism into the forefront of our consciousness, to cause discomfort and force a reckoning with our inherited colonial status, to create the understanding and desire to embrace, demand and effect change.” Corey Snelgrove and Klara Woldenga, Why the Term ‘Settler’ Needs to Stick, The Martlet, University of Victoria, March 28, 2013. (www.martlet.ca) [3] Pegi Eyers, First Nations on Ancestral Connection, Stone Circle Press, 2025 (www.stonecirclepress.com/blog-9658-ancient-spirit-rising/first-nations-on-ancestral-connection) [4] There is nothing more thrilling than pinpointing your DNA signature and genetic homeland! Oxford Ancestors (now defunct) offered mitochondrial DNA testing (mtDNA) for personal research into ancient ancestry. Oxford Ancestors was founded by Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, and author of The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry, W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 [5] China Galland, The Bond Between Women, Riverhead Books, 1999 [6] Jürgen W. Kremer, The Primordial Mind: Outline of a Pedagogy for the Recovery of Indigenous Mind and the Facilitation of Integrated States of Consciousness, Founders Symposium, California Institute of Integral Studies, 2010 [7] Alan Jacobs, Fantasy and the Buffered Self, The New Atlantis, 2014 [8] Pegi Eyers, Entwining Heart & Mind, Stone Circle Press, 2025 (www.stonecirclepress.com/blog-9658-ancient-spirit-rising/entwining-heart-mind)  "Primordial Revival" originally appeared in Homecoming 5: Art, A Journal of New Animist Writing, Aurochs Underground Press, Summer Solstice 2025. The digital book/PDF is available. Aurochs is a small press set up in 2021 by the author Jack Wolf, based in Bath, UK. >Aurochs Press Store< 
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ESSAYS BY PEGI EYERSWe need to tell new stories about ourselves, new myths to guide us forward, and new manifestos that celebrate our integration with the natural world. our archaic spirit needs to rise again in a weaving of timeless myths and stories of growth, regeneration, rites of passage, motion, energy, illumination, magic, decay, and all the earth’s processes that dwell both in us and the more-than-human world.
Pegi Eyers Ancient Spirit Rising 
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