“I have read somewhere of an old Chinese curse: ‘May you be born in an interesting time!’ This is a VERY interesting time: there are no models for ANYTHING that is going on. It is a period of free fall into the future, and each has to make his or her own way. The old models are not working; the new have not yet appeared. In fact, it is we who are even now shaping the new in the shaping of our interesting lives. And that is the whole sense (in mythological terms) of the present challenge: we are the ‘ancestors’ of an age to come, the unwitting generators of its supporting myths, the mythic models that will inspire its lives.”
From Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine
This resonated with me today.
One of the perspectives I felt acutely during my experience with cancer was that the role models I had from previous generations around how to navigate such an experience did not serve me.
Models for living with disability, disease, chronic and acute, need to be challenged and redefined as they no longer meet our needs.
We are the Ancestors.
It is up to us to break not only trauma patterns, but also outdated role models of how life was lived that no longer fit.
It is really the responsibility of each generation to do better than the one prior – that’s part of how we grow, as individuals and as communities.
We are the Ancestors.
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