In July of 2021, I had the pleasure of being a featured contributor in the first issue of the New Earth Almanac with my article titled Sync. I had actually taken a portion of that work from a workshop I had facilitated at Rockvale Writers Colony at the start of 2021 on syncing goals and daily life to the cycles of the earth. I would like to share the story and practices that I offered from that workshop here as I think it will offer insights into reintegrating cycles in nature even more deeply which continues to be a needed reclamation with each passing year of global collapse. This offering is a practice in Ancient Futuring, my favorite way to live and imagine. History always shines a light for us to remember and comfort in as we create the future.
First a Story…
In the year 535 CE/AD, a cataclysmic event happened, known to some as Volcanic Winter, that disrupted life on earth in every continent. In writing about this time in history, the Roman statesman, Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus (c. 485 – c. 585) , describes a dim moon, and a sun that lost its "wonted light" and appeared "bluish," as if in "transitory eclipse throughout the whole year." Climate issues ensued for the next 12 to 20 or so years. We know about this event because of a combination of ancient writings and scientific research.
In a 2016 article in Historical Climatology titled The Global Cooling Event of the 6th Century, Mystery No Longer, Dr. Peter Newfield of Princeton University shares some fascinating details. He says:
Mediterranean texts describe the 536 event as 12 or perhaps 18 months long, but Michael Baillie, a tree ring expert, surveyed trees from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia and the U.S.A. that clearly show that the event lasted for roughly a decade. Tree ring studies have confirmed that the 536 event was hemispheric, and at a point global. For years, the 536 event or as it is known the 536-550 CE Downturn figured as a particularly cold stretch (in fact the coldest) in a long cool phase that set in more than a century before. This phase has many names: The "Vandal Minimum," the "Early Medieval Cold Period," or the "Migration Period Pessimum." Very recently, a multidisciplinary study concluded that the 536-550 event triggered a longer cold period within this century long Minimum. They call it the "Late Antique Little Ice Age.
Did this cooling have profound consequences for sixth-century societies?
The short answer, from research done on this poignant time in history, is yes. Accounts of famine, drought, dense fog, veiling of the sun and moon for years, civil unrest, the rise of and mass adoption of monotheistic religions as a whole can be traced to this era. The fall and/or devastation of civilizations, such as Teotihaucan in Mexico, the Moche of Peru, and the mythological event known as Ragnorak is said to have occurred during this climate downturn. And finally, the Justinian Plague from 541-549 was the first of the plague pandemics that swept through Europe and Asia from the 6th to the 8th centuries. 800 years later, the Black Death, which is more commonly known in mainstream lexicon, was caused by the same strain of bacteria, Yersinia pestis as its predecessor, the Justinian plague.
Ever since I learned about this historical event while doing my favorite hobby of wandering down ancient rabbit holes, I have felt a deep sense of connection to the people who lived during that strange time. I can’t help but presume that they might have had a great deal in common with us in our own era of global climate crisis, pandemic, and war in the name of monotheism cloaked in capitalism, fear and scarcity. I wonder if we can stretch ourselves back to the trauma of these ancient ancestors that we still carry epigenetically in our DNA and begin to heal it in ourselves in the coming years, which I believe are going to be similar on a global scale to what they endured during their 6th century climate crisis.
In addition to healing ancestral trauma we have an opportunity to learn some practicalities from these ancestors as well! Research also exists that discusses the resilience of the people and communities that lived through these times. An excerpt from The Global Cooling Event of the 6th Century, Mystery No Longer by Dr. Peter Newfield offers insights into more scientifically minded narratives from historian, Michael MCCormick, in which he explains that the cooling event had moderate implications. Narrative histories on the effects of the downturn have been gathered around resilience and adaptation to this sudden cataclysmic climate change are maybe more important and interesting as the histories gathered around the failures and collapse.
“This is clear in new work on the effects of the downturn, from the Yucatán to Fennoscandia, which emphasizes coping strategies and a certain hardiness in those that lived beneath the veils,” Newfield says.
A global impact event, like what happened in 536 CE/AD, which affected the entire human population together in similar ways hasn’t happened in our collective history since then. Sure the plague hit different areas in different ways around the same time but the catastrophic implications of the 536 climate event on global society feels deeply resonant to what we are living through right now. We are all, every human on the earth, affected by this pandemic at once regardless of opinion or belief, and we are tuned into each other 24/7 because of our global technology connectives. Obviously, the people of the 6th century weren’t tapped into one another to the extent we are today, but the collective was surviving this traumatic event that went on for decades in similar ways across continents. That common suffering must have connected humanity in indescribable energetic ways. I hope that we don’t have to live with the repercussions of this current common suffering for generations to come but so many signs point to that being more likely than not. Moving forward, we can plan our lives out in a way that embraces the present moment and understands that we don’t really know anything for certain.
We DO know this… Nature, even under the darkest veil amid global climate infrastructure collapse and a plague upon humanity, always offers respite and time to process if we set an intention to make connection with it. Think about these ancient people who lived by the rhythm of the Sun and the Moon, and then for years, lost access to these incredible sources of marking time and energy. They adapted in ways that were correct for them and that we still cling to in our modernity.
The Julian Calendar, a predecessor to the Gregorian one we live by today, came about during this downturn and I think in this modern era of cataclysm it's time to shed their adaptations a bit. I believe in cyclic healing and that time can fold over upon itself in the most unexpected ways. We share a time in space with these ancient ancestors where global pandemic and climate instability has ongoing affects to our communities, but we have the Sun bright upon our days and the Moon’s ebb and glow in our nightly view, and we can see the Stars as clearly as the ancients from every corner of the globe who weaved their mythological stories that we still enjoy and cling to today.
I want to honor those ancestors, who had a collective catastrophe so similar to our current modern one, by marking time through those very spheres that they lost access to during their “Volcanic Winter” crisis. It also feels like a prayer for our current climate and the global devastation we are living through. In holding the Sun, Moon and Stars as a time marker, it’s restoring a connection to nature that I think we may have lost all those years ago when a veil shrouded the strength of the spheres upon our sky.
Of course, calendars were around pre-6th century but I feel like 12 years of inconsistency of seasons, of a muted sun, moon, and the loss of the stars in the night sky caused humanity to find other means of marking time. I think our evolution into the deadline driven, calendar based, reliance we have today on minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years has left us disconnected. I get why the Julian Calendar was necessary but I think it's time to begin the shedding.
So let us use this era of global pandemic and climate crisis of the 21st century to heal a semblance of a connection to nature that we may have, as a human race, begun to rely on less because of the global climate crisis and pandemic in the 6th century.
We have chosen to embody on earth in this paradigm shifting time because we are what I like to call Bridge Generations. When we truly know ourselves, our stories, and how we best balance the mind, body and spirit, we begin to transform into the elders that our vastly changing society needs and deserves at this moment. We are the bridge generations who will hold space for and support our living and future descendants at the end of an era we neither ushered forth nor will be able to rectify. We can set in motion healing practices in the name of ancient futuring that can honor our bridge energy.
Contemplation
Think of a practice you could do this year that could be restorative for you and also bridge to ancestral healing of pandemic and climate survivors of the 6th century while also supporting the generations to come. Won’t you join me this year in sharing ideas and visioning what these practices could be? There are no wrong answers and generational healing will be the outcome. A goal with the outcome inevitable... that sounds like just what the collective ordered for this decade of the 2020s.
Practice
Syncing up with nature is a goal setting practice to which you may already be attuned. If you are not familiar, some possibilities to work with are the phases of the moon and their corresponding seasonal solar cycles. Below are some examples of connective time frames in which to work and reflect on what might feel right for you. Start small and if it feels correct, you can always expand!
Set and monitor your goals around the moon phases. Learn more about your birth moon phase here.
(More details around moon phases below.)
The Sun and its seasons mirror the moon phases through the course of a year.
Think of the Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest day of the year as the New Moon phase.
Summer Solstice is the Full Moon. If we split the year up by solstices, we are now in the Waxing season, the winter and spring as planning and growing stages of the year.
The Spring Equinox (balance of night and day) is a beautiful check in on any intentions of goals set in the darkest season where we dream of growth and blooming possibilities.
After the Summer Solstice, we begin the harvesting and preparing times where those dreams we began tending to in the cold dark times come to fruition and need to be cared for so that they may continue to grow even when the cold and dark are upon us.
The Waning season is the summer and fall with the Fall Equinox (balance of night and day) another beautiful check in point.
Of course you could say it’s just like planning out a year or a month, but there is something liminal and magical in connecting our goals with the balance of the sun and the moon and the seasons rather than the Gregorian calendar of days, weeks, months and years. I don’t know about you but letting the original telling of time lead me rather than the man-made one has been one wonderful thing I picked up in the paradigm shift of 2020 and each year since I have deepened that practice and it is serving my mental, emotional, embodied, and spiritual health very well over the past 4 years.
Below find an intention setting practice that might be supportive in the coming cycles.
Integrated Moon and Sun Phases, Focus, and Intention Setting
The New Moon: Corresponds with the Winter Solstice.
A principle phase, characterized by the Moon being invisible due to her close conjunction with the Sun.
New Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
The void, reset, beginnings, planting seeds, cultivating, mindset work, beginner’s mind, sacred pause, hope, regeneration, intention setting,
New Moon Mantra: I set my intention. I am _________.
Waxing Crescent Moon: Corresponds with the winter season
An intermediate phase, this Moon phase is characterized by the first time the Moon is visible as a sliver in the West at sunset.
Waxing Crescent Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
What brings you to light, growing career, growing a passion project, the long game work, goal setting, clarity, recharging, building up inner power, clearing negative energy
Waxing Crescent Moon Mantra: I feel my intention. I am ______________.
Half/First Quarter Moon: Corresponds with the Spring Equinox
A principle phase, here the Moon is half-full while still increasing in light.
Half/First Quarter Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
Balance, refocusing & rededication, expression, new behaviors, action, building, external, pedal to the metal, announcements, networking, growth, growing energy/emotions, boundaries, and protection.
Half/First Quarter Moon Mantra: I take action to support my intention. I am ___________.
Waxing Gibbous Moon: Corresponds with the spring season.
An intermediate phase, the Moon is more than half-full while still increasing in light.
Waxing Gibbous Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
Abundance, growth, prosperity, expansion, action, focus on tangible manifestation
Waxing Gibbous Moon Mantra: I trust the universe will help me focus my intention. I am ___________.
Full Moon: Corresponds with the Summer Solstice
A principle phase, this is characterized by the Moon's face being completely veiled in light. She is considered at her most powerful at this stage, but begins to lose light.
Full Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
Harvest, culmination, celebration, fulfillment, consciousness and subconscious, unveiling, big magic, wholeness, psychic visions, crest of a wave, magic, embodiment, manifestation of just about anything, abundance, ancestor work, everything all at once, emotions, downloads, exhaustion.
Full Moon Mantra: I release that which no longer serves me and may be standing in the way of manifesting my intention. I am _________.
Waning Gibbous/Disseminating Moon: Corresponds with the summer season.
An intermediate phase, here the Moon has passed her peak and is losing her light, but has not yet lost a whole half of it.
Waning Gibbous Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
Reflection, recalibration, realizations
Waning Gibbous Moon Mantra: I see more clearly and express gratitude for the shadows coming to light. I am ___________.
Half/Third Quarter Moon: Corresponds with the Autumnal Equinox.
A principle phase marked by the Moon being half-full and losing light.
Half/Third Quarter Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
Reorientation, balance, clearing, letting go, low energy, weeding, decluttering, forgiveness work, shadow work, release, subconscious work and reprogramming, inner parenting work, ancestry/personal history work and release, concentrated interior work, cord cutting, boundary and protection work
Half/Third Quarter Moon Mantra: I receive the form of my intention as it was truly meant to be, in all its perfection. I am_______.
Waning Crescent/Balsamic/Dark Moon:
An intermediate phase where the Moon has nearly lost all of her light and appears as a slim crescent and then completely invisible.
Waning/Balsamic/Dark Moon themes, focus, and possibilities
Radical rest, quiet, turning within, slowing down, self care practices, rage/anger work, banishing, mystery, a time of potential deep transformation, going down into the underworld, deep subconscious work such a hypnotism, guided meditations, psychic work, cord cutting
Waning Crescent/Balsamic/Dark Moon Mantra: I give thanks to the universe for guidance. I am______.
At this completion cycle, the New Moon/Winter Solstice offers the following mantra: I adjust my intention and refocus OR I set a new intention.I am _______.
May these resyncing possibilities offer connectives for you in the new cycle upon us however you honor that movement! it’s always correct to recalibrate to the seasons and the cycles according to your deep knowing. Cheers to the exploration!
Resources
Sarah Faith Gottesdiener's Many Moons Lunar Planner has been such a wonderful way to merge the mainstream calendar with the moon cycles and I recommend it highly as I have used it daily for 4 years. These ideas are a merging of Sarah’s research on working with the moon combined with my own experiential connectives.
In 2024, I am deepening my syncronicities with the moon with The Moon is My Calendar 2024 and a daily journaling practice using the 13 Moons Journal.
References
Waxing crescent moon here!