Listening to the Cosmos: Crystallization Period

Beginning the 15th of January, we enter what, in Biodynamic Agriculture, is called the Crystallization Period. In this time of fallowness the earth is quiet and most receptive to the energies of the cosmos, a time receptiveness is critically important.

For the ground of my psyche, it is also a time of contemplation and meditation, a time to read books that amplify spirit. This year one of the more important books that I have come upon is Star Mounds: A Legacy of Native American Mystery, by Ross Hamilton (North Atlantic Books, 2012). In the weeks ahead I will do a kind of meditation review of some of the important ideas he presents. But today, in this beginning of the month when the earth’s ear is most sensitive to its place in the larger cosmos, I want to talk generally about what has been lost by our own lack of listening.

As Carl Jung took seriously the imagery and feeling coming from the unconscious, Ross Hamilton has taken seriously the earthworks of the Ohio Valley. Many of the mounds have been damaged and/or destroyed due to ignorance of their presence or the importance of their purpose. Hamilton, however, has carefully studied the geometries and the alignments of what remains, as well as early 1800 explorer accounts made before white settlers destroyed the earthworks. What Hamilton postulates— with a great deal of astronomical and soil evidence— is that these works are far older than previously suspected, probably built around the time of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids some 5-6000 years ago. The works reflect sophisticated knowledge of the stars and astronomical alignments, as well as carefully laid out measurements which hold hidden, esoteric, cross-cultural truths. He suggests that they were a part of a vast, engineered system to effect interaction of the heavens, earth, and humans. This was a cooperative, respectful system which worked with climate and fertility, and perhaps consciousness, bringing balance to at least the Ohio Valley, and perhaps beyond.

In this system, the Fall from Paradise was not a fall from a participation mystique, or a kind of merged unconscious unity, but from a much more sophisticated consciousness. After this Fall, consciousness dimmed, a process that has resulted in devastating results to our environment. Rather than work with nature, listening intently, and responding, humans have taken up an attitude of dominion over, even justifying exploitation of the earth through religion. We have become more and more removed from the earth and the heavens. Most of us have no idea on any given day the phase of the moon or what star is rising at sunrise.

There is a shift of 2013, a critical turning and entering another age. Perhaps the Star Mounds slumbering these many years offer keys to guide us. “We do not yet understand the intellectual development and spiritual capacities of certain ancestral cultures located in various key locales around the world just six to five thousand years ago,” Hamilton asserts. “ We assume our forebears of prehistory inferior to us…we have been living in divorce from the ancient wisdom and in the process have literally lost the enlightenment once in possession of our forebears. With loss of light comes immediate loss of consciousness and memory…”(p.243-244).

Yet the earth holds memory, if we listen, if we witness, if we relearn how to receive.