Cosmologies of Connection: Healing Through Stories and Dreams

Our dreams are intertwined with the cosmology of our culture, the relationships we cultivate, and the visions we entertain.

My teacher always invites me to refrain from using the word "culture" when referring to the Western capitalistic worldview. From his ancestral Andean perspective, culture has ceremonies, rituals, rites of passage, a deep relationship with the land, and respect for elders, which we do not have.

So, I will use the word "society" for the modern landscape.

In our society, centuries of loss of ancient stories and myths, the disappearance of the mystics and their relation to the wild world, fading night skies overpowered by artificial light, and broken connection to nature cycles have replaced ancient cosmologies with a modern version made of power, greed, money, and competition over each other and the non-human world. This has led to environmental degradation, social inequality, and a general sense of disconnection and disorientation.

Our dreams have become a technological utopia, fed by AI and artificial devices, false information, and hateful discourse, leaders without a moral compass and empathy begging to be praised and adored, that is but a reflection of the loss of connection to the primordial Mother, the feminine, and the womb of humanity. We praise the heartless billionaires and reject those begging for some love on the edges of society or buried under the rubble of colonialism.

We are ungrounded, with restless bodies and anxious minds, trying to grasp meaning in the meaningless and enjoying the distraction and comfort of modernity, which numbs the pain of that primordial loss. Fighting over territories, people, resources, and land, while our true unspoken and unseen desires reside in being reunited in the arms of our ancient Mother.

Without a grounded and healthy cosmology, the life we manifest becomes misguided. Dreams have become nightmares. The fulfilling prophecy of the word unfolds every day into more habitat and species loss, more denial of our collective responsibilities, more conspiracy theories birthed from confused minds and pain bodies, more bombs dropped on children and crying mothers, and more normalization of atrocities. The world is losing its soul; we are losing our magical spark.

In myths, the villains, not the heroes, destroy and grab lands. They are greedy and have no empathy. They destroy waters, communities, and skies. They harm children, mothers, and the elderly. The heroes feed the poor, welcome strangers, share their resources, sing around the fire, and cry in the community.

I often think of the grief of those losses and the unprocessed emotions that manifest in full display on our screens. The rage, the anger, the pain—all coming from this tsunami of grief that is deeply protected and hidden in the great majority of bodies walking this Earth.

Our souls call for connection, yet we participate in systems of separation. They call for meaning, yet we entertain superficial consumption. They call for softness and openness, yet we retract in cocoons of isolation fenced with walls, borders, and ideology. They call for the Mother, yet we harm her every single day.

Those dreams intertwined with the cosmology of our culture, the relationships we cultivate, and the visions we entertain have become dark and pale images of what is truly possible for our collective well-being.

I believe that because of the loss of connection to the magical, the wonder, the beauty of the unknown, we have sucked the blood out of our hearts and souls. Will we remember that our humanity is not defined by the stock market or our technological achievement but by our capacity to live every day as a magical blessing, to dwell in the mythic body, to relentlessly serve those less fortunate than us, and to return daily to the wild infinite space of not-knowing?

It has become clear that those who preach knowing do not know, and those who do not know might hold the true possibilities of renewal.

In a society that defines itself around knowledge and certainty, a place where the mind is king and the heart a slave hostage, there is no space allowed for the dreamers, the storytellers, the myths of ancient times, the magical beings of the forest and the lands, the invisible thread that keeps us all alive and pulsates the joy and beauty in our bodies and in the leaves of every single tree.

We need to radically change our cosmology to reframe our relationship around the non-human world, entertain visions of the prophecy of rebirth, and reclaim the magic in every aspect of our daily lives. If we do not dwell in magic, how will we manifest a magical world and reclaim the lost paradise on Earth?

I am aware that unless we do so, we will continue manifesting a world of machines, concrete, and iron instead of a world of beauty, poetry, and sweet magical dreams. We will continue doubling down on the justification of violence on land and bodies as the necessary by-product of our "progress" and chase immortality in a world of nightmares.

The most radical offering we can make to this world is to help ourselves, and each other reconnect to the mythic body. This concept refers to the collective unconscious, the shared stories and archetypes that shape our understanding of the world. Reconnecting to these mystical stories and the invisible and mysterious thread that is the pulsation of light manifesting all that exists is the necessary return to sanity and into the arms of the Mother.

To those searching for meaning and purpose, I invite us to dwell in this sacred ancient space and unleash new possibilities for this struggling world. This is a call to action, a call to make a difference.

Now is the time for the wild dreamers, the storytellers, the cosmologies of the elders, the myth of ancient times, and the birth of a new era. This time of great potential can allow us to write a magical new story despite the terrible pain and grief of the collective losses.

With love and hope,
Angell Deer

Sacred Paths

"Cosmologies of Connection: Healing Through Stories and Dreams," chapter 12, a short extract from my upcoming book "Becoming the Medicine."