I continue to experience “insight” into ways in which our modern, Western culture is a result of an incredible silencing of a completely different way of life. It is as though humans lived in such a different way with nature, until European expansion overtook the world between the mid-1500s to the 1700s. It was that power shift that not only silenced various aspects of ourselves, but aspects of nature as well.

I have the feeling nature is asking us to awaken from this self-imposed slumber. It is as though the centuries of silencing women, West African peoples, Native Americans, and other indigenous cultures is no longer going to contain what is needed on the planet: a relationship with the natural world. And small groups of indigenous groups the world over can no longer contain this power themselves, for it is as though it is being spread once again into cultures that earlier refused it.

What is a 42-year-old white boy from Texas doing with knowledge of medicinal plants, the Goddess tradition, Grandmother Moon lore, dreams, visions, and other “forbidden knowledge” that was beaten out of women, slaves, Indians, and anyone else within the last 500 years? I know there are hundreds, thousands more like me: men and women all over the world who are experiencing an “awakening” of knowledge that is announcing itself so quickly that it is impossible to stop.

Could it be that the planet and all of Her creations are desperately seeking community with us humans again, knowing that Her survival—and ours—depends on our growing awareness? Of course, I also believe that the planet will survive with or without us: but it is as though there’s a last-minute effort being made to allow the human race to once again join this participatory effort to experience harmony on the planet. It is as though that’s the gift of Mother Earth to her children, the human species.

Aurora Morales tells the story of the European expansions into Africa, the Americas and Asia from the mid-1500s to the 1700s. It was during these days, she says in Medicine Stories, that witch hunts became violently pervasive in the world, leading to a “major power shift” in the world:

The herbalists and midwives and practitioners of folk religions had a relationship with the natural world that would have interfered with the growing monopolization of resources both inside and outside Europe, by elite European men. It was a relationship of reciprocity, of respect, of participation. That relationship had to be broken and for several hundred years the women who conveyed the common lore were demonized, tormented, and violently put to death to destroy their authority. Among other things, the witch persecutions established elite male monopolies of knowledge, especially medical and spiritual knowledge. (pp. 47-48)