The ‘Battlestar Galactica' of Our Collective Past
Battlestar Galactica was a show on TV when I was young. I don’t remember much of it, but it blends in my mind with Star Wars and other sci-fi films of the time. The premise of the show was that a band of rebels were fighting a losing battle and looking for a mythic planet called Earth. We are in a Battlestar Galactica, but we are fighting for Earth, not searching for it. It is mythic or epic proportions, but it can feel mundane in many ways.
There are places that engage the magic of the Earth directly like Stonehenge and Serpent Mound in my home state of Ohio. But, there are other places that hold the ghosts of the past even while we venerate those events that bring us fear. Battlefields are known for their fear and they hold those energies even when the fighting is over. There are many battlefields around the world where wars were won and lost. I don’t usually pay attention to them, but I am aware of Wounded Knee, Gettysburg, the space that is now Arlington Cemetery and others where our storied villains and heroes showed their valor or their rancor. They are interesting places from an energetic perspective because they are literal Timefields, my description of overwhelm that can — and does often — get transferred into the land itself.
As journalist Elizabeth Winkler so rightly asked, “Who has the authority to determine the truth about the past?”* Memorials aren’t wrong, but they do get us stuck in a trap or Timefield, intentionally or otherwise. By memorializing battlefields in the way we do, we hold on to the trauma, passing it to new generations instead of letting it go to find a brighter future. It’s time to move on from the emotions of the past because they don’t belong to us. If every day begins anew in the light of the sun, then every generation has the right to do the same.
If we were to travel back in time and find love on our battlefields instead of fear, what would they look and feel like?
They might be beautiful parks where a natural encounter takes place instead of resistance to change. We would probably feel lifted up, lighter than air, when we walked through them instead of heavy. While being down to Earth is a positive aspect, being dragged down isn’t. If love is a grounding source, then it will also lift us up in our hearts while our sorrows fall away. Climbing to new heights may be scary for some, but if they look up and see love looking down at them, perhaps they have a different feeling about the whole experience and are ready to take on tomorrow from a new outlook. We can find ourselves protected under an old oak tree but know that the protection comes from within as well as without. It’s up to you to decide if it’s real because we all have our own authenticity meter and if we don’t take the time to discern what’s true to us rather than what’s true to others, then our lives may feel pointless or like automatons.
Traveling back in time is exactly what we do when we visit battlefields. Our bodies move through today, but our minds take us back while we learn about what happened. It must be exhausting for the guides who move through those places to reenact or live it daily. They encounter the energies of the past along with the people they are guiding, who have their own set of beliefs around cannons, military, monuments and other acts of war. They bring it all there and dump it into the land. Some people feel and see only sorrow, others feel anger about what they were pulled into without consideration of their own beliefs. Sometimes the beliefs are fake, as in, “I’m just here because my parents or teachers are making me learn.”
Others go there knowing what they’ll run into and try to change the vibration by asking the land itself for forgiveness. It’s easy to do and builds autonomy for the land and the people who visit it. So if you are this type of tour guide, give yourself autonomy by first asking the land if you have permission to be there and then bless it through gratitude. It can be a silent moment in your head and doesn’t have to take long. If praying or blessing isn’t your thing, consider all the traditions of the native peoples who are in close consideration of the land they walk on and inhabit. They aren’t wrong about it and were never able to impress on white settlers that the land holds sorrow, joy and other emotions just as we do because we are the ones who put it there, not the other way around.
It’s not common to see rainbows or fairies, but we believe in them because seeing is believing.
Or you can focus on believing through the energies of sound, which is vibration. If the sounds are lyrical, then you are on the right track. Another way is to notice how you’re feeling through vibrations in your body. (For example, I feel a vibration in my hands.) A body check to make sure you agree with what you’re hearing and seeing is part of our connection to the Earth.
If you work on these battlefields and you see love and light as you walk through your ‘office’ or territory, believe it, it’s real, even if it shines for just a moment or a momentary space in time. All day rainbows are set to be the main attraction in our lives soon, I can feel it, so begin by believing in yours.
*Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies, 2023, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY