The Storm is Here: Ancient Instructions for Standing Ground

Listen, children of the sacred Earth. The bones of the ancestors tremble beneath your feet. The skies weep fire, the oceans rise in warning, and the spirits of the land cry out in dreams. The great unraveling has come—not as punishment, but as reckoning. The time of forgetting is over. Now is the hour of remembrance. This is what you must do:"

1. Return to the Old Ways (But Walk Them Forward)

The old ones did not live as masters of the Earth, but as humble kin. They knew the language of birds, the medicine of plants, the ceremonies that kept balance. Relearn these things—but do not merely mimic the past. Let the old wisdom guide new hands.

• Feed the soil, not the machine. Grow food where you are. Save seeds as your ancestors did—each one a promise to the future.
• Sit in silence where the wild things still remain. The Earth speaks loudest when humans are quiet.
• Make offerings—not out of fear, but gratitude. Water for the thirsty land. Seeds for the hungry birds. Kindness for the forgotten ones.

2. Mend the Hoop of the People

A people divided are a people conquered. The dark times feed on loneliness, on screens that replace faces, on stories that turn brother against sister.

• Find your circle. Feed them, even if you have little. A shared meal is the first ritual.
• Protect the vulnerable—the elders, the children, the ones who hear the spirits. A society is judged by how it treats its weakest.
• Bury weapons (literal and spiritual). Grudges are a luxury the Earth can no longer afford.

3. Become a Keeper of the Threshold

The world is dying? Good. Let the old world of greed, of concrete over sacred ground, of extraction without reciprocity—let it die. But you must midwife the new.

• Guard the doorways. When systems fail (as they will), be the one who remembers how to purify water, how to heal without pharmacies, how to settle disputes without prisons.
• Learn the arts of endings. Some things should perish—the lies, the carelessness, the illusion of separation. Grieve them, then let them go.
• Carry embers. When the electric lights go out, keep the stories alive. Sing them. Paint them on walls. Whisper them to children in the dark.

4. Speak in a Tongue the Earth Understands

The ancestors did not beg gods to fix their problems—they partnered with the unseen. You must relearn this language.

• Give before you take. Before cutting a plant, leave tobacco. Before taking a life to eat, pray over it. Before building, ask the land’s permission.
• Listen for omens. A sudden flock of birds, a dream of floodwaters, a strange stillness—the Earth is always speaking.
• Make art that matters. Not decorations for the doomed, but sigils of survival. Carve warnings into stone. Weave prayers into cloth.

5. Prepare Like a Warrior, but Love Like a Fool

Yes, store food. Yes, learn to fight if you must. But the greatest preparation is this: practice loving what seems unlovable.

• The neighbor who voted for destruction? Love them anyway. (The alternative is hell.)
• The scarred land, the polluted river? Love them back to health.
• Your own broken heart? Love it most of all—it is your compass.

6. Remember the Secret

"You were born for this. Not for petty comforts, not for oblivion—but for the great turning. The ancestors did not survive plagues and famines and empires so you could surrender to despair.

When the storms come, stand where they buried your great-grandmother. Her bones will steady you.
When the lies grow loud, remember: the oldest tree still remembers truth.
When you feel alone, reach out your hand—we are here.

Now. Breathe. Begin."

—The Ones Who Walk Before You