Module 3: A Place In History
Watch this video about "Seven Generation Meditation"
[Video]: Please follow the link provided below to listen to the Seven Generation Meditation. This meditation was created by Angel Acosta, a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Angel has taught us how contemplative practices enable us to be present for this extremely challenging anniversary. The flautist, Margaux Simmons, composed and performed the music for the meditation.
Seven Generations Meditation (Audio)
Please listen by yourself or with others to the recording of Angel Acosta reading the Seven Generation Meditation. If you prefer, you may read the text of the meditation on your own or with a group. If you do wish to read it aloud, we have provided a link to music composed and performed by Margaux Simmons specifically to accompany this meditation.
Seven Generations Meditation (Text)
Here is the text of the meditation if you or someone else in your group would like to read it aloud:
This meditation is an invitation to reflect on our ancestry. It is inspired by the Native American principle of seven generations, which proposes that our thoughts and actions have effects that reverberate seven generations into the future just as the actions of the previous seven generations still shape our current lived experience.
Through this meditation, we invite you to connect to your ancestral lineage, to think back as far as you can to the lived experiences of your forebears.
[optional] In a few moments you will hear the sound of the bamboo flute. Let the sound take you back as far as you can.
Sit back in your chair comfortably. Relax your shoulders and your legs. Breath in and out gently.
The meditation guides you to consider how your forebears have contributed to, experienced, and survived different levels of inequality. You will remember, think, and feel. Sit with what comes up for you. Continue breathing in and out gently.
We begin with a minute of silence [allow approximately one minute to pass].
Continue to notice your breathing—softly inhale and exhale.
Think of your ancestors, beginning with your nearest elders, those who are one generation older than you. Where are they from? What have they lived with and through in their lives?
How have they experienced inequality? How has inequality defined this generation? Now think back further to your great grand elders and their elders. Deepen your reflection until you have reached back seven generations. If you wish, consider a 400 year or 20 generation timespan.
You are unlikely to know the names or stories of individuals. Draw on what you know from the histories you have learned to imagine the worlds in which these older generations lived.
What inequalities did they experience and how were their lives and the lives of their people defined by these structures?
As you open yourself to these memories, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?
Gently open your eyes. Feel yourself coming back into your room.
The work of reflecting on our ancestral lineage is powerful. It allows us to engage our collective history in a more personal and intimate way. Over the coming days and maybe weeks hold what came up for you during this short meditation. Remember that our ancestors continue to teach us.
Thank you.
This meditation is an invitation to reflect on our ancestry. It is inspired by the Native American principle of seven generations, which proposes that our thoughts and actions have effects that reverberate seven generations into the future just as the actions of the previous seven generations still shape our current lived experience.
Through this meditation, we invite you to connect to your ancestral lineage, to think back as far as you can to the lived experiences of your forebears.
[optional] In a few moments you will hear the sound of the bamboo flute. Let the sound take you back as far as you can.
Sit back in your chair comfortably. Relax your shoulders and your legs. Breath in and out gently.
The meditation guides you to consider how your forebears have contributed to, experienced, and survived different levels of inequality. You will remember, think, and feel. Sit with what comes up for you. Continue breathing in and out gently.
We begin with a minute of silence [allow approximately one minute to pass].
Continue to notice your breathing—softly inhale and exhale.
Think of your ancestors, beginning with your nearest elders, those who are one generation older than you. Where are they from? What have they lived with and through in their lives?
How have they experienced inequality? How has inequality defined this generation? Now think back further to your great grand elders and their elders. Deepen your reflection until you have reached back seven generations. If you wish, consider a 400 year or 20 generation timespan.
You are unlikely to know the names or stories of individuals. Draw on what you know from the histories you have learned to imagine the worlds in which these older generations lived.
What inequalities did they experience and how were their lives and the lives of their people defined by these structures?
As you open yourself to these memories, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?
Gently open your eyes. Feel yourself coming back into your room.
The work of reflecting on our ancestral lineage is powerful. It allows us to engage our collective history in a more personal and intimate way. Over the coming days and maybe weeks hold what came up for you during this short meditation. Remember that our ancestors continue to teach us.
Thank you.
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