Future Ancestors & Water Bears

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tl;dr: The Water Bear is a symbol of resilience. Life persists. Even in face of collapse, we become Future Ancestors.

Before we start. I try not to pay too much attention to rankings and numbers in any form of social media. But I was touched to see that the other day Substack listed me as number 52 rising in the culture category.

That is all thanks to YOU!

So I wanted to take a moment to thank you. To invite you to consider becoming a paid subscriber. And to encourage you to please share what you find resonant here. Share it with specific people in your life. It is almost impossible to tell signal from noise these days. We depend on the recommendations of people that we trust.

Now back to or scheduled programming…

What is that thing on our logo?

Why, it’s a Water Bear!

A Tardigrade.

The perfect symbol for Future Ancestors.

Let me explain.

If you’ve been reading for a while, or if you’ve worked directly with me, you know that I am committed to the long view. And by that I usually mean millennia. Not 2,000 years or 4,000 years, but more like 70,000.

Today we’ll take an even longer view.

But let’s start here.

Human beings came down from trees and became a fancy ape walking the earth somewhere between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. This was the birth of homo sapiens. The birth of our species.

But it wasn't until 70,000 years ago that we start to see the emergence of symbolic culture. It’s the birth of self-reflective human consciousness.

We become this sentient being that is able to look back upon itself and start to ask really big questions. The questions that define humanity:

How did we get here?

Why are we here?

How should we be while we're here?

That moment, the very moment when we started looking back at ourselves, is as significant as a 2nd Big Bang as far as our species is concerned.

Moved by Wade Davis, the passionate anthropologist, I started to see the diversity of cultures across time as the thousand ways in which we try to answer the big questions. And thanks to Davis, I learned to see that the extinction of languages and cultures under the domination of western modernity is the peak of human hubris.

This hubris led to a global civilization defined by the outrageous idea that whatever came before the European Enlightenment was primitive superstition. And that whatever comes after is more valid, more right, and more helpful than millennia upon millennia of human wisdom.

Here at Future Ancestors, we orient towards the idea of Forward Facing Remembering. We are not under the illusion of the “pre-post fallacy.” The pre-post fallacy is the belief that we come from an idealized past where we understood everything. That there was a golden age when all lived in right-relationship with the natural world, with the spirit world, and with each other. And the alluring belief the future will be made right when we return to that past.

I find it insulting to our ancestors. Ignorant of history, culture, and human nature.

But there is indeed too much that has been forgotten. In these challenging times, there is indeed a wealth of wisdom that has been transmitted in songs, rituals, stories, and prayers for millennia after millennia. And it behooves us to remember these. Because these were revealed, crafted and created long before text, long before the printing press, and long before the internet.

What our ancestors knew without a doubt is that things always get difficult. And they took the time and the care to initiate each generation into knowing what to do and how to be when shit inevitably hits the fan.

This is essential wisdom. Wisdom that we need right now. Wisdom that we're here to remember. And to live our way into.

The Sixth Great Extinction

Let me try a little science here. But all in service of the symbolic. The mythopoetic way through which we actually find meaning.

So what happens if we take the very long view? The view of geological time. Not just the view of millennia, but the view of millions upon millions of years.

We are living through the sixth great extinction. There have been five others. These extinctions are relatively short periods of time during which 75% of living species disappear. The last mass extinction, the fifth one, was 66 million years ago. That's when the dinosaurs disappeared.

This one, the sixth one, the one we are in, is called the Anthropocene. It is called the Anthropocene because it is the only one caused by one single species on the planet. Humans. And we really got going at it just a few generations ago. Just the other day. In the middle of the 20th century.

It is quite rare for a mammalian species to destroy its own environment. And this total devastation, this complete stealing from our descendants, has never before been seen. It is counter-evolutionary.

But what does this have to do with Water Bears?

You see…

Tardigrades [aka Water Bears] can survive at altitudes of nearly 20,000 feet and to depths of 15,000 feet. For reference, we humans can only go about 60 feet below the surface of the water before the pressure makes a permanent mark on our health. When taking the layers of the ocean into account, we barely scrape the surface of the top zone.

Tardigrades, on the other hand, are able to dip into the abyss. Into those deep scores on the ocean floor where there is high pressure, no light, and subfreezing temperatures.

Water Bears are able to survive at temperatures as low as negative 328 degrees, which is about 100 degrees shy of the temperature of deep, interstellar space. At the other end of the scale, they can survive in temperatures as high as 300 degrees.

Mind-blowing resilience. They certainly are among the most resilient species on Earth.

Now, I know I've been talking science. But I want to invite you to get mythopoetic with me. Because I'm talking in terms of symbols.

The way I see it, if we cannot stave off this mass extinction event, Water Bears have a pretty good chance of being among the species that survive. And if they survive, there is life!

There is this planet's obstinate commitment to life! To live! To face mass extinction and then to do it all over again. To grow life! And to let life evolve.

From this perspective, we can imagine the Water Bear as our Future Ancestor. We can imagine this microscopic life form holding the code to life by simply being. Being alive. Daring to survive in impossible circumstances.

And millions of years unfold. And life keeps growing and branching out. And new species emerge. And the Creative Life Force of the Universe, its Creative Intelligence, keeps finding new and not yet seen ways to express itself. And even to reflect back upon itself.

Tragic Optimism

Optimism is the belief that things will turn out well, expecting a positive outcome regardless of current challenges.

Tragic optimism is the ability to maintain hope and find meaning despite suffering. Despite loss, or hardship. It doesn’t deny pain. It chooses to face it with courage and purpose.

We must do all that we can to stave off a mass extinction event. We must take responsibility. Seek ancestral wisdom. Wield our radical capacity for innovation. And change ourselves from the inside out. We must do all that we can.

But we must not turn away. We cannot avert our gaze from the tragedy of living through the Sixth Great Extinction. The tragedy of causing it.

And the best way to turn towards it is to take the posture of tragic optimism.

The psychologist, holocaust survivor and Prophet of Meaning, Viktor Frankl, invited us to cultivate the ability to maintain hope in life despite its inevitable tragedies. To find meaning in life despite pain, guilt, and death.

He invited us to practice a posture that says:

Even when confronted with suffering, even as we face life and its terms, we can still choose our response. We can still affirm life’s potential for meaning. And this is essential, this is at the very heart of resilience and psychological well-being. This is how we get beyond PTSD. How we create the possibility of Post-Traumatic GROWTH.

I take the posture of tragic optimism in order to look at life with clear eyes. To look at a climate crisis on the cusp of its fatal tipping point. To look at the way we keep unlocking the technology of the gods. But we do not develop anything like the maturity we need to wield it. To look at the global rise of authoritarianism. To look at the persistence of intimate human suffering that shows up in the healing work that I do with others.

To look at the tragedy of it all.

And still find meaning.

And hope.

This is what the Water Bear represents.

The sigil reminds us that the seed of life is already here. That it knows how to be buried. And bide its time. And come out and try again.

It is meant to remind us that ancestral wisdom is already here. It vibrates within our cells. The cues and the clues for who and how to be when things get really, really hard. If you are among the uninitiated among us, I invite you to trust me here.

Can you remember how you felt the last time you lit a fire?

What does it feel like when your gaze falls upon the stored energy of the sun?!

Remember the last time you sang with others. And consider the song of the birds. These tiny little creatures are the dinosaurs among us. The ones who adapted and survived by getting small, and getting beautiful. The ancestors who taught us how to sing.

Remember how you feel in nature. In relationship to the elements.

Remember the dance. And the drum.

You know.

And you know you know.

We are finding ways to remember. And as we remember we learn to keep the fire. We learn to take our rightful place between ancestors and descendants. We realize that we are here to train. To train to be good ancestors. Because we are Future Ancestors.

We look up at the stars, because we are the children of the Wayfinders. We take our stance. We learn to live wisely and, in doing so, honor our descendants. Taking seriously what it means to consider and transmit what is essential, what is most important, about how to be human, together, upon this Sacred Earth.