This Earth Day reflection urges us to confront two intertwined truths we too often ignore: our relationship to the environment and our treatment of the elderly.
Growing up in Ghana, I was taught by my history professor that true life stems from connection—that severance invites death. This idea mirrors ancient Egyptian cosmology, where a vast community of affection included the living, the dead, and the unborn. It was the sacred task of the living to remember those who came before and prepare the way for those yet to come. These connections weren’t limited to human beings—they extended to landscapes, waterways, trees, and the entire natural world.
In that worldview, our Earth was not just a backdrop, it was part of the soul’s journey.
Today, I ask: How are we treating our elders? Have we abandon them to strangers in nursing homes devoid of spiritual connection? And what of the Earth itself—wounded, silenced, discarded? What then is the meaning of life, or even the essence of birth, when the elders and the Earth are both forgotten and in
To misread Ancient Egypt as obsessed with death is a mistake. Their monumental tombs weren’t just for mourning—they were messages: affirming an unbroken bridge between the visible and invisible, between the present and ancestral time. This ethos pervades autonomous African cultures. Death, they believed, was not an end but a passage in an ongoing dialogue.
Tombs spoke of immanent souls. The living and dead remained united in memory and spirit. Across East, Central, and Nile Valley Africa, people erected household altars as signs of enduring love. They’d lay offerings with a whispered plea: We haven’t forgotten you. Don’t forget us either.
Even Christ, schooled in Egypt, echoes this connection when on the cross he cries, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?”
These ancestors beloved grand parents, guardians, keepers of truth were expected to remain protectors, even in death. And in remembering them, we remained whole.
Visit a nursing home today and look Spiritually deep into the eyes of those we call “senior citizens.” What do you see?
Western dismissals of African reverence for stones, trees, rivers as “fetishism” miss the point. It was never worship. It was respect. To use a resource was a spiritual act. Nature was honored the way one reveres divinity.
But today? We are told to abandon our wisdom and embrace “progress”—destruction named creativity, tyranny masked as democracy, robbery repackaged as free trade. What remains is a shattered cosmos beneath our feet
Reconnect with the Earth!! Reconnect with our elders!! They are the libraries of posterity.
The post Reclaiming the Forgotten: Our Elders, Our Planet first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Sammy Attoh.
Sammy Attoh | Radio Free (2025-07-02T14:35:10+00:00) Reclaiming the Forgotten: Our Elders, Our Planet. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/07/02/reclaiming-the-forgotten-our-elders-our-planet/
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