This activity is part of Antonella Ribeiro’s final internship project. It was developed as an independent exploration inspired by a creative Monitoring and Evaluation + Foresight methodology designed for the Participatory Innovation and Speculative Storytelling for Change project.

This is an open invitation.

A call to reflect on what lives within us, to connect with the roots and wisdoms that have shaped us, and to honour the legacies we wish to carry forward. Take a moment to pause, to listen, and to write to your ancestral self.

All letters shared with us will become part of this living repository.

Across many cosmologies, time is not linear.
It moves in spirals, circles, and currents, flowing back and forth from the beginning of life to eternity. Different cultures describe this movement through different stories, symbols, and metaphors. Yet the essence remains: time is an ancestral continuum that lives within us, weaving together the present, the past, and the future.

RETURNING TO WHOLENESS

  • The Baobab is a living map of the cycle of life, death, and renewal: roots as ancestors, the trunk as youth, and branches as maturity, with falling leaves returning to nourish the soil. It marks a time of wholeness, rest, and celebration, a reminder of our deep interconnectedness with all life.

REACHING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD

  • Sankofa is an Adinkra symbol that calls for reverence for the past, one’s forebears, and the wisdom of elders. Depicted as a bird bending back to pick up a precious egg, it reminds us to humbly recover what was left behind so the lessons of history can guide the present and future.

DANCING BETWEEN WORLDS

  • In Yoruba and Afro-Brazilian cosmologies, the rainbow serpent Òṣùmàrè coils between earth and sky, carrying water and connecting worlds. Òṣùmàrè is movement itself: a living reminder that time spirals and that what came before continually flows into what comes next.

COMMUNING WITH THE INFINITE

  • In Amazonian cosmologies, a cosmic serpent travels between the inner, the present, and the upper worlds. This vision of time is also embedded across languages: the past lies in front of us, visible because it has already happened, while the future, unseen and uncertain, rests behind our backs.

SEEDING THE GROUND WITH STARS

  • In Quechua, Muyu means seed, circle, and cycle. A seed carries ancestry (the past), growth (the present), and fruit (the future) all at once. Its shape, often drawn as a circle or spiral, represents how life continually turns and renews. Across Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, many people hold this symbol as a reflection of life’s continuous movement.

UNFOLDING WORLDS WITHIN

  • Within Tibetan Buddhism, the Kalachakra teaches that time does not unfold in a straight line but as a series of cycles. These cycles move across three interconnected levels: the outer (cosmos and natural rhythms), the inner (body and mind), and the alternative (the spiritual path). Each mirrors the other, making the individual and the universe reflections of one continuous motion.

And here lies the wonder of it: if time lives inside us, then every action, every gesture, and every word we place into the world carries the weight — and the care — of those who came before and those yet to come.

At Global Pulse, the United Nations Secretary-General’s innovation lab, we create spaces and rituals to plan ahead with compassion. That means honouring the memory and ancestry of people and planet, embracing our whole selves, and recognising multiple ways of knowing as we imagine what comes next.

Below, we invite you to submit your own letter.

Dear Ancestral Me,

If you could preserve a story, an event, a person, or a lesson to offer back to the world, what would you choose?

Take a breath. Reflect. Then ask yourself:

What does this memory mean to you?

How might it help us imagine and build worlds where all beings can thrive together?

And remember: time is not a straight line. It is a continuous motion that always circles back to where you are. You are welcome to use this capsule to speak to, or from, any point in space and time – whether it is the child you once were or the generations yet to come.

Developed through a collaboration between Global Pulse’s Creative Communications and Design, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, and Foresight teams, Ancestral Time Capsules is part of our creative feedback toolkit, a hybrid method that weaves together storytelling, reflection, and foresight. It invites participants to look back at their experiences while envisioning the future ripple effects of their actions.

This page presents a simplified version of the full methodology.

To learn more, contact the Participatory Innovation and Speculative Storytelling for Change team.