(As posted in: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/gathering_clans_and_tribes/message/317)
There is a powerful image that I have in my brain since I heard that mankind probably had a very close call with extinction and survived only because a very small group of individuals managed to stay alive. The scientific fact for that comes from Mitochondrial DNA which we inherit only from our mother’s side and the ability that scientists had to analyze it, backtrack its origins and determine that all mankind shares that portion of DNA from a few primitive mothers.
Somehow this always makes me picture a few very brave individuals, the last clan and tribe, the last possibility for our type of physical experience, crossing a high pass over frozen mountains in order to find hunting or fertile grounds. It might have happen too long ago, before instruments, before language, the only help from above being a stronger will to live, a better ability to care for each other, the heightened instinct of knowing they were the last chance for Human experience, and that they had to give all they got in that extreme survival effort. All the ghost from fallen comrades telling, pushing them to keep going, to not give up, to live for them.
I don’t know how many might’ve seen the movie HIDALGO, which tells the story from an American horseman going to compete in a grueling race in Arabia. It is a great heroic movie, from which you can derive many lessons. At the end, both horseman and horse almost beaten, they find in their spirits and hearts the strength for that last monumental sprint, and they beat the other two last contenders by a head (sorry for telling the end). That victory is very momentous because besides saving the girl, and helping the Sultan keep his prized horse, both horseman and horse return to the US and save, with the prize money, a great group of "useless" mustangs from execution by the army, releasing them to the wild open plains. I wonder how much that horse "knew" he was championing for his kind, on some level I think he did understand perfectly his partnership with his "master".
Animals by themselves would probably be content with grazing, humping each other, sleeping and running successfully from the day’s predator. Most animals may not survive the century’s ahead if we are not able to include them in our "culture". Big apes for instance are being taught get used to, and to allow for, human observation and contact, so they become more "valuable" alive than dead. Hence diminishing the interest for hunting them, or making them able to "afford" for their survival by becoming their own source of income. Apes as they come have great abilities, but left alone they would never, in the timeframe necessary, learn to talk and tell us to stop killing them. Nonetheless they can learn symbols, language, and they then become able to show us an incredible inner universe, inside an ape’s head. In time they may become, who knows, proficient and able to explore their Apeness in ways that were not possible before to them. What I am trying to say is that even having hands, being able to discern colors and to learn very sophisticated skills, apes would not normally, or willfully do that. I bet the ones that are learning new skill these days are champions for their kind, anonymous, disinterested, Saviors.
I believe that can be telling of something about us Humans too. We are Animals of a different environment, ours is a jungle of probabilities and choices, of learning (or not at all) through experience, of connections, relations, values, attachments, denials, of flexible behavior... Can we say we are apes with a big "virtual" reality inside (AKA Spirit)? We are greatly endowed for living in that jungle, but left for ourselves we would probably go about our regular business of warring, conquering, imposing, resisting (and sleeping, eating, humping of course). We would do that even if we can see colors in a way that we identify them light years away, or that we have hands that we can explore a thousand different quilt patterns or experiment a million different alloy combinations, or imagine a trillion gazillion better ways to our Destiny. What kind of animal are we? What kind of creature? How well, joyfully, completely, are we using our creature talents to create our worlds, to terraform our inner landscape as Eden, Atlantis, or Baghdad...?
On another movie reference, who saw DUNE might remember the Navigator, an amazing being that could create space distortions so spaceships could cross the immense cosmic expanse. A being specialized in opening Gates, a distinct evolution specialized in doing just that. Who are our Navigators, and our Communicators, and our Motivators?
I am not talking in a literal Judgment Day way but when I look at our internal environment I see storms and locusts coming, they may never need to materialize for us to live in chaos, for in a very real sense we already are... Ways that served us right for thousands of years have become soiled and darkened in contrast to what we can become, to what we envision we can be now that we started learning new skills, or learning the true dimension of the skills we have. Mostly Lacking meaning and direction, without a bright horizon in sight, collectively pursuing very shallow values and elusive security mankind seem to be headed like brainless Diplodocuses for the tar pits. Some people work for and advocate Pandaemoneum, believing only through complete chaos things will fall in place. But fact is that it is not our external environment that is out of balance (though it is also – as a reflection), but very much our inner collective one. We need to live so close together in this small blue ball, we are so interdependent, so much of what we are is only meaningful or possible through social interaction that it is true to say we are our own environment.
To rise above the noise and to find a high pass to where our spirits can graze may be the mission of a few that are listening to some heavenly tune. A few (self) chosen ones that like in the Hopi legend pass through an opening to the Fifth world. That rip in "reality" might be all that is necessary to save mankind "once again", a group or a few groups that emerge with a new set of simple rules for flock behavior. As in birds flocking it seems only a few set of rules are enough for flocking – 1 don’t touch wings, 2 follow the same direction as the closest bird, 3 stay close... Not really a Constitution, not really a government, just an internal disposition to live together.
As a being that is 99.5 % Ape DNA, I keep pushing my twig inside the ant hill hoping I will find that big juicy one. But also as an Ape it would take me a million years of random typing to produce something like Tolstoy’s War and Peace, of course that 0.5% makes a Universe of difference. Of course any hope of saving anything might be someone’s doom, did you ever try to rescue a Brontosaurus from a tar pit. Airplane wisdom says "In case of emergency put your mask first"...
But then there is this, that virtual world inside you, inside me, that Holobit from it all where you shine over everything like the Sun, where you rule and nurture Creation as God. And that is not 0.5 % of us, nor 99.5 % it is a 100 plus %. It is all of it and then some.
I hope to see you over that pass
1 Stay close
2 Follow your Heart
3 Give me your Hand
What rules of engagement can you imagine?
Antonio
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