Why look at the past?

sand desert statue pyramid
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Some of us don’t find history very interesting. Once in my own distant past, I, unfortunately, had a fourth-grade teacher who had memorized the names of every single U.S. vice-president.  Even at the time, at my young age, I thought that memorizing the names of vice-presidents was not a very imaginative use of one’s time.

However, thank goodness, there is more to history than memorizing names – or the dates of battles – which used to be an important thing to memorize.

An extraordinary number of us, however, do find history dull. Sadly, that may be due to our own level of ignorance. Finding the past dull says nothing about the past; it only says something about the dimness of our brain.

Let’s say I have a friend – someone I met not long ago – just a friend – someone I might meet at the dog park or maybe the neighbor down the street.  Maybe someone a bit older who has lived a long life. If I decide that the person’s life has been boring, then I will never bother to be interested in his or her life. I will never ask a question or express any interest. I will never learn anything about this person.

Maybe my newly found friend speaks six languages or has traveled around the world several times – or spent several years in the Peace Corps – or was a prisoner of war – or a criminal in prison for many years – or nearly died from an illness – or has a family with children and grandchildren – or is an immigrant who grew up on another continent – or the winner of a Pulitzer Prize – or is a famous poet – or won millions of dollars in the lottery – or is a brilliant concert pianist – or is an astronomer with fascinating theories about the universe – or is a hero who risked his life to save his comrades in Vietnam – or is a billionaire, but isn’t telling anyone – or used to be a bank robber.

All this might be quite fascinating, but I may never know if I never express any interest at all in the life of my friend. If I am just not interested, then I will never know how much I am missing or how much I might learn.

This is how many of us approach history. We assume that the present is pretty much all that is relevant and that the past could contain nothing that would be of the slightest interest to us today.

This is like saying that the only place that is of any interest to us is the town or city that we live in. The rest of the world does not exist for us – there are no countries, no continents, no vast expanses of ocean, no cold polar realms, no hot tropics, no jungles, no exotic foreign places – no forests or deserts – no planet earth at all really. Just the street where we live, and that’s it really.

But this is not true of history. The past is not just populated by dull Europeans or unknowable Africans – or boring people who somehow lived out their dull lives before the Twenty First Century. And if you go back a few hundred years — perhaps we might be telling ourselves — they most likely lived in caves anyway.

The Americas

Before the four centuries in which what we now call America has existed, on the continents of North and South America, there were, at a bare minimum, ten or twenty thousand years of culture – with fascinating myths and stories about nature, the universe, the stars, the animals and the plants. In the Americas, people built some of the biggest pyramids in the world and giant cities with complex irrigation systems and incredible works of art, unequaled anywhere. Their myths and the stories provide an extraordinary depth of awareness, insight, and knowledge about how to relate to life and the universe. There are stories about Gods that give a profound spiritual perspective – far more beautiful than anything most of us can imagine today. There was writing extending far back over many centuries, and there were calendars with numbers to keep track of time over not just thousands, but millions, of years. There were worlds upon worlds that we can no longer even imagine.

Africa, the Pacific Islands, India

In Africa too, there were vast movements of people. There were great cities built of stone in southern Africa. In the Sahara, which is now a desert, there were thriving wetlands filled with herds of animals and many people who left their art and history printed on the rocks over ten thousand years ago. In Egypt, there were pyramids, many temples, and gigantic works of art like the Sphinx, believed by some authorities to have been built tens of thousands of years ago, with a level of mathematical precision that cannot even be understood or matched today. There was an awareness of various levels of being with which we have long ago lost touch.

In the islands that dot the Pacific, there are hundreds of giant stone megalithic monuments, including some recently discovered that apparently go back for over 20,000 years.

In India, advanced culture goes back at least seven thousand years, to the Indus Valley Civilization which had elaborate city planning, paved streets, sewage systems, and a complex “modern” civilization, with writing, mathematics, and elegant public buildings as well as private houses. Later, around the first century BCE, there were brilliant Indian scientists and mathematicians who created the number system that we still use today – without which, the current world economy would have remained an impossibility that could never have been developed.

These scientists understood the solar system, the nature of stars, atoms, and gravity; they knew that the earth and other planets revolved around the sun – at a time when people in Europe saw the earth as flat. They had many precisely accurate measurements of physical aspects of the earth and the entire solar system. It would take Europe until around the fifteenth century to rediscover some of this knowledge – known so long ago in ancient India.

The Stone Age

If we go back a bit earlier to Gobekli Tepe, the amazing site uncovered in Turkey in recent decades – it goes back to at least 12,000 BCE. There, giant, beautifully shaped stones in around twenty huge circles were built with precision and accuracy. The entire site was buried and is gradually being excavated.

Here is another thing to think of – many thousands of years ago, at a time that we think of as paleolithic – or the Old Stone Age, when people actually did live in caves – during the times of the Ice Ages – how do we know what was in the consciousness of these people?

Some of the cave art in Europe consists of the most startingly beautiful depictions ever created of animals. It is the equal of any artwork anywhere over a span the ten thousand years or so that followed, up to and including today.  Should we not draw from this the conclusion that these people, far from being primitive, were instead aware and conscious of many levels of reality that we may simply have lost touch with. They seem to have had a profound connection with the inner spirit of the animals they portrayed in art.

What if?

We “modern” people pride ourselves on our technology, which is indeed truly remarkable. But, all the same, it is still technology – it is not a vision of the nature of worlds and universes.

What if magic and miracles are real?  What if all the Gods that modern science dismisses so easily are real and true presences? What if things as they are, are far, far different than our current, scientific, physical, worldview allows?

What if our modern age has got it all wrong – and profound truth and beauty lies just beyond our reach? What if we must journey back a little in time to gain a truer and deeper perspective – to catch an unforgettable glimpse of the immense beauty that is – that we, as the human race have since lost touch with – and that we need to rediscover – if not in this age – then, after the ending of this age, in the brighter age that is to come – one way or another – sooner or maybe later?

A persevering interest in the past – in history – can open doors to many worlds of deeper understanding.

© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2023

About the Nature film, The Serengeti Rules

starfish underwater
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com

Those in Utah who are in favor of removing all limits on the killing of cougars – which is in the current bill on the governor’s desk – might watch the film The Serengeti Rules – part of the Nature series, which just aired this evening on PBS. You can buy it on PBS too.

It is a crystal clear presentation of what happens when a keystone species – which are often, but not always, predators – disappears from an ecosystem.

What happens is always exactly the same – an imbalance arises – and one by one – all the other natural species die until nothing at all is left – only a barren desert with no life – or an empty pool by the seashore in which nothing lives.

Many examples were given in the film. Starfish are a keystone species. They hunt and keep other populations in check. When they were removed from a pool by the seashore, other species, with their population unchecked, multiplied, and began to eat everything in sight. In short order, everything was eaten and there was no food left. Then everything died and there was a completely dead pool.

In another situation – like several similar real situations in western U.S. states – all the wolves were killed. (All U.S. wolves had been killed and were extinct in the lower states by the end of the 1940’s. Gradually, with great effort some wolves have been brought back in recent years. It is an uphill battle – and many, many wolves, re-introduced, are still being killed.) In this particular situation, the film shows that after all the wolves had been killed, the deer, predictably, multiplied and ate everything – every young sapling, every blade of grass, every leaf within reach on the trees – until there was a vast overpopulation of deer who then died of starvation. This is what always happens.

There were many other examples presented – in the water, in the ocean and rivers, and on land – of keystone species being killed off and then the entire ecosystem collapsing as a consequence.

Of course, we might care about the cougars because they are individual, innocent, magnificent, majestic animals who enjoy living their lives free in the wild. But even if we don’t care about that – even if we don’t really mind killing off all of nature (the bill would make it legal to trap cougars pretty much anywhere at any time), we might take a moment to ask ourselves how we humans will survive when all the natural ecosystems are gone.

Radical imbalances in nature and weather disturbances are already causing harm and death to humans on a significant scale – and of course also to all the innocent creatures on the planet.

The Serengeti Rules, part of the Nature series, presents an absolutely clear, irrefutable scenario of the path we as a species are headed down – and also highlights the work of those heroes who fight hard and persevere to save the earth and the natural world.

© Copyright Sharon St Joan, 2023

Africa’s First People (Hunting in the Rain with 40,000 year old Hadza Tribe) — Diary of an Aesthete

Africa’s First People. The Hadzabe tribe of East Africa. One of the oldest tribes in the world and perhaps the last authentic hunter-gatherer tribe on the planet.

Africa’s First People (Hunting in the Rain with 40,000 year old Hadza Tribe) — Diary of an Aesthete

Owl unseen for 150 years photographed in the wild for the first time | Imperial News | Imperial College London — Natural History Wanderings

The Imperial College of London reports British scientists working in Ghana have photographed a ‘holy grail’ giant owl that has lurked almost unseen in African rainforests for 150 years. See photo and story at  Owl unseen for 150 years photographed in the wild for the first time | Imperial News | Imperial College London

Owl unseen for 150 years photographed in the wild for the first time | Imperial News | Imperial College London — Natural History Wanderings

Blue Nile

Photo by Ray Bilcliff on Pexels.com

The long-lapping waves of the blue Nile

Light

The far

Land where Anubis once stood

In the doorway open

To the skies

Beyond,

To the bright

Belt of Orion,

While

The rays of Ra were shining

Down from within the sacred wood.

Soon, the feet of blue jackals

Walk the way where flames and flowers sing,

And the kind, knowing eye

Of the cobra

Lies

Awake

Now on her nest of petals,

Wisdom snake,

The horses of the wind run by

On the river with fair flags flying,

While the desert lion

Gathers her strength,

Until she springs

From the song-shadow.

The tree, the deer, and the birch wand

Of bark

Sent within the patterns of the snow-

Gods are held up high

By

The Annunaki, by Shiva, by

The distant Celt,

And yet, always,

Dakshinamurthy will remain and be there walking,

To wend his way

Along

The length

Of the star-intended lane

Watching still,

Through the forest of mist

From the farthest

Hill,

Friend, in the night of ancient owls and petals fallen in the dark.

© Sharon St Joan, 2021

A request: How to help India during Covid:

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Second: At forestvoicesofindia.com,

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Third: Please send this message to a friend

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Peace, many blessings, and thank you!

Forest Voices of India

Swan of climbing wings

Photo by Simon Berger on Pexels.com

Swan of climbing wings,

Below

Slips by

The hour of the rhyme of time unraveling.

Raindrops.

Where now will the footsteps of the ancient ones tread?

On the moon – the dark side?

On the mountain height?

The unbecoming,

Unarranging,

Unimagining.

Aloft, Hamsa – you who ride

On the mist, undeterred

Through the red

Pillars of the sunset

Through the cliffs of darkened flight,

Do you see –

Or have you heard

Such a string of mis-imaginings?

And yet

The old one saw the donkeys

On the winding streets of Egypt

Among the catacombs and the crypt.

For a long time,

She rescued them.

Fly now to join the birds in the clouds,

Only the clouds,

Gray over the medieval rooftops

Of the crags above the lost towns.

Crowds

In dusted cities,

The mind gone

Astray,

In disarray,

Betrays

The darkness

And the quiet,

Until only the mighty wings of the sparrow

Understand

The patterns of the falling snow

And go on to a newer, older land,

Found by grace.

Become then the white-crowned sparrow,

Only the sparrow who flies

Toward the face

Of the dawn,

Only the gull who rises, who cries

In gladness,

Over the wintry bay,

Free,

Beyond the misted, ethereal rooftops

Crowned in pointed hats of snow.

© Sharon St Joan, 2021

The consciousness of rocks

Arunachala

 

By Sharon St Joan

 

No serious person in the modern world really believes that rocks are conscious. There are a few exceptions which we’ll come to in a moment.

 

Watching the TV series, The Universe, being shown on the H2 channel, one can absorb fascinating facts. Underneath the vast atmosphere of Jupiter, for example, lies an ocean – not an ordinary ocean, but an ocean of hydrogen that is brighter than the sun and intensely blue, also hotter than the surface of the sun.

 

0105-4x5color.ai

 

In between the planets of the solar system lie immensely vast spaces, so large as to be incomprehensible – and far vaster distances separate the galaxies from each other. The universe is expanding. Not only is it expanding, but the rate of expansion, counter-intuitively, is speeding up, not slowing down. Our galaxy is zooming at an ever increasing rate of speed away from all other galaxies. Eventually they will be so distant that we will no longer see them. All light will go out, and the universe will come to a cold, dark end. Or so science tells us – unless we accept another theory, that the universe will collapse in on itself to end in a great crunch, and then expand outwards again.

 

In short, “modern science” presents us with what may seem to be a picture of the universe that is cold, dark, lonely, pointless, and doomed (albeit with flashes of the spectacular and dramatic, but doomed nonetheless).

 

Is it possible though that this is not so much a depiction of actual reality, as it is a reflection of the dysfunctional human psyche of the modern world — a condition towards which we have devolved over the past few thousand years? After all, is it impossible that the state of our collective psyche might color our collective perception of external reality? Just a thought.

 

So we are told that, in the midst of this desert of lifelessness called the universe, are tiny islands of awareness, we humans – and today, many scientists accept the concept that there may be alien life forms on other planets, who have evolved other civilizations. We may or may not ever be able to contact them, and if or when we do, we may find them to be either friendly or hostile. Or they may be all around us all the time in other dimensions, who knows?

 

As for the animals that share the earth with us, most humans, whether fond of animals or not, assume that they are a lower life form, and somewhat less important than ourselves. When wildlife biologists talk about the populations of birds increasing or decreasing, an individual bird with her own life and awareness, does not rank very high in the scheme of things as we see it from our human perspective. We do tend to care about species that teeter on the verge of extinction, especially the large charismatic ones, the tigers or the elephants, but the odd orange beetle or the obscure blue butterfly doesn’t really catch our attention.

 

As for plants, people who feel an affection for trees are generally considered quite odd. Though, on the other hand, when tall, old beautiful trees that line city streets are cut down one day by an insensitive city planner, the level of public outcry can be deafening.

 

In December, 2015, Nguyen The Thao, the head of the Hanoi People’s Committee, in Vietnam, was forced to step down following public outrage over his plan to cut down 6,000 famous, ancient trees lining the streets of the capitol. There have been similar incidents of public rage over felling trees in the U.S. and worldwide.

 

In the year 1730, the Bishnois, in India, often called the world’s first environmentalists, sacrificed their lives to protect the beloved trees of their village. The king had sent his soldiers to fell the trees to make way for a temple he was building. One by one, the people of the village stood between the soldiers and the trees, and one by one, they were killed defending their trees. Eventually, at the end of the day, the king arrived. Witnessing the numbers of people lying dead, he relented and ordered his soldiers to stop. By this time 363 brave men and women had heroically given their lives to protect their forest. To this day, the Bishnois, in northern India, are known for protecting trees and animals.

 

Where does this leave us? Well, basically, apart from a few “tree-huggers” and a much larger and growing number of animal activists, the predominant worldview – particularly in academic or scientific circles – is still that humans are important – and anything else may be moderately important in relation only to humans.

 

The planet Mars may be important because after we have destroyed the earth we live on, we may be able to colonize Mars by terra-forming it and making it suitable for us to live on. This seems to be an official view of NASA and a goal of space exploration.

 

On October 9, 2009, NASA bombed the moon by sending two rockets crashing into the moon’s south pole. The intent was for the impact to throw up clouds of debris in which water might be found. In terms of planning a future base on the moon, water would be very useful.

 

To all ancient peoples on the earth the moon is a divine, sacred being and bombing her is a sacrilegious act. NASA scientists and engineers did not seem troubled by this.

 

Chandra_graha

 

The ancient Mesopotamians worshipped Sin as the moon god. The Japanese called him Tsukyyomi. The ancient Egyptian god, Thoth, was a lunar deity. The Mayans revered Awilix as the goddess of the moon, although she was sometimes referred to as male. The Micmacs, a Canadian, Algonquian tribe, say that the dark spots on the moon are spots of clay left there when rabbit had caught the moon in a trap, then was forced to release him when the moon threatened him. Many Asian peoples see a rabbit in the moon, rather than a “man in the moon.” It seems that all neolithic and paleolithic peoples worshipped the moon, the sun, and the planets, seeing them as divine beings. One can find traces of this ancient worship today in living religions.

 

Of course, these days we all know better and do not believe such nonsense – or do we? How exactly has science been able to prove that the moon, the sun, the planets, and the galaxies are inert, unconscious, entirely physical, and totally non-spiritual beings that have absolutely not a grain of consciousness among them? Have you seen any proof of this? You haven’t, and neither have I. This assumption of a lack of consciousness on the part of heavenly beings is just exactly that – an assumption, nothing more.

 

There is simply nothing “scientific” about the assertion that only humans and maybe higher animals have consciousness.

 

All the world’s ancient systems of knowledge maintained the opposite – that indeed the great beings of the night skies are conscious and aware, that they have a real power and an identity, that they are beings, not things.

 

In Tamil Nadu, in southern India, at Thiruvannamalai, there is a mountain named Arunachala. The mountain has been worshipped as sacred for thousands of years and is said to be Lord Shiva. It is not that Lord Shiva lives within the mountain, but instead Lord Shiva is the mountain.

 

800px-UluruBaseTrees

 

In Australia, a massive, one thousand foot high rock, rising straight up out of the plains in the central part of the country is called Uluru, and is known to the native peoples as a sacred mountain – which has been there since the dreamtime. To them, reality is a dream, and the ancient perceptions of their ancestors represented a higher, truer form of reality. Who is to say that they are wrong?

 

Inyan Kara is the highest peak of the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. To the Lakota Sioux and other nearby native peoples, all the Black Hills were sacred and were the home of the thunder gods and the Great Spirit. The destruction of these hills to create the Mount Rushmore carvings is seen by them as the desecration of a holy place.

 

It is difficult, even for modern humans, not to feel awestruck in the majestic presence of towering stone cliffs – or sometimes even in the presence of small little rocks that seem to invoke some special presence, that may seem to “speak.”

 

From where do we gather the impression that these are not great beings, when our instincts tell us that indeed they are sacred beings? Being sacred, are they not also conscious, are they not gods or goddesses? Is not the earth itself a living, sacred being – mother to all of us? There is a voice within us that calls to us to acknowledge and feel a sense of reverence towards these ancient ones – these great rock entities worshipped the world over by our ancestors, these rocks and mountains who perhaps know far more, with a knowledge and perception deeper and more profound, than we small humans could ever imagine or have any grasp of.

 

Photos:

 

Top photo: Sakthiprasanna / Wikimedia Commons/ This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. / Arunachala at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India.

 

Second photo: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team / NASA, public domain / Cluster and star-forming region Westerlund 2.

 

Third photo: E. A. Rodrigues / Wikipedia Commons / The Hindu god Chandra riding in his chariot.

 

Fourth photo: Mark Andrews / Wikimedia Commons / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. / Uluru, the Northern Territory, Australia.

 

Sources:

 

To read about the public outcry over the felling of 6,000 trees in Vietnam, click here.

 

To read about the world’s first environmentalists, the Bishnois, click here.

 

To read about NASA’s bombing of the moon, click here.

 

 

 

 

Egypt: ESAF helps working animals at Port Said

Nazlet El Siman Dec 2014-10891441_974999869178357_4423563365809314666_n

On Wednesday February 25, 2015, a team from ESAF set off for Port Said, which lies in the north of Egypt on the coast, just where the Suez Canal enters the Mediterranean.

Their first stop was the government veterinary clinic to do TNR for cats. Many local people brought their cats to be spayed/neutered, which the vets did, although the primary purpose of the program was to do surgery for street cats.

Next they paid a visit to the zabalin community, who are traditionally garbage collectors. It is a poor neighborhood. They found many animals there, and most looked well cared for. They gave a vaccine card to all patients’ owners, and also handed out fly masks and nose bands, which will make the working animals more comfortable.

The vets treated the teeth and hooves of a steady stream of horses, donkeys, goats, sheep and cows, all brought for treatment.

Three ESAF board members came along, volunteering their help; Mohamed Mamdouh, Riham Hassan, Jackie Sherbiny.

The veterinary team, Dr Ahmed , Dr Eman, Dr Lamis, along with assistants Mohamed Ibrahim and Mohamed Hassan, did a terrific job and were a great help to the animals.

The work in the zabalin neighborhood was sponsored by Animal Aid Abroad, and ESAF hopes to be able to continue their work here every two weeks for an extended period.

Animal Aid Abroad supports projects to help working animals in several countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

To visit the website of Animal Aid Abroad, click here.

(Caution: some of the photos may be disturbing.)

To visit ESAF’s Facebook page, click here.

Photo: Courtesy of ESAF; This photo is not from Port Said, but was taken during a similar ESAF program at Nazlet El Siman in December 2014.

 

The myth of progress, part three

Mapungubwe Hill, a sacred hill in South Africa.
Mapungubwe Hill, a sacred hill in South Africa.

 

 

By Sharon St Joan

To read part one first, click here.

And for part two, click here.

Susan Boyle came from a humble background in Scotland; her father was a miner and her mother a typist. Until her mother died she lived with her, and she now lives with her beloved cat.

For years she struggled to achieve some success with her music. Recently, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s Disease, which could explain why her social relationships had always been awkward. Most of her life she had been been subjected to ridicule, and must have endured many unhappy and very trying times — until that one evening, in which, like a rocket leaving the bounds of earth, she shot into stardom.

Illustrating how not to be a victim — Susan Boyle’s is a rags-to-riches story, which, in its own way, is a testimony to the great power of not allowing oneself to remain victimized, but instead, with the help of the angels, of magically overcoming obstacles.  It is  a simple story – she has not transformed the entire world, but it is a remarkable one, and has certainly altered her own life and touched the lives of many others.

Her strength is not only her musical talent itself, but her undying faith in her music.

None of us has to remain stuck in the box that we find ourselves in.

Nelson Mandela during a meeting with Bill Clinton in 1993.
Nelson Mandela during a meeting with Bill Clinton in 1993.

The second example of rising above limitations is Nelson Mandela. A figure on an altogether different scale, he was one of the great men of history, who had a transformative impact on our world. Though he came from a tribal royal family, as a boy, he herded sheep, then became a boxer, then a lawyer. When he was imprisoned for 27 years, spending part of the time breaking rocks in a quarry, it must have seemed to him, that there could be no hope even for his own freedom, let alone hope for any success in his life.

If he had emerged from prison, embittered, to lead his people on a crusade to make his oppressors pay for their crimes, that would hardly have been a surprising turn. Yet he didn’t. Somewhere he found the grace and wisdom to forgive his captors and to lead South Africa beyond the threat of a bloodbath, into the light, to stand as a democratic nation. In the process, he spared the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and avoided a prolonged time of darkness for generations of South Africans. South Africa is not a perfect country. No country is, but it has avoided these catastrophes, thanks to the wisdom and greatness Nelson Mandela.

Neither of these two people, very different from each other in their scope and their impact, is a saint. They are examples of people who did not allow themselves to remain victims, but instead, with the grace of the angels, overcame and rose above obstacles.

We do not have to be victimized by our circumstances, sinking under the weight of our situation, and blaming heaven, the stars, or those around us for the obstacles in our lives.

There is always a higher level, where God, the Gods, the angels, the universe (or whatever we wish to call the spiritual level) live —  and it is from this level that strength can be drawn and magic and miracles can come into being.

To return to the concept of the myth of progress – it would be a great mistake to confuse this higher level of otherworldly strength, inspiration, and clarity, which occasionally breaks through the clouds, with the current, ongoing state of  the human world in which we live.

Were we to put our faith in the “human spirit” or in the “inevitability” of human progress and the advance of human technology, we would find ourselves sadly misled. We ought not to sit waiting for the train of human “progress” to carry us along to utopia, because it won’t.

Many of us, probably most of us, have seen miracles happen – of one kind or another. Miracles are very real. They come from beyond and above the level of this world.

The world does not get better by itself, and, sadly, human nature does not make it better. There is no inevitable progress of the “human spirit.” We are not the culmination of evolution, and we have not, in creating the “wonders of civilization” brought peace and enlightenment even to ourselves, much less to animals and the natural world. Instead we have left a trail of destruction in our wake. And the natural world seems to be reminding us of this regrettable fact through rising tides, catastrophic storms, and other upheavals.

Yet all is not lost, and if – beyond the smoke and mirrors of the image we have fabricated, as a species, of our own success – this is, in truth, a dark hour and a dark age, there is still a real light at the end of the tunnel.

The 12,000 year old megalithic ruins of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.
The 12,000 year old megalithic ruins of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.

Consider this – a curtain is being lifted that had long veiled the past. All over the world are being found now, in recent decades, remarkable archeological discoveries that speak to us of great civilizations, with magnificent art and culture, that we did not even know existed, and some are many thousands of years earlier than the accepted dates for the beginnings of civilization. (We will be writing more about these.)

The cyclical view of history informs us that this age of limitations that we live in is neither the only age nor the last age.

The 15 billion year old star cluster M80 (NGC 6093).
The 15 billion year old star cluster M80 (NGC 6093).

There is much, much more to the Cosmos than we know – other levels, other dimensions — more to the past and more to the future.

Our “modern world” is not the pinnacle of creation, it has an ocean of problems.  But as we come to acknowledge this, there are great gates that swing open – to the magnificence and mysteries of the very distant past – and to the possibilities of magic and miracles, both in our own lives and in the world ages that lie before us – possibilities of nearly-forgotten connections with higher mystical levels and the restoration and renewal of the natural world of innocence that we have so nearly destroyed.

As our current world age dims, other lights of intelligence, perception, and clarity—those, older and wiser, who were here before — will re-awaken and shine again.

 

 

©  Sharon St Joan, 2013

 

 

The thoughts expressed here are personal views that do not reflect or represent those of any organization.

To look at Sharon’s ebook, Glimpses of Kanchi, on Amazon, click here.

 

Top photo: Wikimedia Commons: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Laura SA at the English language Wikipedia / Mapungubwe Hill, a sacred hill in the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in pre-colonial South Africa.

 

Second photo: As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain. / President Bill Clinton with Nelson Mandela at the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA, July 4 1993.

 

Third photo: Author (photographer): Teomancimit / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. / The 12,000 year old megalithic ruins of Gobekli Tepe, Urfa, Turkey.

 

Fourth photo: “NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted.” / This stellar swarm is M80 (NGC 6093), one of the densest of the 147 known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy…all of the stars in the cluster have the same age (about 15 billion years)….

 

 

 

 

 

 

The myth of progress, part two

Yoruba bronze head, 12th century.
Yoruba bronze head, 12th century.

By Sharon St Joan

To read part one first, click here

Hundreds of years ago, if you had lived in a small village in central Africa, before its “discovery” by Europeans, you might have lived in a thatched roof hut that kept out the sun and the rain, with a dirt floor that was swept clean every day. From birth to death, you would have lived in a stable community of your friends and relatives, in a society where you belonged and had a place, where there was work to be done, as well as a rich tradition of art, music, and a spiritual life. If you were walking through the forest, and you felt thirsty, it would have been entirely safe to drink from the clear, sparkling waters of a stream. Although you would not have had what we would call luxury, you would have known a world of trees, sky, animals, and the early morning mist that floated over the river where the elephants gathered. You would have lived in the untouched beauty of the natural world.

If you became ill, you would have been treated with herbal remedies, their efficacy tested by being passed down through generations. If you were dying, your village would have gathered around you, singing prayers for you, as your soul left to go on its journey.

At that time, back then, there were no GMO crops or insecticide-laden foods, no miles and miles of plastic trash, no debris littering the ocean floor, no smog-choked cities, no factory farms, no miles of concrete where once there had been forests filled with wild animals, no industrial waste, no nuclear waste, no trash on the moon or in outer space. Yes, horrible things could and did happen, then as now, but it could be argued, nonetheless, that the scale of horror was much less then, than it is today.

Certainly, very bad things could take place. It would have been possible to be eaten by an animal — though a lion at that time, living in a more undisturbed habitat, might have been less likely then, than now, to attack a human. Still being eaten would not have been pleasant.

A lion in Namibia.
A lion in Namibia.

But which is worse really, to be eaten quickly by a lion in the darkness of the night, or to be eaten piecemeal over many decades by human greed, hypocrisy, mediocrity, corruption, and the soul-destroying nibbles that kill off all life and destroy the natural world?

If we look closely, with open eyes, we will be able to see quite clearly that the modern world, for most people and for most animals, for the trees, and the earth itself is suffering, on an unprecedented scale. In our climate-controlled houses and apartments, we live in a bubble, wrapped up in our technology, yet still cut off from many realities of much of the world.

The moon in the western sky, California.
The moon in the western sky, California.

Nevermind that we as a society have gone to the moon and back – is our civilization peaceful, enlightened, kind, gracious? No, it really isn’t.

We tend to resist this imperfect view of history. We cling to the view we were taught in school. After all, there is something comforting in imagining that we are at the summit of human existence and that everything has led steadily upwards, culminating in the grandeur that is us.

So, if perhaps we have realized that we are not quite as grand as we had imagined, if we have begun to suspect that we, as the human race, are all slipping and sliding inexorably downhill, in this corrupt and miserable current age, does that mean that all is hopeless? Should we give up trying to do anything meaningful? Should we just sit down under a tree, hold our head in our hands, and accept the fact that we are doomed?

Should we just forget any causes that we’re devoting our life to – any more meaningful purpose, like freeing people from oppression, saving innocent animals from suffering, or saving the forests and the earth’s wild places?

Should we just decide that everything is impossible and give up?

No, because however dark the world may be, magic and miracles are always possible because, by definition, they come from a higher level that is not bound by human limitations.

A couple of contemporary examples might help. I’m reminded of a couple of people who have not been content to stay put in the boxes the found themselves in. They are completely different from each other. Here is the first one.

Susan Boyle at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 2013
Susan Boyle at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 2013

If you haven’t done so already, it’s worth watching Susan Boyle on YouTube when she appeared in 2009 on Britain’s Got Talent. It’s worth watching just to see the expressions of the judges on the show change from bored condescension to joyful astonishment. It was clear that the contestant on the stage in front of them, Susan Boyle, at that first appearance, had not the slightest idea how to present herself well, and the three judges were ready to dismiss her as a silly, ridiculous figure – until she began to sing, at which point they opened their mouths and raised their eyebrows in incredulity. Before she had finished singing, these rather jaded judges sprang to their feet, along with the entire audience, all applauding, one judge, Piers Morgan, stating that this was the greatest surprise in all his time with the show.

Her immensely powerful and profoundly expressive, beautiful voice seemed to spring from another realm that had nothing to do with her awkward appearance. Within the next nine days after the show, her videos had been viewed over 100 million times. Her debut album was a record-breaking success, and she has soared to stardom since then and is a multimillionaire many times over.

To be continued in part three…

To read part three, click here.

 

 

Top photo: “This work has been released into the public domain by its author, WaynaQhapaq at the English Wikipedia project. This applies worldwide.” / Wikimedia commons / “Yoruba bronze head from the city of Ife, 12 century.”

 

Second photo: Author (photographer): Kevin Pluck / Wikimedia Commons / “This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.” / A lion in Namibia.

 

Third photo: Author (photographer): Jessie Eastland / “This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.” / Wikimedia Commons / “Western Moon setting over Mountains, High Desert, California.”

 

Fourth photo: Author (photographer): Wasforgas / Wikimedia Commons / “This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.” / “Susan Boyle singing at the Edinburgh Festival Theater, July 12, 2013.”

 

© Sharon St Joan, 2013

 

To see the video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent, click here