the Americas – Page 5 – Echoes in the Mist

Africa, Animals and the earth, Asia, Old Europe, Tales of India, the Americas

The myth of progress

December 8, 2013November 27, 2017by sharonstjoan3 Comments

By Sharon St Joan

It’s not that there’s no such thing as progress. Indeed there is.

If I want to travel around the world, I’ll take a plane. I won’t set out walking, or take a sailing ship, or sit by the roadside waiting for a magic carpet to appear out of the clouds.

If I fall down the stairs and break a leg, I will go to the hospital because waiting for it to get better by itself is not going to work well.

If I want to go into town I will use a car, not a horse and buggy.

All this being said, there is a very large aspect of the way we think about progress in the modern world that is illusory. It is not true.

Really, there are two ways of viewing history — the cyclical view and the linear view.

In the cyclical view, there are several ages, following each other, until eventually, the whole complete world cycle ends and begins anew.

If we’ve grown up in the west or if we’ve been heavily influenced by western culture, then we are going to lean towards the linear view of world history. It’s imprinted inside our heads, and, without our being conscious of it, it colors most of our perceptions and expectations.

According to the western worldview, history is linear. First there is prehistory and then there is an ascending line on an upwards trajectory, which is called “progress.” It is a basic part of our thinking. If we look far enough back into the past, we see hunter/gatherers, the introduction of farming, the invention of the wheel, the beginnings of civilization. Pretty soon along come the Greeks and the Romans. Then there are the middle ages, the renaissance, the industrial revolution, then along come lots of inventions, like central heating, TV, computers, and sending a man to the moon. (As you can see, this is all very Eurocentric.) It all goes upward and ever upward, as we humans progress to higher levels of technology and “better” lives.

But this is not the only way to view the past and the present. For many cultures throughout the world, there has traditionally been another model of history. In India, and also among many other peoples, including Native Americans in both North and South America, history has been seen as cyclical. Even the Greeks and the Romans believed in a succession of ages, and there is a reference to this view also in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel.

One of the key differences between these two views is that, from the cyclical worldview, “progress” isn’t necessarily progress, and our “inevitable” evolution upwards to grander and grander heights is very much in doubt.

In other word, things may not inevitably be getting better and better, and our common sense tends to agree with this observation. It may be that, all this time, the human race has been de-volving instead of e-volving.

Let’s look at it this way for a moment. There is a good chance, since you are reading this, that you live a fairly comfortable existence. This is not necessarily true, and there can be exceptions, but most likely, you are not living in a hut made of old tires and rusty hubcaps, on the banks of what used to be a river, but is now a creek filled with garbage. Instead, you have a nice home. In your home there is most likely central heating, air conditioning, a TV, computers – it is a place with modern conveniences.

We enjoy our central heating because it keeps us warm, and we wouldn’t have been happy in the European middle ages, where even aristocrats lived in cold castles – and peasants lived in squalid huts. We may say to ourselves that whatever view of history may be true (and whatever personal problems we might currently have), things are far better now in the modern world than they used to be hundreds of years ago. If we say this, then what we are expressing is a western/modern perspective; and whatever country we may live in, this is a middle or upper class view.

Suppose for a moment that instead of being you or me, living in our comfortable surroundings, we are a poor child in a developing country who lives on a giant mound of garbage which she picks through from morning to night to make a few cents a day. Suppose we are one of the billions of people who have no clean water to drink. Or one of the billions who live in horrible slums. Suppose we live in a war-torn region of central Africa, where there is hardly even a memory of any security or safety?

You and I are exceptions, and though we all do have our own problems and difficulties, (which may from time to time seem insurmountable), generally speaking, we are blessed to live in fairly decent or even very comfortable circumstances.

This means that, unless we stop to think and look around us, we may not notice that most people in the world live in conditions far worse than they would have lived in hundreds or thousands of years ago. Is it really true that the average person in the world is better off now? No, it really isn’t.

If we had lived around the year 2300 BCE in the city of Mohenjo Daro, part of the ancient Indian Indus Valley civilization, now in modern Pakistan, we might well have lived in a two story house, with a plumbing system, a furnace, and an inner courtyard lined with trees. We would have lived in clean, comfortable surroundings in a well-designed, beautiful city.

If we had lived around 1500 BCE in the Minoan city Knossos on the island of Crete, we would have lived in a city that delivered clean water through pipes into the homes of around 100,000 people and had an advanced plumbing and sewage system. We would have been surrounded by a vibrant culture that produced beautiful art, which can still be seen in murals on the walls of Knossos.

I can hear a voice saying, but wait – these two examples are not typical! Okay, that may be true; if these two advanced societies might be considered exceptions on the world stage, then what about life in a tribal society?

To be continued in part two…

To read part two, click here.

Photos:

Top photo: Author (artist): Viktor M. Vasnetsov (1848–1926) / Wikimedia Commons /”This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. Such reproductions are in the public domain in the United States.”

Second photo: “This work has been released into the public domain by its author, JW1805 at the wikipedia project. This applies worldwide.” / Wikimedia Commons / A bust of Homer in the British Museum, London.

Third photo: Wikimedia Commons / “This file is licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0 License.” / Original uploader was M.Imran at en.wikipedia / The great bath at Mohenjo Daro.

Fourth photo: “This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Throne_Hall_Knossos.jpg under the creative commons cc-by-sa 3.0 license.”

© Sharon St Joan, 2013

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

the Americas

Link to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech

August 28, 2013by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

On august 28, 1963, Dr. Marin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech, in Washington D.C. during the March on Washington.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of 17 U.S.C. # 105. / Dr. Martin Luther King.

Animals and the earth, Commentary, Old Europe, the Americas, Visions

George Monbiot talks about rewilding

June 29, 2013June 29, 2013by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

Below is the link to a seventeen minute, entertaining and captivating talk by ecologist George Monbiot on the concept of rewilding — using examples from Yellowstone, the oceans, and Europe and painting a vision of what might be possible for the planet.

George Monbiot is a visionary and can perhaps be forgiven for being a little foggy on the details. Some of his suggestions – like putting elephants where they don’t belong – are profoundly mistaken, but the overall concept and the brilliance and optimism with which he presents it are an intriguing vision.

The good part about what he says is that it works best when human beings stop – that is simply stop what they are doing to nature. One example he gives is the retreat of farming from parts of Europe, allowing nature to resurrect itself when it is left alone. The parts where humans are doing something, like moving animals around, sound a lot less like a good idea.

Overall, it is a fascinating view of a future that is perhaps possible. In the war between the earth and human “progress,” might the earth win in the end?

http://vimeo.com/68575611

Thanks to Pamela Gale Malhotra of SAI Sanctuary for letting us know about this. Website: www.saisanctuary.com

Photo: Mike Cline/Wikimedia Commons / “I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain.” / “Lamar Valley Wolf, Yellowstone National Park, August 14, 2011.”

Asia, Middle East, Old Europe, Reflections, Tales of India, the Americas

An older world than we thought…

February 5, 2013by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

Just a few years ago, an amazing complex of structures was discovered in eastern Turkey. Known as Gobekli Tepe, these are about twenty stone circles – not formed of rough-hewn stone, like Stonehenge, but formed of straight, precisely cut and polished stone columns, with lintels across the top, decorated with animal sculptures. These have been dated to around 12,000 years ago – thousands of years earlier than any previously known complex of carved structures.

They were apparently covered up by earth a couple of thousand years after they were created. One can only suppose they were sacred sites and when the people were compelled to leave them, for whatever reason, they covered them up in order to preserve them to avoid having them deteriorate and fall apart over time.

The time that they were created, around 10,000 BC, coincides with the ending of the last Ice Age.

Gobekli Tepe is written about extensively in the book, Forgotten Civilization, by Robert Schoch, a geologist who gained international renown (and some measure of ridicule) for his work with John Anthony West, related to the Sphinx in Egypt, and the hypothesis that the Sphinx is much, much older, by thousands of years, than previously thought.

Graham Hancock, another well-known exponent of the concept that there was a high civilization, unknown to us, in the extremely remote past, examines this in his book Underworld, which looks at a number of sites, now underwater, which are evidence of very ancient, unknown civilizations. His theory is that, because it is an accepted scientific fact that sea levels rose dramatically when the ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age, that the remains of ancient civilizations, which would have been located on what was then the coast, would now be entirely under the sea, often many meters below the surface. Many of these sites have been found and Graham Hancock has dived some of them – at the island of Malta, Yonaguni which is off the southern coasts of Japan, Dwarka and other sunken cities off the coasts of India. At these and other underwater sites, there are very extensive remains of ancient megalithic structures.

There is growing interest in this concept of lost civilizations – really of a lost history of the world – and an increasing number of writers who investigate this topic. It is also covered in the TV series, Ancient Aliens. Ancient Aliens leaves itself open to a certain level of ridicule by proposing that really just about everything in the distant past must have been built by ancient aliens who sailed to the planet earth in UFO’s. This can strain the credibility even of those who have no problem at all believing in either UFO’s or very ancient civilizations.

However, the series does an excellent job of covering a great many really fascinating archeological sites of extreme antiquity, and is very much worth watching solely for the footage of these sites – if one isn’t too much put off be the assumption that ET himself must have built every single pyramid and every ancient ruin.

A new series on the H2 Channel is America Unearthed, in which the forensic geologist, Scott Wolter, travels across the U.S. looking into ancient sites on the American continent which indicate that America was discovered, not just by Columbus, and not just by the Vikings around 1,000 AD, as nearly everyone now accepts, but by many peoples from all corners of the world over many thousands of years. For example, on Great Isle, on Lake Superior, there have been dug around 5,000 pits, used for extracting copper – one of these was dated to 3,700 BC. The dating was done of cut and shaped timbers that were in place in one of the pits, supporting a large piece of copper. A stone containing carved letters was found, and these turned out to be the letters of the Minoan script – the Minoans lived on the island of Crete, where, around 3,000 BC and earlier, they had a great need to mine copper to provide metal for the Bronze Age. Perhaps they sailed all the way to the Great Lakes, and mined the copper that they found there to fuel the Bronze Age.

It seems increasingly clear that history, as we have been taught it, is simply not true. It is woefully incomplete, and there are vast chapters of the ancient past that are only just beginning to come to light. Great civilizations, unknown to us, may have extended for millennia back into the mists of time, perhaps other great worldwide civilizations from tens of thousands of years ago – or hundreds of thousands – or who knows? Perhaps galactic civilizations lasting over billions of years? If that’s too far-fetched, don’t worry – it was just a fleeting thought. Even the sites now found from only a few thousand years farther back into the past will be sufficient to radically alter our view of history.

The well-settled world which we thought we knew fifty or sixty years ago – with its carefully defined boundaries and its nicely stable limitations – is not true. The walls are falling down – all the preconceived notions – of history, of assumptions about the nature of the physical universe, about “reality” – all these are being upended.

This, if you like, is “the end of the world.” It is the end of our tidy, finite, limited conceptualization of the world. Concerning physics, it is the end of the Newtonian world. Concerning history and archaeology, it is the end of history as we have known it. It is, simply, the end of our human-imposed boundaries.

With string theories and multiple universes, ancient unsuspected high civilizations, with aliens of all sorts, ancient and modern – with everything that we could not previously have imagined, the world we had grown accustomed to has come to a close, the walls have come tumbling down, and a vast multi-verse of unfathomable, mystic realms — of myth and magic — awaits us.

Top photo: Author: Teomancimit / Wikimedia Commons / “This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.” / One of the carved columns at Gobekli Tepe.

Second photo: Author: Scalebelow / Wikimedia Commons / “This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.” / The Dwarakadheesh temple (Dwarakadhish temple/Dwarkadhish temple) at Dwarka, Gujarat, India. The temple is thought to have been constructed on top of Lord Krishna’s original residential palace, by his grandson, Vajranabha.

Third photo: Author: Chris 73 / Wikimedia Commons /”This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.” / The throne room at the Minoan palace of Knossus on Crete.

To watch a video showing the ruins of Dwarka, off the west coast of India, click here. (This is from the H2 program Ancient Aliens, but don’t let the ancient aliens distract you one way or the other; the relevant point here is to show you the ancient ruins.)

To watch the full episode of America Unearthed, “Great Lakes Copper Heist”, click here.

Animals and the earth, the Americas

A Magical Encounter with Enchanted Rock

December 18, 2012December 18, 2012by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

By Suzanne Cordrey

A Spanish priest reported that he fled from the local native tribes and escaped atop Enchanted Rock, where he was swallowed up by the massive granite dome. To his amazement he tells of seeing many spirits in the tunnels within the Rock. He was gone for two days before the Rock released him. This was about last 200 years ago.

Enchanted Rock had been given its name long before that, as the native tribes knew that it was a portal to other worlds. Sacrifices were made in its honor and for various other reasons. Footprints seen are said to be of a maiden who was sacrificed by her father, a Native American chief. Now she is said to haunt the Rock forever. Noises heard by presentday travellers spending the night at the nearby campsites, are said to be the cries of women and warriors who are still haunting the area. Tales like these exist far back into the past 11,000 years when inhabitants have been known to occupy Enchanted Rock. Over and over again, similar scenarios replay the life and death stories at the Rock, reminding us that history does indeed repeat itself.

Yet the power of the unusual pink batholith radiates a kind, loving energy that heals and releases as well. Just being there confirms that. Like a cosmic magnet, it draws hundrreds of thousands of people to it for as many reasons as there are people. And their perceptions of the Rock vary according to their spiritual understandings and what their soul wants them to experience at the time they are there.

The ancient granite formation is around 1,000 million years old and the sedimentary rock around it eroded over all this time to expose it at the surface. Walking on top of it brought back memories of climbing up the fabulous Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the center of Australia. The summit of both are vast and open, yet indented and curved with places to hide and get away from the wind. But Uluru is not a granite batholith but a sandsone formation called an island mountain. Still, the magic of both places is undeniable. Both harbor a feeling of being so sacred, so otherworldly, that it is easy to see how so many generations held them in awe. They radiate with a subtle flow of energy, sort of like taking electrolytes after a dehydrating day of hiking. You feel measurably better, grounded, yet touching the sky. All of a sudden being on the planet is meaningful, like coming home to yourself.

It does not take long to hike up the 425 feet slope to the summit. And on a clear sunny day, the glint of the facets in the granite glitter like diamonds under your feet as you walk across the rock. In any direction, no trail needed, you can see the parking lot below until you cross the summit and face the other direction. The deep rich pink color of the rock is flecked with black and looked radiant against the irridescent blue sky. Once the summit is reached, there are many places to hike that go deep into the pockets of rock where little hidden forests occupy the indentations. Ledges and plants grow, vernal pools thrive, even in the dry season, they are home to tenacious plant and animal life that find the Rock a welcome home. These cozy green secret forests made peaceful rest stops. Time to turn attention in after such an expansive view outward in all directions. The vernal pools are known to harbor the rare fairy shrimp, but our visit was in the dry season. And we did not get to see the ringtails, foxes, bats, squirrels or lizards that inhabit the Rock. Dusk would be the right time for their entrance. As well as the bird life that live there. From roadrunners to orioles and buntings, to tiny vireos, there are numerous avian beings who grace the area with their magic. I wonder how the animal life interprets the sensation of the granite as it radiates out into the universe.

Enchanted Rock, in central Texas is not alone in its existence on the planet. There are granite domes elsewhere, think of Half Dome in Yosemite. And not all granite domes are batholiths. There are batholiths in Chile, Rio de Janero, Iceland, etc. The world is rich with amazing magical formations that draw us to them. Do you really think that is a coincidence? Lift the veil between the worlds and take a peak with multi-dimensional eyes at what else is there. Bring a bit more joy into your life.

Photos: Suzanne Cordrey

the Americas, Visions

Deepak Chopra: Healing in words and song

December 10, 2012December 15, 2012by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

Deepak Chopra speaks to the Microsoft PAC on January 13, 2011

By Niamh Fodla

I’ve heard and read of people giving Deepak Chopra a very hard time, and I have to say, I don’t really understand it. Some critics seem to find it suspect that he’s gotten wealthy from his books and lectures, as though he moved to American to get rich, preaching Hinduism, self-healing and hope. But the same people don’t seem to object when those preaching western medicine (Doctors and pharmaceutical companies) get very rich in the course of their healing work. The attitude seems to be that they deserve to live well if they’re helping people – and I would say the same applies here. I definitely don’t agree that his making a nice profit (however much he makes – I’m only basing his being fabulously rich on rumors), that this in any way detracts from his perfectly intelligent and helpful message.

In this lecture, Chopra discusses health and healing. I found it absolutely fascinating. Did you know that your body is not an object, but is in constant flux? That before long, every cell in your body will have been replaced, and there won’t be one single cell left that was in your younger self? Grasping that is a beginning to understanding how healing is possible. I love this lecture because it contains a lot of morsels of truth that I sort of already knew, but it was so validating to hear someone smart say them out loud! Click here.

Sunrise over the desert in Morrocco — Sunrise over the desert

In this lecture, a younger Chopra gives what I would call a more controversial speech. You may love it or hate it. The title, including the word “wizard” may be off-putting to people who are now thinking of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. It may make the speech sound like fantasy. I almost wish he hadn’t used the word for that reason! But it’s about a different kind of magic – a “natural” magic that you may feel more confident is out there. The premise is essentially that Darwin’s survival of the fittest – species evolving according to who’s the toughest – is no longer going on. Now, humans are evolving in a different way entirely … Click here.

And finally – music! During the health lecture, Chopra discusses the fact that we are inseparable from our environments. (After all, we can’t live without oxygen for example, right? So how can we talk about ourselves as being separate organisms, living independently from the world around us?) So if it’s true that what’s around you may be affecting your health as much as what’s inside you, then one thing to note is that music is one of the things in your environment. And plus, I love music! Here’s a beautiful song that has a truly healing pulse: Click here.

Top photo: Author: BankingBum / November 13, 2011 / Deepak Chopra speaks to the Microsoft PAC on January 13, 2011 / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deepak_Chopra_MSPAC.jpg / Wikimedia Commons

Second photo:”This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Abovementioned friend of user: Gilgemesh in the Hebrew Wikipedia. This applies worldwide.” / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dune_sunrise.jpg / Wikimedia Commons

Animals and the earth, Tales of India, the Americas

India: C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre: An evening with Wayne Pacelle

November 14, 2012November 18, 2012by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

Commentary, Old Europe, the Americas

More to demographics than meets the eye, part two

November 10, 2012by sharonstjoan1 Comment

To read part one first, click here.

The Western world was not always the western world, as we know it. Once, thousands of years ago, long before the middle ages and the dark ages, Europe was a land of myth and magic, a land of mystery, of ancient legends – a different world, one that can still be sensed among the ten thousand stone circles and ancient megaliths that dot the European countryside – from Malta to the northernmost islands of Scotland. But something happened – a dark wave took over, casting out the myth and magic of the mists and bringing in the hard glare of a more cruel light — and there began the rule of the crusaders, of conquistadors, of the Inquisition, of witch-burnings, of conquering and subjecting – of domination – and of the spreading across the earth of tides of oppression and destruction of lands and peoples.

With this onslaught of domination, came not only the oppression of all the peoples of the earth, but also the destruction of the planet itself. Mining and oil wells, hi-tech wars, pollution, industrial waste, and relentless development have brought death to the rivers and oceans, to the air we breathe, to the land, the forests, and the animals, as the natural world too has been dominated and oppressed – along with women (the “witches”), and the peoples of the earth (disparaged as “primitive”).

To come back to the present moment, and the recent election, it has been remarked that the most extreme aspects of the Republican party are a throwback to the fifties, but really the mindset of domination goes back to a time several centuries earlier, and is a continuation of the dark spirit of the conquistadors and their ilk. (This doesn’t mean that teaparty Republicans can’t be pleasant, decent people, in fact, quite fine people as human beings go; they generally are. Conquistadors probably were too when they weren’t busy conquering foreign lands. Many people become, unthinkingly, part of whatever culture seems to choose them.)

Still, the desire to plant oil wells in Alaska and all along the coasts, the perception of the environment as something that must be beaten into submission, the wish to unleash rampant deregulation that will permit the full-scale annihilation of nature – all this combined with the drive to fight more and bigger wars, which are also sort of a way of “punishing” those perceived to be “evil” – all these methods of exercising dominion over everyone and everything are really opposed to all that is life-giving. (None of this has anything to do with being genuinely and honestly conservative, in the normal sense – it is instead an aberration.)

Perhaps this aberrant trajectory of domination and oppression has come to its final, last stand. Surely, it will limp along for a while, no doubt still wreaking havoc wherever it can, but it’s doom is sealed. (And when it goes, those who have been possessed by it, will also feel a sense of relief.)

On one level this election is just another election, one of many, yet there is a sense, on another level, that there has been a turning point – the emergence of a will for developing alternative energy to save the planet, for showing compassion rather than derision, inclusion rather than exclusion, for extending a word of encouragement and a helping hand to all. This is a spirit that values the life of people, all people, of nature, animals, plants, and the soul. And it is a stepping stone toward the future – on a road that no longer barrels downwards to a baser and more corrupt world, but instead turns upwards to a world of light – of peace.

This unkind world that has been so prevalent over the last many centuries of our history, did indeed need to come to an end, and as it has begun to end, and as it still stumbles along on its last steps, another world beckons — a world of sunlight, of trees in the mists, of birds flying in the clouds – a world we had almost forgotten in our cities of clogged traffic and artificial existence.

A human political process cannot create heaven, and the people we have just elected are not angels dancing in the clouds, but fallible human beings. There will be many more struggles and battles to come.

Yet, all the same, we can glimpse a clearer light shining from the heavens, now that some of the oppressive clouds have been blown away, and a spirit of kindness and peace is poised to grow again on the earth.

The months and years to come will not be free of suffering. There may be tides of destruction and karmic repercussion from the actions of the past. The seas may continue to rise, and the storm winds may still blow. But there has been an affirmation of a positive direction – towards life, kindness, and goodness.

What is important is the innocence in the souls of the animals, the beauty in the trees and the clouds, the survival of kindness in the hearts of some of the earth’s people, the presence of peace in the heart of God, and the awakening of creation to a more blessed state, freed from the dominion of evil that has beset us for so long. The important thing is the victory of kindness, the diminishing of the world of corruption and oppression, and momentum toward the rebirth of an age of innocence and magic, where wildflowers can bloom in the sunlight and fish swim in the sea.

Top image: Author: Matty781 (Matthew Brennan) / “I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain.” / Wikimedia Commons / Stonehenge

Second image: “This image or recording is the work of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee, taken or made during the course of an employee’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.” / Wikimedia Commons / Bald Eagle landing.

Third image: Author: Larry Aumiller / Kodiak brown bear with her cubs in McNeil River Sanctuary / “This image or recording is the work of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee, taken or made during the course of an employee’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.” / Wikimedia Commons

Commentary, Old Europe, the Americas

More to demographics than meets the eye, part one

November 10, 2012November 10, 2012by sharonstjoan1 Comment

Apart from Mitt Romney’s very gracious concession speech, his campaign over many months was dismissive of, and not very pleasant towards, just about everyone – women, Latinos, all other minorities too, poor people, and the rest of the world.

Despite attempts to suppress the vote that haven’t been seen in this country for many decades, voters turned out in record numbers, waiting in long lines for up to eight hours. It seemed that the more the right to vote was threatened, the more determined people were to vote.

As many others have noted, the key factor in this election was not the economy at all, it was demographics – the changing population of America. Those who voted for President Obama were overwhelmingly the young and a huge percentage of Latinos, African-Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and other minority voters – and just 39% of the white vote, which was this year only 72% of the whole, down from around 90% in the 1970’s.

This has been noted by many observers, yet these demographic facts are a significant source of dismay (or, to be more blunt, fear and terror) to some white people. This fear, conscious or unconscious, leads to a compulsion to hold on to the status quo for dear life, even while one perceives it to be slipping away. And, in a few people, the impulse to dominate, to subjugate, to oppress, bully, invalidate, deride, and dismiss — takes over – and leads to the sorts of endless absurdities that suggest that President Obama is somehow “other” and “not one of us.”

The impulse to dominate is a very fascinating thing. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived on the shores of the New World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they committed horrific atrocities, slaughtering and enslaving Native Americans. At the same time, in Europe, the Inquisition was in full swing, and women were being burned as witches in towns all across the European continent.

Later on, when the British arrived in America, a similar sort of vicious behavior toward native people continued, on down through the centuries. The Age of Discovery was really no such thing, since people were already living in all the lands being “discovered,” so “discovery” wasn’t really needed. Nonetheless, the European powers felt obliged to colonize the rest of the world – Asia, Africa, North and South America, nearly every tiny island in the oceans – all must be given the gift of “civilization” – nevermind that some of these countries; like India, Egypt, and China, had been civilized for at least 5,000 years and possibly many thousands of years longer than that. Certainly, they were civilized long before Rome attempted to curb the hordes of Vandals and Goths making their way through Europe.

If we are feeling that things have taken a better, more progressive turn since those dark days, that isn’t so. The wars of the twentieth and early twenty-first century were of unparalleled brutality.

After the Colonial Age, as the European powers were forced to withdraw, with regret, from the lands they had occupied, a new form of colonization arose – this time it was cultural and economic. And this is where we are at the moment – the invasion of CocaCola and McDonalds – and the insidious belief that creeps into the mind of people all over the world, that perhaps their own culture and traditions are somehow backwards and not quite modern enough.

The same individuals who are fiercely loyal to their own nations may still fall subject to a kind of unconscious drive leading them to cast off their own traditions and seek instead what seems “modern” and “western.” I remember with sadness that in Kenya, I met so many people who were very proud of their Christian names and their Christian faith. When I asked them about their heritage — their stories, myths, and traditions, bits of wisdom their grandparents might have passed on to them, they looked bemused or slightly embarrassed; they had no idea, they knew no traditional stories, and there was the sense that they felt that all these things were to be left behind, as somehow unworthy or best forgotten. What a sad way to lose one’s language and culture.

One could write many books outlining the ways that ancient, traditional medicine has more healing power than modern, allopathic medicine, or the ways that traditional agriculture is more sustainable and healthier than western agriculture, or ways in which traditional artisans and artists create art that is much, much more beautiful than anything the modern world can produce, or how even the oldest science, mathematics, astronomy, and knowledge of the universe is really not at all inferior to modern knowledge; how, in short, human “progress” is a myth that only serves to disguise the devolution and progressive ignorance of our present civilization. This may be a minority view, not generally accepted, but there is something to be said for it.

A great loss of culture and true civilization has happened, one way or another, all over the world, as this western wave has swept over the earth, despite the valiant efforts of many people to preserve their own culture. It is only these courageous efforts, like a mighty flame in the darkness, that have kept alive the beauty, truth, and knowledge of ancient traditions that have been under such fierce attack. Now the tide may be turning.

To be continued in part two. To read part two, click here.

Top image: Author: Margaret Duncan Coxhead / Source Romance of History, Mexico Date 1909 / The conquistadors entered Tenochtitlan to the sounds of martial music. / Wikimedia Commons / “This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.”

Second image: Author: D.F. Barry / Sitting Bull / This image is in the public domain in the United States. A Sioux holy man and chief who led his people in resistance. / Wikimedia Commons / “This image is in the public domain in the United States.”

Third image: Artist: Nicolaas Pieneman (1809–1860) /The submission of Diepo Negoro to Lieutenant-General Hendrik Merkus Baron de Kock, 28 March 1830, which ended the Java War (1825–30). / Wikimedia Commons /”This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.”

Animals and the earth, the Americas

U.S. Wildlife: WildEarth Guardians to defend Wyoming’s wolves

September 14, 2012September 14, 2012by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment

By: John C. Horning, Executive Director, WildEarth Guardians

On September 10, 2012, WildEarth Guardians and partners filed papers initiating our lawsuit to overturn a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove wolves in Wyoming from the Endangered Species Act.

It’s the last option we have to prevent the slaughter of Wyoming’s wolves. Please support our Wolf Legal Defense Fund (see the link below) to help us stop the killing.

If the Service’s decision is allowed to stand, people in Wyoming could trap, hunt, bait and pursue wolves to their death throughout most of the state. And it all starts in a few weeks.

We simply can’t allow this to happen. We need to reverse the decision and return wolves in Wyoming to federal protection. Your support of our Wolf Legal Defense Fund will enable us to take swift and strong action to save wolves.

The Wyoming “wolf elimination plan” allows wolf killing every day of the year in over 80 percent of the state. Many of Wyoming’s current population of approximately 330 wolves will die this winter unless we strike down this plan.

The state intends to allow only 100 wolves to survive outside of Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Reservation, but it has no way of tracking wolf numbers.

Wyoming’s wolf plan is driven by politics, not science. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the plan to appease his friends in the Congressional Cowboy Caucus.

It’s not about livestock. Less than one half of one percent of livestock are killed by wolves.

It’s not about hunting elk. Wyoming’s elk population is 24 percent over its objective of 85,000 animals. The 2010 count reported 104,000 elk in the state.

It’s about intolerance and hate.

We must stand up to a small minority that want to eliminate wolves. We must ensure that an ethic of compassion and coexistence ultimately prevails. Our first step is to defend these beautiful animals in the court of law and in the court of public opinion.

Please help us prevent the Wyoming wolf slaughter by supporting our Wolf Legal Defense Fund today.

For the Wolves,

John C. Horning

Executive Director

WildEarth Guardians

jhorning@wildearthguardians.org

To visit the web page Wolf Legal Defense Fund, click here.

Category: the Americas