Wednesday, August 25, 2010

History


"I am sad to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is." ~RW Emerson

Somehow i think i have given people the wrong impression that i like history. I thought it would be good to put out there my opinions on the subject to clear things up. I really do not want people to think that i like history, in fact, i sort of think history is one of the worst things that has ever happened to humans. Right up there with the Cartesian idea that somehow what we really are is a consciousness locked up inside our skull, a mind that is somehow separate and distinct from our body. That is on my top 5 list of all time most unhealthy ideas that happened to humans/humans invented.

When i was in college and was a history/philosophy major, i spent very little time in classes on the Civil War or World War II, classes about facts and dates and the like. Most of my time was spent studying the philosophy of history and the philosophy of the hunter/gatherer with Calvin Martin. He wrote an amazing book called In the Spirit of the Earth, Rethinking History and Time and in that book he explained and explored the world view of Paleolithic (hunting and gathering) human versus the philosophy of the Neolithic (farming) human. No one talks about it. History is one of those things that we assume is just out there in the ether happening to us, but history is a wicked mistress with an agenda.

History is not just what has happened to your people in the past, but it implies a trajectory. We learn about American history in our schools because history itself implies a chosen people, in our case Americans. Positing this also has the side effect of imposing an Other. If there are Americans, there are also those who are not one of us. Historical people build monuments to their greatness and these monuments are very religious in nature. Take for example the carving on the Lincoln Memorial, "IN THIS TEMPLE AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS ENSHRINED FOREVER." The memorial is called a temple, Abe is enshrined and he will be remembered forever. Very religious terminology.

Monuments are not seen until people start farming and worshiping sky gods. Go to a hunter gatherer village, such as an Austrailian Aboriginal Hunting Clan, a year after they lived there and you find no trace that they were ever there. Now go and visit Tikal in the Guatamala or Angkor in Cambodia and look at the stone structures made to last for thousands of years. People build monuments when they believe that they are a chosen people, someone that needs to be seen down through the ages. It is chosen people who go to war.

Hunting people who live off the land live in a margin of grace. They have faith that they will be provided for. Farming and hoarding stuff is a margin of fear. We grow food and store it up because we believe that the earth will not provide for us. Farming people stop seeing the spirit and powers of place as all around and inherent in everything they see, but start taking those powers and throwing them into the sky. Whether it is the Sun gods of Central America among the Aztecs and Maya or Jehovah, the God dwells separately and humanity is apart from that being. Many many times this comes with fear and guilt. In Central America with the cyclical nature of time, there was no guarantee that the cycle would start up again. Wars were fought to take slaves that could be used to feed blood to the sun, the fuel that kept the cycle starting up again. The Bible itself says that when humanity left the garden it would have to eek its living out of the earth. This jives with what we know about hunting and gathering life styles now. Life in the Garden of Eden, and life in a paleolithic society had lots of leisure time. Farm work is rough.

History and Time feed off of themselves. All of the wars we have ever fought are the direct result of us being a historical people. We know the saying that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. We have no evidence to support that because as a society we have been remembering our history since we started hoarding our food, and as historical people we have been repeating all of our dumb mistakes over and over again. So we really have no way of knowing whether people who forget their history are doomed to repeat it, but we do know that those who remember their history are indeed, doomed to repeat it. We continue to fight wars and cause genocide in the name of this and that. There is always an Other. Presently it is terrorists. During Macarthy, it was Communists. To some people it is homosexuals, it used to be the Native living in the plains, in Germany Hitler made it the Jews, and it all plays on our fear. This type of politics works very well in the paradigm of history. Believing that there is an evil other out there is a good way to motivate people to do all kinds of things: commit atrocities, give up their rights, generally hate and be easily manipulated.

I see the Crazy Horse Monument and i do not really know what to think. I do not believe that Crazy Horse would have wanted the face of the sacred Black Hills to be blasted apart to make a monument to him that people could look at forever. Monuments and tearing up mountains is a very European thing to do.

I worry for my people. I feel that as long as we try to solve our problems within the paradigm of history, we will never do it. I also see no way to break that cycle because no one can even fathom that it is a problem. It seems like a hokey thing to even say. Before it was brought to my attention, i never even thought that history was a made up thing. I am not sure what is to be done about all of this. I am within the problem i know that as well. I try and have my personal vision quests and i know that those powers that the hunter saw inherent throughout the woods and the rivers, himself and the rocks, still are there. They nod familiarly to you if you put away the ipod and cell phone once in awhile and get out beyond the reach of the street lamps. Be in it, embrace real darkness and night. The angel choirs are singing outside my window right now, i can hear them. They are the voices of peepers and crickets and other people whose names i do not yet know.

The Substance of our world view is Time. There is a clock in every corner of our lives. A boat is efficient to us if it can cut through the water and get us to our destination more quickly. The clash that happened when Europe crashed into North America was this, the Substance of the peoples that lived here before we arrived was not time at all, but Beauty. An efficient canoe to a Micmac hunter in Canada, was the one that was more beautiful. The fish would be more likely to give themselves to the hunter whose canoe had the most beautiful decoration. The Europeans who arrive here could not even fathom this because both peoples were operating on a different set of beliefs. Beliefs that are so fundamental we do not even realize we share them and world the place around us with them. Time and history are two such things for us. No one ever thinks to question them, they are the foundations that we walk on. To shake them is to shake our whole deal with reality.

It is a tough decision and difficult to write about in any way that makes sense. I choose to try and walk in beauty but it is difficult. I have been conditioned. We all have for we are all products of our society.

I guess what i am getting at here is that i feel that history is one of the major problems and it is good at being a chameleon. No one knows it is even a problem. It will eventually let you out of its grasp though in moments that exist between the ticks and tocks on the clock. There is an eternal present moment. When we live in the now, the whole concept that time is moving faster the older you get falls away. I do not feel that at all because i have been working on this a long time. I gave up on birthdays and worry and i honestly feel like time is slowing down. I have days on occasion that seem like an eternity. Last week seems so long ago to me. Embrace your moments.

Be in the now. If you can do this, you will achieve a fullness in life that is hard to fathom. You have to be able to do it in the moments you do not like as well, maybe when you are at work. Don't miss those moments because they are not coming back. Be fully in them and the Kingdom of Heaven will open up for you, eternally and now, not in some dreamy place in the clouds, but here in the place that you are.

Wow, i can ramble when i want to. I do hope this makes sense. Anybody have any ideas on how to break history's strangle hold on our imagination? I imagine not. In our world-view we live, all of this usually gets labeled as crazy.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

We the People


Ah Americans. I am one. We are so proud of all that we have accomplished. We have done a lot, don't get me wrong. We really believe that we are the greatest country in the world and i would really not want to live anywhere else. I am happy that i can get online and write this blog and not be taken away tomorrow. What i am writing about now, is this selective ability we have to be both part of and separate from all the things we did.

Most of your super flag waving patriots are happy to point out all of the good things that we have done as a people, but as soon as you begin to talk about the ugliness of America: slavery, our acts of genocide toward native people, etc. they are quick to point out, "I did not do that! I never had a slave or killed a Native American." There is a great change of perspective when you move from positive to negative. We won World War II because we are the greatest country on Earth, but I never did any of those things so i don't want to hear about it.

It is all woven together. If you want the good, you have to take the bad along with it. We are a people that has made amazing strides in human freedom and we are also a nation that has committed or attempted to commit genocide. We have created some of the greatest scientific advances in the history of the world, and we are the ONLY country to ever use nuclear weapons in warfare and on two cities full of civilians by the way. Many people get upset about Native Americans or African Americans talking about the hardships their people have endured. Why is it so hard to accept that WE did do that, just like we put a man on the moon or helped end the Holocaust. As i said before it is a package deal.

I personally believe that is how we begin to heal and move past it. My professor Calvin in college was talking to a student during office hours and she told him that she had been raped by someone that she thought was a friend. He told her, "I am sorry." "Why," she asked, "you did not do it?" His response, "I know, but has anyone told you that they were sorry?" She wept and thanked him. I am deeply, deeply sorry for what my people, for what we have done. I understand that people have good reason to be pissed off. Friends i have known on the reservation have had good reason to not trust us white folks. WE have lied to them for 500 years. Our going down there and feeling the conditions and bridging gaps started a healing. Healing did not begin because we got defensive and said, "I did not do this to you, get over it." It was because we looked it in the face and said to our fellow human beings, "yeah, i am sorry, what happened really sucked."

We are the beneficiaries or victims of our past in some way. I live in a neighborhood with good influences and a decent school system that my parents' could get partially because of where they grew up which was a result of their parents being able to live in the right neighborhood or get good benefits because of the color of their skin. Some people live in horrible conditions because of historical reasons as well. We do not need to deny this and blame people for being lazy. There are some inequalities in the world. We should look at them honestly.

Note, i am not trying to make excuses for anyone. I think one of the worst things people can do is live with a victim chip on their shoulder. Any human circumstance can be overcome. Petty tyrants (see Carlos Castaneda and the book The Fire From Within) can be a great boon to advancing personal power. But, this idea and this defensiveness about how hard it is to be a European descendant in America because people blame us for what our ancestors did is a victim complex as well.

I love the place that i live in. I am proud of who i am and who i came from, but the people i descended from, were people, and sometimes people, all people suck. We are living presently in an era that is the result of our people sucking more than other people. Europeans happened to get in power and dominate the world for a good long time now. Maybe we will move toward a world where there is less oppression of people, but one way to do that is to honestly look at and accept what we have done. There are still people that in either direct or indirect ways are still suffering from OUR actions.

Ultimately, everyone's ancestors have done some sucky things to other humans and to the place they live in and the animals around them. Even more than being an American, i am a human. That involves a lot of beauty and a lot of ugliness that no other animal could even begin to imagine. But i accept who i am and what i am. I am a part of this whole great story that is humanity, for good and for bad. I am full of love and pity for those who have suffered, all of those who have suffered at my own hands down through the centuries and ages that we have walked in this form. We are all, every one of us, every one else, both living and gone down through the centuries. We are part of this community of humanity and we need to soon realize that we are all deeply, deeply rooted in this thing together.

Namaste

Thursday, August 5, 2010

We all go the same way home...


"And we all go the same way home, yes we all go the same way home." ~Flogging Molly

During my stay at the Colorado Renaissance Festival i would often sing the song "The Sun Never Shines" by Flogging Molly. Dreagn introduced me to it and i really like it. The song ends with a refrain that is written above. It is repeated. I found myself on the final weekend of the faire singing that song and as i did i looked out over the people watching me and the patrons passing by and it moved me.

The song has a theme of death and as i looked over the people at the faire, the people were like walking ghosts. We all truly do go the same way home, back to the earth from whence we came. Death makes us all equal, the conqueror worm masters us all in the end. Time makes a mockery of our lives if we allow Him to grip us.

I thought about all of those people as i sang on and heard the words echoing in my own thought. Each of them walking by has their own story and a whole world of life dances about them as they strut and fret their four score and then are heard no more. Each of us is in the same boat, the saint and the sinner, all of them, no matter where they have been or what they have done is rendered equal in the dirt.

We all truly do go the same way home. As i sang and looked out over the people passing by, i realized that we are all in this together in a very palatable way and it was beautiful to feel a part of the whole great cycle of the whole great story that carries along the streams of our lives.

Namaste