re: Grand Story of humanity – rkm’s cyberjournal

Bcc: contributors

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Friends,

Thanks for your responses to the Grand Story posting. Those and other contributions appear below.

Two weeks ago I facilitated my first Dynamic Facilitation session, for a group in the UK. I was worried if I’d be able to do it, after only a three-day training, but it went off beautifully. The group experienced breakthroughs, and now they are operating under a much improved strategy & organizational framework. DF really works!

Almost every group, and particularly activist groups, could become more effective either through better internal process, or through better thought-out strategy. If you are part of such a group, and would like to see it become more effective, please let me know.

One of our subscribers, Richard Cook, has teamed up with Susan Boskey, and they are prepared to give talks on radio shows. They describe their mission this way:

“The time has come for everyday Americans to become fully-informed about what’s really going on and how they can empower themselves not only to survive but thrive into the future. Cook and Boskey’s informed insights are almost impossible to find in the biased mainstream media because their years of research go deep, touching the nerve of truthful information.”

If you are involved with a local radio station, you can contact Susan here:

•••@••.•••

If any of you think that the next election matters, you are being deceived. Obama, Hillary, and McCain are all puppets, selected for their ability to lie convincingly, which has been the primary job of every President since the JFK coup d’etat. Paul Craig Roberts tells it like it is in his Counterpunch article, Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime:

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01042008.html

Our recent postings can be reviewed here:

http://groups.google.com/group/cyberjournal

rkm

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Diana Skipworth wrote:

Dear Richard,

I was a Marketing Major in college. I knew I was being manipulated and wanted to understand how it is done. Sigmund Freud’s cousin (begins with a B) the father of public relations, is credited with inventing advertising. Proctor & Gamble was King of Advertising in those days.

The dumbing down of America’s News– sell soap and make lots of money– not arm the public with vital information. I find it disturbing. Once Free and Prosperous 100 years ago, we are going over the cliff– in America. (The Blind are driving, not Thelma and Louise.)

Richard, I believe I’ve spoken about ‘Indigo People’ to you before. By the year 2000, 9 out of every 10 babies born Worldwide are predicted to be Indigo Children. Is this why school nurses work overtime, hopping around dispensing Ritalin?

To predict the path of humanity, the Ancient Wisdom is intriguing. In my way of thinking, Jesus really is a Master Meta physician. He conquered the prison of the physical world. I also believe his example of living– is attainable. “What I do, you can do also… This and more shall you do,” etc…

We know the human mind is a powerful thing; it can attract situations. Here is a weird story. Sorry if I’ve told you before:

I was outside meditating, and became surrounded by butterflies… Later that night I was unable to sleep. I went outside. There were moths– completely covering– the tall evergreen tree growing next to my house. There was no greenery showing, just the moths. Back inside, sitting in an easy chair, I felt as if energy came over me/ sort of like I was on fire, yet not painful. I stay were I was, unmoving, for several minutes.

If what I think is correct, Richard, the grand story of humanity will have an Evolution and one day, like Jesus or Buddha, become Enlightened…

–But it will happen within a difficult process– with numerous rewards along the way.

Diana Skipworth

Hi Diana,

Thanks for your ongoing contributions to our community dialog. As usual, I have bones to pick…

We were not any more free & prosperous a century ago than we are today. It is a myth that we can ‘restore democracy’, because we never had it in the first place. America is the land of fantasy, of Hollywood, Disneyland, and Fox News. And the biggest fantasy is that about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and democracy. From the very beginning, the USA was set up to enable domination by wealthy elites. Our revolution, like all revolutions, was betrayed in the aftermath. The American Dream is aptly named, and it’s about time we woke up from it and started dealing with the reality of the American Nightmare.

I’m glad we have Indigo children to help us, and enlightenment may be worth achieving, but if that is where we place our hope, it becomes just one more form of disempowerment. It is part of the myth that something is wrong with us, a myth memorialized in the Garden of Eden propaganda story, written at the very beginning of hierarchical civilization. We are just fine the way we are, and we know that from the many cultures through the ages where wisdom, integrity, and cooperation have been the most honored virtues. It is our cultures we need to change, not ourselves. A prison is not the place to draw conclusions about the limitations of human nature.

rkm

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Claudia Rice wrote:

I don’t think you can make the case that humans brains and language experiences were the same now as 200,000 or even 20,000 years ago. Even today, children who are neglected and unstimulated are found to have brain deficits that cannot be repaired.

The more we use language, the more connections we develop in the brain. The vocabulary of humans thousands of years ago was certainly limited, even if their capacity for artistic and emotional ‘intelligence’ was likely similar to our own.

The tendency to glorify the “harmonious and egalitarian life style” of pastoral peoples always overlooks the downside. These were humans- with the same tendencies to bully, exploit and use fear for advantage. Certainly small groups are more easily managed, but one only has to observe our primate cousins and the tyranny of those alpha males to realize that we have never lived in Eden.

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

The most reliable evidence of our mental capacity in ancient times is our skull size, relative to our body size. There is some controversy among archeologists as to exact dates, but I think 200,000 years or so is probably when we achieved our current brain capacity. Thus an infant from back then, if magically transported to a modern family and raised there, would fit in just fine, and learn our language as readily as anyone else.

As regards complexity of language in ancient times, the most reliable evidence comes from studying isolated tribes today who still practice hunter-gathering, and who have had no previous contact with modern cultures. Anthropologists who have taken the time to live with such tribes, and learn their languages, have found those languages to be just as complex and expressive as our own. There is no reason to believe it was any different 200,000 years ago.

Certainly the vocabularies in ancient times were more limited, primarily because so much of our modern vocabulary is related to technology. They didn’t have a word for ‘microwave’ or ‘television’ because they didn’t have microwaves or televisions. Homer’s vocabulary was also limited in this way, compared to ours today. But neither Homer nor the ancients (nor Plato nor Aristotle) were limited in their ability to talk about the important things in life. When we read their material, we don’t think in terms of ‘limited vocabulary’.

You are quite correct that we had the same individual tendencies back then that we do today, both toward aggression and toward cooperation. Similarly, people in different societies today have the same individual tendencies in all those societies. And yet some societies are peaceful and cooperative, and others are aggressive and competitive. The difference is not in the individuals, but in how they are raised, and in what tendencies are rewarded in the culture. Our culture is such that the most aggressive and competitive rise to the top, and our educational system emphasizes competitiveness.

There is a wonderful little book by K. Langloh Parker, Wise Women of the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers. These are tales passed down unchanged from very ancient times by the Australian Aborigines. Each story examines one of our negative tendencies, helping children to understand the consequences of that kind of behavior. Those lessons are then reinforced by the culture that the child sees around them, which is based on cooperation. We have ‘good stories’ for children today as well, such as the Gospels, but they have little effect, as everything else in the child’s life teaches him or her otherwise.

Given that our primate ancestors operated on the alpha-male principle, and our leading societies today operate on the alpha-male principle, it is tempting to assume that the alpha-male principle has always characterized our societies. However, the evidence is to the contrary. Again, the best evidence comes from looking at existing, isolated, hunter-gatherer societies. None of them operates on the alpha-male principle; they are all cooperative and egalitarian. There is no reason to believe it was any different 200,000 years ago, or 20,000 years ago. The great change came when we gained power over nature, and that power was abused by some.

rkm

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Milton Block wrote re/ Grand Story:

Having read many of your writings over the years I have learned to respect

you and be amazed at your insight. You have turned the light on for me on

many occasions.

Recently I started reading “Tears In Heaven” by Ian Ross Vayro, and after a

quarter of the way through I had many thoughts confirmed, beliefs corrected,

found more strength for my convictions and wondered about what I may still

have to learn with so many pages to go, then…

…I ran across your email, sounded interesting, printed it, and today I read

it, and blew the top of my head off. This one felt some tears of joy and

relief coming up from knowing that someone else understood some core issues

for me, but, they did not come out as the understanding touched in me was

even deeper and more real than the need for my tears, but I could not stop

the feelings and the need to…

…Thank You SO much for sharing your thoughts,

You said …

“We are no longer innocent, but we can return again to harmony and wisdom,

wiser from our experience in bondage, and knowing that the first thing we

need to do is to build a strong fence around the forbidden tree.”

So very well said, but I wonder if we should “build a strong fence around

the forbidden tree” as if afraid of it, or somehow embrace it, acknowledge

it, understand it, then, in freedom, knowingly choose another possibility.

Thanks again

Milton

Hi Milton,

The ‘strong fence’ I was referring to is ‘right understanding’, as passed on in the Aboriginal tales I mentioned above. In other words I fully agree with you.

rkm

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Ayran Dreger wrote:

Wow! Pheeewwww! Great – indeed!! This is just a quick first response – it will be a ‘great!’ pleasure for me to savour this piece of yours in depth.
With love and appreciation from me.
Ayran in OZ

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marc bombois wrote:

Hi Richard,

And what happened about 6000 years ago? Banking, the fraudulent issuance of the means of exchange that continues to this day. The history of our plight is incomplete without an investigation into this most basic fact of life. I highly recommend “The Babylonian Woe” by David Astle,

available here:

http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel/babyl01.htm

It’s pretty brilliant. Cheers!

Marc

Hi Marc,

How right you are. As David Korten puts in When Corporations Rule the World, “It is not corporations that run the world, but the international financial system”. I didn’t realize elites had discovered this mechanism already in ancient Babylon. So little has changed over the past 6,000 years! Dick Cheney would fit right in with the Assyrian warrior chiefs.

rkm

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Bob O. wrote:

Associative Economics might be the way out of the nasty economics we are in. A working example below.

We should be starting this kind of thing in all our communities. From urban gardens a-la-Cuba, to working with our local farmers markets etc. and BTW, lobbying legislators for the removal of regulations preventing the expansion of farm products. Hard times are coming and community is becoming more important that ever before… back to the village, so to speak.

It’s up to us folks!

Pass the word.

Bob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3QmJNZMBeg

http://www.livepower.org/About/new_economics.html

Thanks Bob,

The youtube video is very good, re/the power of finance and the Federal Reserve.

rkm

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Peter Malcolm wrote:

Hi Richard

Love that piece you wrote about the Grand Story of Humanity.

It’s particularly relevant to us here in Melbourne, Australia, as we live

in a non-religious community of individual houses where we are creating our

new story of supporting each other cradle to grave and are now building our

first Community Village on 800 acres. This is a structure that secures

water, food, energy and transport and….community hopefully through into

the next Golden Age. Indeed to be part of the movement at many local levels

as you said of creating our new Stories -we do have it in us and we can now

be Future Makers as my Futurist mate Dr Peter Ellyard said. Thanks for some

great inpsiration, can I pls be on your email list, best wishes Peter

Peter Malcolm

Tel: 03 9844 5665

Mobile: 0416 244 949

www.petermalcolm.com

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your contribution, and I’ve added you the list. I’d love to visit your community one of these days, if I can find a way to travel that far.

Anyone can join the cyberjournal list by sending a message to:

•••@••.•••

rkm

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Howard Switzer wrote:

HI Richard,

thank you for sending the dialog, I always find it inspiring. I agree with Peggy, we do need to get the freight off the highway, I liken the current mess to a train with a locomotive and crew for each and every car in the train, how crazy.

And with J. Hubbard, that we are entering a new phase of CREATION and INVENTION, a new design science revolution that I think will no longer deny the magic in electricity, the story on the other side of its physics always grounded and dismissed, for instance.

Brian’s comments hit home too. I was a member of the Farm, an intentional hippy spiritual community that formed after a 50+ hippy bus caravan around the country that came out of the Haight in the late 60’s. We had tried to keep the flame alive for about 10 years as a collective in middle Tennessee but the FBI (some of us believe) got the banks to call in our notes and forced it to change to a mere land trust. Many of the residents don’t even honor their history as a collective and repeat often that it was a “failure” much to my great disappointment. Fortunately, not all the residents feel that way and there are some who might agree with me, such as Albert Bates who started the Farm’s Ecovillage Training Center and is involved in the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN).

I help him there by teaching natural building or what I call “post-apocalypse building” courses. We teach building with earth and straw as was done before the industrial revolution on nearly every continent but also some more modern techniques like “earthbag construction,” originally designed for NASA to build on the moon, and strawbale construction, which we consider transitional. We teach that a good model for sustainable houses are those built before the industrial revolution and have been continuously inhabited for a millennium or more like the cob houses of Devon England and the Taos Pueblo in the US: one millennium and still counting.

There is a term used by natives in Ghana, “sankofa,” which means “to return to the past in order to go forward” much like you would if you took the wrong path and needed to return to the fork to try again. I use the term in my the classes to explain in part what we are doing with our courses. I agree with Brian that civilization may have needed to happen for humankind to get a fuller picture of the scope of their responsibilities as humans as in “you don’t know the value of what you have until you have lost it.” ..or something like that, all moving in harmony with some galactic time scale, I presume. I tell the young students who come that they are the builders of the new world.

Also, I went to a water quality workshop a couple weeks ago put on by TDEC (Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation) and was delighted to discover that every presenter they brought in was encouraging the use of permaculture as the most economical as well as the most environmental way to go. Of course they are not enforcing the laws as they should from the regulatory end on existing facilities but still, that, and the plethora of Green conferences and summits etc. happening, makes me feel “the great mind shift” is happening, evolution continues but the lessons of civlization should probably not be forgotten, eh?

Howard Switzer, Architect
668 Hurricane Creek Road
Linden, TN 37096
931-589-6513
www.earthandstraw.com