Chapter 4, Book #8: 1,000,000 B.C. And The Now (save/combine with another)

We are about to take a creative, whirlwind tour through history, dating back to , perhaps, a million years ago or more.

What was our mental atmosphere like back then, when mankind was first becoming conscious?

With humanity’s dark history, the survival of the fittest evolutionary imperative, and the fear of both dangerous animals and human strangers prone to displaying less than collaborative behavior, what can we speculate about the original nature of that consciousness?

Based upon our present understanding, could one surmise that trauma and suffering has-been with mankind from the very beginning of their conscious, and semi-conscious, presence upon planet Earth?

Is the Garden of Eden story, and other myths and legends, merely stories created by ancient peoples seeking the same answers?

The previous questions are riddled with assumptions, and the answers that we might supply to questions of this nature are subject to both speculation and revisionist history.  We must apply the tools of historical, anthropological, sociological, psychological, mythological,  cinematic, and spiritual analysis and discernment in any endeavor of this nature.  I will only touch upon the highlights of this epoch of mankind, and you should not believe me, any more than you might believe the scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and biblical writers who have already undertaken their own studies and vain attempts at understanding.

We only need to look within ourselves, and to our pasts, to see how uncertain our memories are, and extrapolate that to our human history, which is also plagued by short term, medium term, and long term memory loss. We can see how impossible it is to accurately recall and recreate memories from times long past, especially of the times when we were babies or children, though the recollections of others, coupled with insight can help in this daunting journey of discovery.  The last thing I want to do is to create “alternative facts” and implant false memories that were never real, just like the malicious fake news generators and conspiracy theorists of today attempt to do,

Without a recorded history, and supersubstantial archeological records, a careless investigation and exploration can become yet another Rorschach test for all inquisitors.  We attempt to create our best representation for what we think their truths might have been in the earliest iterations of mankind, the times that existed before there were verbal accounts being passed down through the generations. Even though our present history has only about 4500 years of written records, some cultures have historical narratives that appear to have been passed down for at least 30000 years.  The aborigines of Australia claim a 60000 year narrative, while Central and South American indigenous peoples and their shamans also claim lineages of tens of thousands of years.

Western European civilization appears to be an outgrowth of the migration of African tribal members at least 13000-30000 years ago.  Cave drawings in Spain and France show sophisticated art capabilities, as well as versions of animal and spirit worship. Other caves have been found showing even earlier creative endeavors. in an amazing recent, though questionable discovery,  a cave was discovered that is purported to possess chiseled storage cubicles dating back one million years ago, according to carbon dating.

The earliest human creatures spoke primarily with gestures, grunts, and body language, with their evolving vocal chords eventually joining in the conversation  at some unknown point in the distant past. They eventually standardized certain verbal sounds, sounds that became words that were supposed to represent that which they were seeing, doing, using, or eating.  Eventually mankind made the quantum leap to symbolic writing, where animal and plant forms once used to symbolically  represent life were replaced by crude symbols, which eventually evolved into hieroglyphics, and then cuneiform alphabets. It must have seemed like magic to the first humans who realized, and then taught others, that their thoughts could be approximated and shared through an ever evolving symbolic representation.

It appears that the creation, or formation of a new world had been made possible through words and concepts that were arising in the evolving consciousness.  Formerly, there were mainly biological systems with limited freedom of choice responding to environmental influences, with a more instinctual response to meeting the needs of the body, and of whatever family or community that existed.  We could call that world the “real world”, as it dealt with the harsh realities of a world not yet under the subjugation of the human mind.  With the advent of symbolic representation of the real world, a concurrent, though alternate “reality” was created which only existed in the minds of those entertaining those new concepts and symbols.

Intelligent, abstract thinking is not for everyone, even in our modern times!

To the point that this alternate reality created within the mind, both individually and culturally, matched up with the conditions of the real world, one could say that becoming verbally conscious was an amazing evolutionary leap for humanity.  They now lived in two intimately related worlds, that of their biology, and that of their minds.

Once symbology is introduced into the human mind, absolutely remarkable, if not miraculous, phenomenon start appearing.  Consciousness expressing through symbology appears to have a self-organizing principle innate to it, and as it weighs and measures and assigns names to the objects of its awareness, a personal sense of being is also introduced into the biological system entertaining the symbology.  Thus, the “word” or the act of first recognizing that a verbal sound or a specific set of symbols can represent an environmental influence is the initial generative force behind the creation, or the awakening of the personal sense of self.  It appears that there is no real way to reverse this process, though many seekers of truth and knowledge throughout time have claimed that by meditating upon their body, their biology, and their breath, rather than the endless stream of words, thoughts, and concepts that seem to be constantly present, a door may open revealing the possibility of such an experience.

Jesus, in the new testament, proclaims:

“Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.“, and

““It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.

So, even biblical writers understood the difficulty of such an undertaking.

I began this chapter with a question about when mankind first became “conscious”, and the story of Helen Keller is a remarkable account of that very process.  Helen Keller gives an outstanding narrative of the beginning of her own sense of self, a new self which seemed to arise out of her more instinctual, or even chaotic response to life.  Once she recognized that the letters W A T E R represented the substance that she washed with, and drank, her own unique sense of being herself also arose..Literally, understanding the word and its symbolism opened the miraculous door to her self, and  both phenomenon seem to have arisen concurrently.  Helen Keller’s new sense of self arose out of a life-giving and sustaining symbol, and she grew into a creative, profound, and spiritually wise human being, beloved by all who knew her.

It can be argued that once mankind finally became conscious of its own individual self, and the needs of others, it’s collective mind entertained and hosted the symbolic representation of the parts of the  world it was witnessing. When was mankind’s first W A T E R moment?  It could  be said that mankind may have left its Garden Of Eden state with that same evolutionary unfoldment in consciousness.

note:  I might have had a different early childhood, had the first word I learned was the unifying, life giving word W A T E R, rather than the divisive, confused, abandoned experience I had around the words M O T H E R and F A T H E R.   My experience was definitely not to be of  the same nature as hers, though I am now loved by my wife and pets..

In the mystical literature of the Bible, as recorded through the words of New Testament scribe John:

“The Word.became flesh, and dwelt among us”.

We cannot be certain as to what the first words taught to each other in the dawning times of human consciousness were, but by historical evidence, it would appear that the language of survival, defense, killing, eating, and sexual activity probably dominated early language building cultures.

Does anyone really know the way back “home”?  Would we return to a pre-verbal or non verbal state of being, or would we recognize words for what they are, and use them with more love and care, or perhaps a conscious blend of the two states? Perhaps we will discover that words only have limited, relative value  rather than absolute value, in the search for our real origins.

With the advent of symbolic representation, our history was no longer totally dependent upon oral transmission, yet oral transmission still, to this very day remains the most powerful, and primary, from of communication, especially for those not proficient in their reading ability, and intellectual and spiritual discernment.  With the advent of a community shared symbology, yet another evolutionary unfoldment occurs, which is our cultural identity, or the collective sense of self.

Our present civilization now proudly touts its written “recorded history”.  Yet, as we have learned, our history has been written to accommodate the prevailing victorious powers and understandings of the age in which it was first written.  There are two or more sides to every story, and the epoch of mankind certainly could have been defined historically  by its nearly infinite number of interactions between members of its worldwide community, and all of the resultant stories derived through those connections, be they ordered or chaotic in nature.  But, in the interest of brevity and our need to bring order out of apparent chaos of the limitless multitudes, we tend to select the stories that appear to carry the ethos of the age in which they originated, and which also appear to support our own perceptual agendas.  Thus is history created and maintained by the institutionalized powers, and transferred to all members of the community.

In the distant past, and even today among the few uncivilized indigenous tribes left, the mother, father, and whatever tribe or supportive community that was present passes all of their wisdom and knowledge about hunting, weapon construction and use, tool construction and use, gathering, childbirth and rearing, wound care, fire building, and survival to the children, until they were of age, and could join their father, or their mother, in the daily grind, or branch out and seek their own fortune elsewhere.  Today, our parents and our culture continue the same process, transferring their knowledge, sacred or otherwise, to our children.  So, not only do we live in two worlds, we also have two identities to deal with.  Our collective/cultural self and our individual sense of self are rarely one person, though both now travels with us, wherever we might travel.

We have more than a biological evolution, we also have an ongoing emotional, intellectual, and spiritual evolution.  Our latter history, which is written, shows our ability to philosophize, and to form creative narratives about what the world once was, what it is now, and where it might be going in the future.  Our vision of what the world once was will always be just a best guess, and, just like now, our ancestors writing their own histories, proposed myths and legends to explain that which was pre-existent to  their own lives.  Our myths and legends serve us well in this regard, and many times they complement what we have discovered through all of the sciences, spiritual literature, as well as through our intuitive natures.

Who tells the story?  Many times, the greatest, most courageous and intelligent heroes of our race remain anonymous, though their stories were captured by others..  They died before they could even create a story, thus the survivors, usually less qualified and relatively more uninformed, are the historians, and their story, not the story of the real heroes, are accepted as the narrative.  Religious texts abound with such exposition.  Our American history also has suffered under the need to present the prevailing propaganda of the time, as it looks back and interprets other’s historical accounts of what actually transpired, and molds it into a more self-supporting and self-aggrandizing cultural ethos and narrative.

When we were under the law of “survival of the fittest”, we really had to measure up, and use all of our physical, emotional, and intuitive resources at maximum power, coupled with community and individual knowledge (wisdom) to have any hope of not becoming a meal for a stronger and hungrier predator than we were. Biologically, the men of our species usually were blessed with the greatest physical assets, while the women, through their capacity for becoming impregnated, were the carriers of the species future, plus messengers from a deeper realm of human potential through their heightened intuition and Earth centered wisdom.  Women within many ancient cultures were regarded as healers and carriers of “medicine”.  They were loved, honored, respected, and protected by the community for those very reasons.  Modern anthropological studies continue to confirm that early indigenous women were held in at least as high esteem as the hunter/gatherer/warriors of ancient times, so it can be surmised that in our pre-history the balance of the masculine and the feminine through mutual understanding, acknowledgement, and equality existed and supported the good for all.

Yet, mankind’s story, when told by the historical progression of women, would be much different than the story told by the history that men might present.  History is rarely described and defined by the ones who were stuck at home caring for the wounded and the children, by the submissive ones, by the artists or sculptors, or  by the losers in any conflict.  Our history is no different, being described, and defined, by predominantly white male influences..

The larger the community became, the more the equilibrium between men and women became disturbed,  Size indicates prosperity, and the bigger communities either traded with friendly neighbors, or were attacked by others seeking to help their own tribes.  As our history shows an almost universal, steady progression of conflict and war, cultures took their strongest citizens and made them into defenders, or aggressors, to preserve the tribe’s rights to resources, which were usually scarce.  Biologically, the male warrior  usually was considered as the best choice, and a whole consciousness eventually developed around that difference in biology.  The best male might be considered the one who brings home the most game, gather the most berries, raise the most crops (a more recent development) and/or are most fearless and aggressive, within certain community proscribed limits.  The best female might be considered the one most willing to support the hunter/gatherer and the defenders, through family support, maintenance of the home, meal preparation, healing of wounds, and birthing and raising the family, especially while the men go about their business.

There is an imbalance within the field of the human spirit.  Masculine energy has dominated our specie’s relationship with the universe, the world, the plants and animals, and with each other for most of recorded time, and well before the human race had any capacity to keep records,.

In the Hebrew based mythological story of The Garden Of Eden, we even see the scapegoating of the female for listening to the voice of the serpent, which now becomes the voice for the development of consciousness itself.  With eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man, and woman, now may hesitantly approach divine knowledge, and forever remain outside of their original ignorant unconscious state of being.

The serpent in the Garden of Eden remains a fascinating, enlightening archetypal image. The serpent is always in contact with the ground, or with the limbs in the trees, depending upon where it lives, so it serves as a great metaphor for those in continuous contact with our planet. And, mothers have a much more earth centered understanding of life, being the bearers of human life itself.  As the Earth gave life to us, so did the woman give life to the human.  Women learned early about the Earth’s capacity to heal us, through judicious application of its plants and herbs. Women tended to see a more complete picture than did the men, due to the very constitution of their neural networks.  Women tended to see the forest, while men obsessed about the trees.  And, in a later development, the more earth attuned women were actually persecuted and burned at the stake for being witches.

The serpent is also recognized for the way that it instinctively strikes out at others when feeling threatened, so as a continuation of the metaphor it represents our instinctual needs, like our natural reflexes, sexual activity and self preservation.  In some early cultures, the serpent was even worshiped as a God, or even feared as the devil, probably because of the pain, suffering, and sometimes death that ensued from failing to follow its edicts, such as avoiding contact with those of a poisonous nature.

Wow, there really is a difference! How did THAT get in there?!