Greetings from My Mountain Cabin,
Pre-industrial peoples have for eons embraced a holistic perspective of the elements that make up their environment. They speak of the rock people, the tree people and totem animals with a reference often unknown to civilized man. To them, the universe is a single living entity—a concept that seems alien to urban sophisticates.
Seasonal changes, varying weather patterns, migrating wildland herds, crop abundance or famine, tribal member health or illness, good fortune or hard times were seen as threads woven into a gloriously complex tapestry.
Even their creation stories were integrated into their cultural lore.
The Aborigine of Australia speak of the Dreamtime, when everything that is was given physical form through the emergence of ancestral supernatural beings. All life on Earth took shape during this awakening. Their Dreamtime story carries forth to this day as a nexus for the inextricable connection shared by the people and the land.
Seemingly infinite creation story variations of North and South American indigenous peoples also reveal the foundation of their cultural mores and tribal beliefs. To them, the human of the species does not exist as a biological isolate. As kin to so-called lesser life forms, we can learn important messages about our experiences on this planet if we simply pay attention.
Is unified consciousness literally true, or simply a colorful metaphor? In my own experienced, I have witnessed . . .
✶ my mother achieve lush growth, even from those scraggly specimens that I would have long given up upon, by talking and singing to the plants
✶ persons who are or are not dog people eliciting corresponding favorable or unfavorable responses from my animal companions
✶ the spontaneous appearance of a red-tailed hawk (animal totem of Truth—supposedly sent by Spirit to clear away illusion) on several occasions when Annette and I were seeking assurance of her surviving her two bouts with cancer
✶ focusing upon the connection shared, as I slowly lowered my finger to stroke the back of a common housefly. (This has happened twice in front of a group as I was conducting an outdoor therapy workshop.)
✶ a behavior pattern—standing at the edge of the highway, watching cars go by—demonstrated by groundhogs as if there were a common mindset to this species. I have not seen this (conscious link?) in any other local critter.
✶ while a university professor hosting a guest speaker and his llamas (his topic was llama trekking with children having learning disabilities), projecting a mental message of welcome and solidarity with these animals, and all four simultaneously picking up their heads at this precise moment and looking directly at me. (This interplay was commented upon at the end of class by one of my more observant students, asking, "What were you doing to those llamas?")
And as my friend Pat reminds me, Julia Child would often rush a newly conceived recipe into print, believing that once the idea was made manifest, others could become aware of the thought and claim it as their own. Shades of Carl Jung and the collective unconscious . . .
Perhaps Hamlet was at his most profound when he said: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." ~William Shakespeare
I think I'll just keep dreaming.
Be well, do good work, keep in touch,
Ed
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