Rancho Tarzanadu: "Miss Linda's First Humanities MA Discussion Board Post"

 

     Before I started reading “The Humanities” by J.W. Powell, I was sure it was going to be boring. I was wrong. I assumed because the article is dated 1895 that it would be outdated and irrelevant. On the contrary, it is extremely relevant in many ways. And it got me thinking in directions I certainly didn’t expect, such as the concept of time itself, different dimensions (since scientifically time is an illusion according to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli), and the power of meditation to integrate time and space and my thoughts and feelings into a cohesive whole the same way that the human race has integrated itself over time to become a cohesive whole, instead of divisions, segments, or tribes. We have all been the same in essence from the very beginning, and in this “New Age” we have more tools to utilize and realize this tangibly.

     When humankind first began, we were separated all over the Earth into little sections at different geological points. This influenced greatly what people ate, the sounds they learned from their environment around them, influencing their eventual language, the wars they fought amongst themselves, and the games that were created from these wars. These human dramas were being acted out all over the globe, differently in style, but at their core, the same. All of these things were leading humankind towards progressive evolution and greater benefits and wisdom.

     Someone on our first Zoom call mentioned that they wondered that our current technological advances of the internet, iPhone, etc. would surprise and amaze our ancestors with how effectively they bring us even closer together as a connected whole. It seems more and more evident that we, as the human race, are becoming closer and closer to each other and realizing that our ideas and actions reverberate outward and affect not only those in our immediate “tribe” anymore, but the entire planet. And, speaking of time, can do this in a matter of seconds via the world wide web; we can think a thought, and seconds later someone across the globe can access it, incorporate it, and utilize it for their benefit (or in some cases, not for benefit of the greater good).

     Powell says that as our ancestors and these ancient tribes merged with each other, they intermingled and bred with other tribes, then split, then merged again, and so on. He states that:

To speak of a nation as of one blood or as derived from one primeval tribe with its primitive industries, pleasures, speech, institutions and opinions is absurd. To search for the origin of a nation in one primeval tribe having some one or all of the primeval activities is a search for the impossible.

     This leads me to think of our current situation on our planet today: we are greatly divided. Not only by the pandemic, but we are also divided by space (not connecting physically with our tribes, but mostly through cold, hard technology). How do we maintain and support our humanity at this time? Everything (to me) feels removed, distant, and faraway at the moment. As humans, we need each other; as Powell would say, we are interdependent; we need human touch, human connection, human influence. Hopefully the situation we find ourselves in right now is merely temporary. In the grand scheme of things, I guess you could say it is.

     Going back to Powell’s quote, there are some factions of humanity (White Supremacists) who are insistent on a “pure-blood” ideology…but the joke’s on them, because that has never existed! Not in our current reality, not in past realities, and never in the wide weird Cosmic web of apace and time.

     We have always been one, and will continue to be one, as long as we can last here on planet Earth.

     After reading this article, I meditated with my Jessica Snow meditation app entitled “You Are Magic”. The meditation I chose is called “The Field” (it’s free on her web site, if you want to check it out: http://youaremagicla.com/). “The Filed” is the Cosmic Field, to which all consciousness and unconsciousness belongs. “The Field” (according to Jessica Snow and others such as meditation enthusiast David Lynch) is always expanding, always regenerating, and never stagnant. It is living, breathing, and dynamic, just like humanity itself, ever-evolving, ever-adapting, ever moving forward, integrating, re-forming, re-shaping, revolutionizing old ways of being, doing, and existing. “The Field” is a place you don’t have to enter, because you are already there (or here!), and have always been there (or here!), and will continue to be there (or here!) throughout eternity, throughout time and space.

     This tiny article, swirling around in the cosmos, packed a punch for me.