Humanimal Evolution And Liberation Through Harmony....or the HEALTH Manifesto

Since we moved away from our earliest families and set out to explore the earth as it was going through its constant evolution, we’ve found a myriad of ways to be different to each other, in our dress, skin and insides.  Boundaries and territories and theologies have carved battle and the knitting together of close hierarchical groups to survive onto our souls.  We mirror the other mammals in how we’ve reacted to limited resources and land – we’ve formed bullying hierarchies that advance territory, and see ‘the other’ as dehumanised, thereby justifying our warfare.  We’ve also managed to become hoarders to defy any other hoarding animal – taking it to outrageous extremes.

Since we first made that deal with the grass called wheat that we used as a tool to settle, (or perhaps, the wheat that used us for colonisation) we’ve been working out how to over-ride our instincts towards peaceful living, to create warriors and distinctions so we could keep acquiring the land we needed to perform agriculture.  The Spartans threw their babies to the ground and buried placentas on battlefiels, the Mayans separated their boys early from their families, and we western humans in particular, have come up with multitudinous forms of bonding interruption and layers of seperation to create warriors, to keep advancing our civilized bulldozing of the world. 

But in Humanimals early evolution, we traded our easy births and more independent babies for walking and a bigger brain to think with.  And we believe the time has come for Humanimals to use those brains we traded up for, and consciously evolve beyond the need for warfare, hoarding, hierarchies and bullying tactics.  Because we stand on the brink of mass extinctions that threaten not only us but every other animal, landscape and seascape on the planet.   It’s time for us to get together on this, be the change we want to see in the world, and take personal responsibility for the time we occupy on this planet.

The earth herself has shown that no matter what she endures…….she will go on.   And we wish to go on in HEALTH with her.

We believe that it is time for us to emerge from our waking sleep, as slaves in a civilised society, that treats us like children, and informs us that we wouldn’t learn without being forced, and we wouldn’t be ‘good’ without limiting rules, and we wouldn’t co-operate unless we were made to.  Our societal structures have revolved around guilt and fear, punishment and revenge, judgement, rules and hierarchies.  While indigenous societies all over the world have quietly shown, from the time we started forming tribes, how Humanimals can coexist peacefully with the other animals and ecosystems through experiencing a connection with everything, and accepting everything as an integral part of the Healthy Whole. 

In a great and delicious irony, in all our learning and civilising, we’ve searched and searched for truths until we’ve found them, in the lap of Science and Quantum Physics, and on the shoulders of Chaos, that we’ve had the universe contained within us allways, all the answers we’d ever need are locked in our DNA, and what the indigenous nations were saying all along about everything being connected was true.  We live in a conscious universe, and it’s safe  to trust that consciousness, and relinquish our grasp of control, to start exploring what an interconnected universe is really all about.  Everything that we’ve done to the world ‘out there’, we’ve actually done to ourselves. 

And no matter what other distinctions you may be able to lay upon the collective Humanimal soul, we are all reflected by Mother, Father and Child, as the realities of our species, and we are all Born, we Live and have Sex, and Die, just like all the other species.  These are the things that every Humanimal either does or has the potential to do within them.  The realities of our existence that connect us no matter what other categories we can create.

I think any reasonable Humanimal would be hard pressed to find many examples of our societies working healthily.  Threats, bullying, standardised birthing and education, governments, corporations, dogmatic religion, wage slaving, hierarchies and punishment haven’t really worked have they.  To try and trace back and untangle the threads that we’ve woven as dominators of the planet is hard work and obtuse, and reinvigorates old arguments. 

Instead, we identify the areas of Birthing, Living, Travelling, Sex, Water, Food, Home and Death to be our sovereign Humanimal birthrights, and sacred occupations in which the search for betterment and understanding for all of us and the rest of our planet, is to be encouraged and supported in the striving of our species evolution. 

It’s time to create a Conscious way forward into a HEALTHy future for everything…….  To create the future we’re wishing for and step into it.

Humanimal Evolution And Liberation Through Harmony 

 HEALTH Manifesto

FIRST - We claim the right to embrace our Human experience and liberate our DNA connected, sovereign, and autonomous human natures, and to consciously evolve, as our ancestors have done for millions of years.  And we embrace our religion as the living of our lives.

SECOND - We’ve learnt and felt that the entire universe is a conscious ocean of connection, and the drop goes into the ocean, but the ocean also goes into the drop.  Every single Humanimal is born with a purpose and destiny, and the most sacred profession we can engage in is to truly know and be ourselves.

THIRD - We acknowledge that there are infinite ways to express divinity, spirituality, God, creativity, and faith, and paths that have formed around the Humanimal instincts of searching out Love, Respect, Peace and Freedom.  And we believe that when you reduce all the worlds religions and spiritualities down to their synthesis, they are all striving to be the best they can be, to do no harm, and to work towards love and compassion.  So we claim the right to express our personal beliefs, spiritualities, truths, and philosophies in our individual ways, and have them accepted and supported as equally valid as any other. From journeying with organised religion to worshipping a guitar…….everything is relative and a matter of perspective, and valuable to the HEALTHy whole. 

FOURTH - We insist on taking personal responsibility for how we birth, live, learn, engage in consensual sex, travel, and die, and own these sacred traditions as an essential part of searching out our deep Humanimal natures and identities, engaging in all these traditions that are as old as our Humanimal bodies.  All of these areas have been shrouded in dogma, control, hierarchies, and rules for longer than we care to remember, and we believe it’s time for us to search through them with a fresh perspective.  To find ways of performing them that reflect our stage of conscious evolution. 

FIFTH - To all the sacred trinities that have been revered throughout our spiritual evolution, we add two more.  The first being –

That of Mother, Father, Child, as a representation of who we all come from, the cycle we can all experience, and the possibilities of who we can be.   While we have known the age of the Mother, and that of the Father, we believe that this is the age of the Child.  Because they are the ones who will remind us of who we have always been.

And…..

That of Birth, Sex and Death, as the inextricably linked trinity that is the reflection of all the great cycles within and without us, from whence we all come and to where we all go. 

SIXTH - We share solidarity with all the indigenous people of the earth,  the scientists and techno wizards, the philosophers and (R)evolutionary thinkers, and the eco-warriors and fringedwellers, who have all carved evolutionary thinking and hacked out free realities to express the Humanimal potentials in living respectfully and sustainably.  And we declare that compassionate searching into our indigenous and ancestral roots, alongside our search for how to create HEALTHy alternatives, are important elements of forming identity and community.  Learning our languages, songs, traditional dress, stories, heritage, ancient lores and histories.  At the same time as developing new ones, that explore ways of bringing spiritual and religious significance to everything we do. 

SEVENTH - Whilst living as perpetual children in a master slave society, we’ve actually oppressed our own children, and tried to force them to become like us.  They have often been the unspoken but understood possessions, slaves, powerless victims and lab rats of our cultural fads.  We believe that rather than teach them to be like us, we could instead learn from them, and let them remind us of the awe, curiosity, fascination, honesty, unconditional love and boundless enthusiasm with which we’re born into life, when born into love.  To see ourselves and magic in the simple and magnificent miracles of our personal worlds and universe.  And liberate the children within and without us.

EIGHTH - We claim our Humanimal birthright as being reflections of a chaotically harmonious universe, to honour the inherent consciousness of ecosystems and balance, and form our communities, self and community governance and regulation, collective endeavours, monetary systems,  trade and commerce, on the model of a wheel or circle. Where every person/idea/trade/spoke of the wheel is equally needed, appreciated, valid and essential to the whole.  And everybody feels empowered and appreciated in their role of collective self governance. 

NINTH - We encourage every single Humanimal to find the occupation, trade, or life path that makes them sing, and then to set sail on a never ending quest to find different and unique ways of doing…….everything.  We honour the long lineage of self taught Masters and Mistresses of their fields who created whole new vistas to explore from pursuing their passions.  And we celebrate the magnificence and brilliance of the human spirit, that has continued to create beauty, art, evolving thought, innovation, love, compassion and forgiveness, despite the cages and dark places that we’ve visited through oppressive and narrow paradigms. 

TENTH - We spread like a virus the love of learning, and encourage Humanimals to explore concepts like Pantheism, Animism, Humanism, The Gaia Theory, Chaos Theory, Anarchy, Gifting Economies, Community Supported Agriculture, The Farmers Market Movement, the Zapatistas, Evolution, Natural History, Ethnopaediatrics, Biomimicry, Alternative Technology, Birthing practices, Bonding, The Peace Movement, Indigenous spiritualities, a Wide and Broad World History, the Community Movement, Sexual histories, Attachment Parenting, historical dwellings, Nomadic cultures and the modern Protest movement, and all the different ways we’ve survived……  And take it all in, and sit with it, and then make up their own minds based on comparison and their personal life experience.  Disregard the bits that don’t work for them, and take the bits that do, and create their own webwork of understanding, and then help to continue the evolution of thought.  Whilst having a greater appreciation of all the diverse ways of understanding and enlightenment we can take.

ELEVENTH - We claim our religious birthright, to form families, tribes and communities, as we feel drawn.  To create homes that reflect our needs, survival, and unique natures.  To travel freely in safe vehicles with homes inside them, and to meet, share, trade, work, gift, do ceremony, perform, celebrate and hang out together.  To educate ourselves according to our desires and interests and with the support of mentors.  To birth in the way that we and our babies deserve, and to engage in activities that aid in our survival, enlightenment, and evolution.  To express our Humanimal love and lust with consensual partners, and explore our natures, smells, needs, rituals, preferred environments and foods.  To evolve our own death ceremonies and burials.  To experience connection with our planet, fellow earth dwellers, food, water, home, births, sexuality, rituals, learning and death.

TWELFTH - We acknowledge suffering, grief, pain, and the underworlds of humanity as well, as parts of the whole, and that these undergrounds give us great lessons, insights, empathy, compassion, balance, forgiveness, and motivation to evolve.  We believe that every humanimal has the potential for everything within them, as a reflection of the macro in the micro, but that in owning our shadows, and sewing them back onto ourselves like Wendy did with Peter Pan, we can reclaim them from the civilised world gone crazy with shadow power, and eat them back into ourselves. 

THIRTEENTH - We dedicate ourselves to exploring new ways to make our homes, towns, farms and cities, Humanimal, Ecosystem, and Earth friendly.  Sustainable and HEALTHy. To repairing the damage that our fathers and mothers have wrought.  To keep endeavouring to know ourselves, but to also keep exploring our physical environment, and in conjunction with soaring into space, also delve the depths of our oceans and inner planet.

FOURTEENTH - We propose the creation of Humanimal Wildlife Sanctuaries, where Humanimals can live free of constriction and contract and obligation, to explore their Humanimal natures and release themselves back into the wild should they so choose.  With the freedom to help heal and nurture the wild, and assist it to renew itself from the ravages of monocultural agriculture.  In these sanctuaries we will also explore our ancestry and genetic lineages, as a means towards discovering and creating identities that fit us collectively and individually.  They could also be places for natural learning centres along the lines of Uniterra, and birthing centres removed from the sick and dying, schedules and routines, and dying centres where age is celebrated, learned from, and helped with peaceful and dignified deaths.   Community banks, insurance funds, alternate monetary systems, libraries, health centres, and centres of trade could also be created.  And we can also work out better ways to deal with those that harm others, than to torture them and lock them away.  All managed by our wheels of council.  Dealing with these matters as empathetic fellow humanimals, instead of harsh and vengeful judges, and dealing with our matters communally and locally, rather than subjugate everybody to the guilty until proven innocent clause, implemented by strangers.

FIFTEENTH – We claim our birthright, and will strive to reinvigorate Humanimals most ancient form of community, the town market.    Where we can form local networks, food and seed banks, connections of care, share ideas, and grow our local communities, food, water sources, clothing, adornment, rituals, festivals, authentic relationships,learnings, tools and skills.

SIXTEENTH – We dedicate ourselves to a process of continual conscious evolution, and state that even our beginning searchings into the formation of our communities, shall always be viewed as historical documents and incidences, and will never become dogma or worship. We will retain an adapting, changing, evolving record and representation of our search into our selves and our planet.

We are the result of thousands of generations of love, and our ancestors wish to welcome us back into their arms.

The Roman Empire Never Died......

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears, for all roads really do lead to Rome, unless like me, you’ve neglected to realize that we’re ROMANS living in a very Roman society.  One of the greatest heists that has ever been, and it’s gone on right under our noses, and stolen all of our cultures and ancestries and religions and possible blossomings of diverse societies…….while we’ve been trained and educated about how the Roman Empire was the greatest that ever was, but only lasted 500 years, and then the Roman Catholic church was only incidentally the most powerful and old state religion on the planet that ruled and created western civilization.  And also incidentally, championed by the Roman dude in the bible, Paul, who never even met Jesus.

The Roman Catholic Empire church, that is only just now being revealed for what it really is despite the robes and censors and pretty latin words.  With attitudes spawned millennia ago by the likes of Calligula and Nero, an evil aristocracy has been hiding behind the monstrous machine of Western Civilization – just like the wizard of Oz, but nowhere near as nice.  Being first the conquerors of the known world, bringing ancient civilizations to their knees and robbing them of their treasures, and then sheathing their swords in the gloves of priests, and spreading their state religion like a cancer to the world, propogandising their victories and culture eating, as civilization and education.  Encouraging us all in our western nations to continue their legacy, bringing Roman civilization, genocide and destruction to every paradise we find……just like they destroyed ours long ago. 

At this point in time, every single Catholic diocese in Australia is under multiple investigations for paedophillia.  I assume that this is the same the world over.  Cancerous at the core, the most recent news I heard was that the man high up in the evil empire who was put in charge of investigating claims worldwide……..was done himself for paedophillia, after being sprung with over 4,000 pictures of boys being abused and tortured on his computer.   The recently retired Pope, was so complicit in his role as Evil Emperor Over Them All, that he has been promised permanent sanctuary in one of the oldest countries in the world – The Vatican.  Or as I like to think of it, Smaugs monstrous dragons hoard, where the cruel and hulking dragon of the Roman Catholic Empire has been dragging back it’s stolen treasures for nearly 2 and a half thousand years. 

Are you confused?  Just think for a minute.  Right now, we’re smack bang in the middle of western civilization, based on Greco/Roman principles of democracy and governance.  All of our sciences including astronomy, botany, medicine, maths, and geography, have Latin names and concepts, and were shaped by a murderously reigning Roman Catholic Empire in their infancy.  Our names for our days and months are Roman.   Our education system is still graffitied with latin, especially in the upper eschelons, yet it’s only one of thousands upon thousands of possible languages that could reflect the legacy of our white European lineages.   Our legal system still quotes Latin at itself, not to mention our western history only represents the story of the victorious – in this case the Roman Catholic Empire.  We have Greek and Roman mythology in our libraries, and latin is the root of many of our words without us even being aware of it.  For example.  The word vagina, was the latin word for the sheath in which a Roman soldier cloaked his sword.  I think I’m never going to use that word again.  Our calendar is Roman, we call the constellations Roman names, not to mention all of our Christian religions…….are all based around the King James version of the bible, which was the version agreed upon by the Roman Catholic Church.  Walk down the street and see the roman numerals on a clock.  Or see the date written in roman at the end of a movie or program. A tiny nation.  In the middle of Europe.   Is at the basis of our entire western civilization that has spread like a virus around the planet. And our history and our sciences and our theories have all sprung from the Roman fountain, as a history written by the conqueror.

A victorious conqueror that straddles the planet to this day, with its ancient tradition of genocide, destruction of family bonds and community, money and gold as god, growth at all costs, dividing and conquering, and keeping large amounts of people subjugated, obedient, and easy to manipulate.  First learning its tools of destruction and colonisation through military might, and then employing those tactics through its invasion of the world, using religion, wheat, sugar, tea, alcohol, education, disease, rape and desecration of communities, and destruction of family units.

Some say it was lead poisoning, and some just mention that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but the Roman Empire went from the first democracy, to turning their Emperors into gods, and then creating their own version of Christianity…….colonising our minds in order to maintain even more power and control.  And during the degeneration into ‘godhood’, they very quickly took on a depraved and lusting nature.  Spoiled with the goods and treasures from a thousand indigenous traditions, the very rich quickly set sail in pursuit of how evil human nature could become.  Filling their ampitheatres with people and exotic animals, they couldn’t work out if they were more turned on by sexual or physical violence.  Brutal and deadly gladiator battles or vast circles of men and animals buggering each other, it was all the same really wasn’t it?  Calligula and Nero were the height of brutal human evil, and their spawn still live today as the Roman Catholic priests, that have created a gloabal paedophiles ring, with too many boys as their victims. 

When the rest of the world started getting wise to the debased Roman Empire, it increased its power in a number of exponential ways, when the decision was made to combine religion with government.  In 325AD when Constantine created the Roman Catholic Church, and made the Emperor of Rome the head of it, a transition was begun from turning the flagging military might, to spiritual and political power and control.  And using religion as a tool to keep their addiction to the acquisition of land and power and treasures sated.  Along with the destruction of the strong family bond, through the instructions of desexed priests, forced and choosing to repress their sexuality into the abuse of young boys, fragile women, and the mentally differently abled, souring and spoiling family relationships for generations to come.

And here’s where my personal ancestry and the Roman Empire collide.  In 0BC the Romans did a survey of the tribes in Europe, and the Friesians are the only people living in the same place, and speaking the same language.  My ancestors have seen the Romans appear through numerous guises and armies, for thousands of years now, in an age old struggle to conquer lands to appease the gods of domestication and civilization, and then to keep the conquered people subjugated, and easily managed.  The Romans had limited success with my Viking ancestors in a militaristic way, but had far better results colonizing our lands with religion.  Even though one of Frieslands favourite kings, Radbod ( who Merlin is named for ), was known for his rather enthusiastic protection of his pagan land in the form of killing priests, and later on it fell to one of the last Friesian freedom fighters Balthazar (and you guessed it, I’ve got a son named after him too) to fight for that indomitably free Viking spirit………the Roman Catholics got us in the end, not with might, or religion, but with the almighty power of the dollar.

And at this point I think we should separate the Roman Catholic church from Christianity.  Because according to my research and that of Dan Brown and many other academics and brotherhoods around the world (and also the book written by his great a many times grand daughter), the original dude that Christianity sprung from, Jesus, had a very different life to that recounted in the bible.  In terms of marrying Mary Magdelene, and wanting her to be the continuance of his religion, and fathering two daughters who ended up in France.  And being a lot more in tune with all the other indigenous and earth traditions around the world.  The real early Christians traveled all over the world after being chased from their homelands by the Romans, finding empathy, connection, and common-unity with the other cultures they encountered, whereas the Roman Catholic Christians wielded their religion as a tool of suffocation, land acquisition, genocide and torture.  And they persecuted those early Christians both in their  early ampitheatres, and later on during the Great Inquisition, which was conducted for 400 years, (strangely coinciding with the Dark Ages), killing over 9 million pagans, herbalists, midwives, gypsys, nomads, early christians…..read anyone who wasn’t a staunch Roman Catholic, or clever enough to hide their real empathies.  Realisations and innovations had to be cleverly introduced to a heavily christianised world, in order to not be branded heresy.  They had a stranglehold on power, land, control, and information……at least until the introduction of the printing press anyway.  Which heralded in the age of enlightenment, which was actually the decreasing in focus of the Roman Catholic church, to be splintered into a thousand little mini viruses of differently named religions, that increased the power of their original host regardless.

Despite the splintering, the wealth, secrets, treasures and remnants of countless civilizations have remained to this day, housed deep beneath the Vatican, in vast catacombs and caverns.  The early spoils won by conquering Emperors rub shoulders with modern booties from world wars, civil wars, and all sorts of global intrigues that the Roman Empire has involved itself in, using a supposedly neutral and spiritual role, whilst snaffling all the treasures they can lay their hands on, to bury beneath the Vatican on the way.  Corporations, Governments, Bankers, World Trade Organisers, Slavers, Colonialists…..all of these have to recognize the Roman Catholic Empire as the Great Great Great Great Grandaddy of them all.  Set up on the principles of divide and conquer, beautifully executed by hierarchies.  Which by their very nature disempower and disconnect people from each other and themselves.  The antithesis of what Ghengis Khan told his sons on his deathbed, when trying to work out how to divide his massive empire between his many sons.  Handing round a bunch of sticks he invited them to break them.  They couldn’t.  Pulling out one stick, he asked them to break it, which they did easily.  He concluded for them, that together they were strong, but apart they were broken easily.

We’ve been, and let ourselves become, so separated and categorized, so  consumed with judgement on ourselves and each other, so splintered into our factions with tiny differences, that we’ve forgotten there’s a whole other world of peoples and cultures and societal models that have been explored in our collective history than the Roman ones.  And multitudinous ways of governing and self governing within communities to explore.  We’ve been conquered and domesticated and turned into the perfect slaves who don’t even know that we’re slaves.  We’re living and propogating the culture and history of the murderers of our ancestors.  We’ve been trying to fit our diverse and magnificent ways of being in the world into a very narrow Roman paradigm.  We believe that we have to be ‘made’ to do the right thing, and forced to learn.  We’ve bought our educations, that teach us that there is an empirical way to view the universe, and you have to go to school and learn at your appropriate age and level, in order to obtain the keys to the magical levels.  We’re the victims of a very whitecentric, Roman, hierarchical, victors perspective on the world and its victims.

Meanwhile, on the rest of the planet, while Rome has been perfecting the art of colonizing our landscapes and our minds……..India has always been, and will continue to always be, the heart and soul of our collective spirituality on the planet.  Even Rome couldn’t conquer India.  The English, who thought they’d colonized India, found that in the end, India had far more impact on them, than they had on India.  A rich and womblike melting pot for religion and spirituality from the beginning, India has taught us time and time again, how every spirituality can find its commonality and connection with every other……..if it has the courage.  During the ‘Dark Ages’ in Europe, India had a rough young king that decided that if he picked one religion it would result in war, so instead he created a university, and invited religious representatives from all over the world to come and find what they had in common.  And they’re still doing it to this day.  The Middle East was in the height of the blossoming of it’s civilization during the dark ages also, developing maths and astronomy, and numerous other philosophies and civilized pursuits.  The Mongolians scared the crap out of Europe, and used their wild natures and horses, to create the greatest nomadic empire that ever was.  All through the South Pacific, Polynesians were forming all sorts of civilizations and self sustaining societies, having performed incredible feats of sailing that have only recently been proven.  In Australia, there were over 600 sovereign indigenous nations and languages spoken, there was sea trade, and permanent settlements where climate allowed, advanced cultural and societal bonds, a rich spirituality that is current to this day, an intricate structure of trade and marriage and ceremony, and alternative forms of land management all over the country.  They also built the oldest known manmade structures, the fish traps of Brewarrina, 50,000 years ago.  North and South America was covered in a rich and diverse civilization with cities, and trade, and civilization based on cohesion and harmony with nature.  Even more cultures and languages and lifestyles were explored, with often a circle of council employed to self govern, recognizing absolutely everyone and everything as equally important to the wheel of creation.  China had an intricate civilization exploring medicine, astronomy and time, on a whole other level to the Romans and Greeks, that is only just beginning to be fully understood, as did the Mayans.  All throughout the world are pockets of tribes, cultures, societies, and civilizations, based around different ideals and navigations than the Romancentric view that we’ve all been born into. 

But to fully explain the heinous crime that I believe the Roman Catholic Empire has imprinted on our collective soul, I really need to go back a bit, and relate to you a brief history of the world, from my perspective.  A lot of modern science has been so henpecked by a querulous and jealous religious aristocracy, that it hasn’t been able to fully discuss and explore the issues of….for instance….evolution.  In a heavily Romanicised and thereby Catholicised society, just to discover evolutionary patterns, can be considered heresy, and an aggressive stance against god. 

So lets just start with life.  In the beginning was the Big Bang, or thought, or god, or a schism in the singularity, or maybe even a black hole de-engulfing itself of all the life it swallowed.  Whatever it was, it sent life exploding from that singulariy into all directions.  It richocheted and bounced into itself and created suns and orbits.  And around our sun, all the bits bumped to the point that earth could exist, at just the perfect distance from the sun for life to begin.  Life emerged from the warm soup of our seas, and then found a whole heap of different ways of being out of water.  Most of which have been dinosaur like for the majority of earths lifespan so far.  Some creatures, like the dolphins and whales, had come out of the water and become pig like creatures that lived on the shores, and decided that back in the sea was actually where they wanted to be, and went back.  And still have the remnants of their skeletons and arms and legs and digits that they grew like us, before they returned.  Some of those pig like creatures became elephants and other mammals, and other little mousy creatures became our early ancestors.  Our little strain of humanity branched off from the chimpanzees, but most recently the Benobo monkeys, a matriarchal society that solves all their problems with sex.  Some time after the split from the Benobo’s, we decided to try and walk, and as we continued this trend, we also started thinking more, and increasing the sizes of our brains.  These two events combined to make our heads grow, while our pubic bones couldn’t get any bigger, or we’d fall over.  So we adapted and evolved by birthing our babies about 9 months before they would have been born before these changes.  And then we had to adapt to bond, and create rewards for bonding, so that we’d hold our babies close enough that they’d survive. 

Early in our collective infancy, we can trace our ancestry back to 7 women, to whom we’re all related.  Even though many cultures (like the Chinese) like to believe that they’re a separate arm of evolutionary progression, modern DNA lore has led us to the feet of these seven women, who were the mothers of the migration throughout our worlds continents, as Pan Gaia continued its split from it’s original unified land mass.  With an unsteady climate, and ice ages coming on in the seeming blink of an eye and eating land with ice, our early populations were all nomadic, travelling with migrations and the cycle of the seasons.  Oral traditions and hand held icons were all that could fit in the travelling kit of a nomad.  Flowing on a route through powerful ley lines and sacred stones set to tell the time and the seasons, as well as weather and food sources.  And then in the Middle East, a group of our ancestors discovered the early form of wheat, and how it could be used to eat, and from there, how it could be propogated.  And something that has puzzled me for a long time occurred.  They decided to settle.  To stay in one spot.  Despite the migratory paths of their fellow humans, and a rather extended period of hardship, starvation, and privation, some of them endured nonetheless, to claim the title of settler. 

And the trend took off.  And wheat became connected with agriculture and domestication, and took an equally migratory path around the planet. Just recently, a mad genius friend of mine, who’s given this issue similar deep thought, suggested that perhaps our ancestors settled, so that they could understand the stars.  When you think of our early mothers and fathers, spending their days employed in the human animal arts, and by nights sitting round fires…….the great and sparkling innumerable lights in the sky must have provided endless fascination, as they still do.  And how they moved, both during the night, and through the seasons.  Maybe the desire to understand the movements of the heavens was enough of a motivation for a mob of them to decide to stay put.  Maybe near the early form of wheat, was also an early form of a stone calendar or clock as well. 

But whatever the reason to settle, once that objective had been achieved, one of the first lessons learned, was how changing the soil and disrupting the layers of humus and bacteria, changed a fertile patch from lush to denuded and infertile, in a matter of years.  In Platos time, when there was still enough room for the settlers and the nomads to coexist, he mentioned the spread of erosion and infertility in the wake of the agriculturalists.  It’s no coincidence that all the early human settlements are now in the middle of deserts…..  After settling, the next problem to solve was how to keep acquiring land, in order to keep supplying the food for the people who decided to hang up their nomadic skins, and take to the agricultural life.  Often this land happened to be in the migratory transits of the still majority of nomadic cultures, and before they knew it, the early agriculturalists started to have to think about creating some kind of strong arm force, in order to keep growing their lands and ability to produce food in a settled way.  And yet another art of the settler started to become known.  That of keeping records.  When you lived in a town that grew to a city and had the room to store things, all sorts of things started being created, in order to keep our storage rooms full.  Like any good animals, when we had the space to collect for the winter, we found we were more industrious than expected.  And a lot of our early records were the story of this monumental time in our history, the transition from nomadic to settled. 

Early scrolls told of the change of culture from nomadic to settling dynasties.  Many of those scrolls made it to the Old Testament, talking of the black tents of the desert nomads, and I’ve heard it argued that the story of Cain and Abel was the tussle between the nomad and the settler.  Cain had the fruit of the nomad – a goat, whilst Abel had the fruit of the settler – fruit and vegetables, and the new agricultural god made short thrift of the nomad. 

Having the room to acquire meant that we could start collecting all sorts of things, one of which was the slaves that we took from the lands that we conquered, that helped to grease the wheels of the growth of civilization.  And ultimately has resulted in where we find ourselves today, as the western overlords of a sick and injured world, where all the things that we own that have ended up owning us……..would be totally obselete in a nomadic world.  And we’re all slaves, to the work and the dollar offered up as a reward to settling down.  Can you tell me how many shops and business would exist, if we could only own what we could carry in our nomadic kit?  No room for whitegoods on the back of a camel along with the yurt. 

Probably most of the conquered lands and peoples were bonded family groups and tribal nations, springing from a reflection of the nature they witnessed themselves as part of, and a semi nomadic lifestyle.  Around Europe, The Middle East, and North Africa, where the Romans spent their main efforts in land acquisition, they were encountering our white indigenous ancestors.  As strongly bonded and connected spiritual people, and a reflection of the chaotic harmony and consciousness present in the whole cosmos .  And on meeting the Roman Empire in the form of it’s deadly army, they were among the first to learn to respect the might of organized separation.  Its ordered genocide in the hands of mercenaries and slaves, held together by the power of the dollar.  All in the interest of growth at all costs.

When I first started piecing this alternative history together, I felt the rage of my ancestors singing deep in my blood, reminding me of all the different faces that the Romans wore in their dedicated attack on the nomad, and the conscious connection to land and family. Turning life blood and land into acquisitions and hollow wealth. Howling like a banshee for the blood of  millions of innocents to this day, spilled on a weeping world.  The cream and perfection, the full blooded and fertile mothers and fathers, and brave strong youth, would have been the ones that went into battle.  Leaving the very old and infirm and young behind them.  To mourn and grieve the promise of their future that was lost. 

And now I’m just angry.  I feel like we’ve all been ripped off.  In continued thought and conversation on this topic, it occurs to me that Australia, Canada and America were really the culmination and birth of the Western Roman Civilisation.  All these countries are constructs, that reflect our Roman calendar.  The Romans decided that the world started in 0 Before Christ, and our white colonies start on specific dates.  Colonies of Europeans that violently carved their nation on the backs of genocide, slavery, and prison states, we made the names up for them, as well as the identities of the people.  All the other civilizations have lands and histories of their own, yet the largest groups of westerners live in countries that are Christian constructs.  Australia isn’t named Australia by the people that lived here for  50,000 years or more……and I’m ashamed to say that I don’t even know if there is a name agreed on by the indigenous folk of this land I’m standing on.  But I do know that Captain Cook called it terra nullis – another latin term – for empty land.  Just like America wasn’t the name given by the folk of that land, or  Canada.   It’s almost like we’ve twice removed ourselves from our original cultures.  Firstly, by leaving our original homes and living in a Roman society, and not having them represented or speaking our languages, or knowing our ancestry or stories, but secondly by moving to a country whose name we’ve made up to reflect our modern stories. 

So now I’m a Friesian, living in Australia ( which is actually not it’s real name), and being educated, trained, and shaped by a Roman Catholic Western culture.  How can us white fellas in lands with made up names, that have been viciously wrestled from their original inhabitants, ever feel complete pride and love for our history?  Or connection to our land and culture?  Honour in our family history??

Now that we’ve let television into our lives again, on the promise that there’s about to be an explosion of more everyday and real people covering news, humanity, global culture, the environment, and green technology, I’ve discovered National Indigenous Television.  And I’ve been crying a lot.  So beautiful to see and hear and witness so many stories.  And I’ve been so inspired by seeing how the indigenous folk all over the world are coming together to help, inspire, network, support, educate, and love.   And late one night, when I’d fallen asleep putting the babies to bed, and then woke up to a sleeping house and couldn’t get back to sleep again, I sat up watching NIT.   And there was this beautiful documentary about Native Spirit ( I think) Productions, who specialize in creating movies and short films in language.  And they were all talking about how important it is for a sense of identity and belonging, to hear and speak your language, and see your culture represented. 

And I don’t know about you, but I’m off on a quest to discover my identity.  To learn my language.  And my cultural stories.  And De-Romanise my life in every way possible.  There was this thing I saw on facebook a while ago that really grabbed me.  And it was something about how the ancestors want us to remember them, and that we’re the result of a thousand generations of their love………..and I’m gonna find me some of that love. 

As for the Roman Catholic Western Civilisation……..I think some apologies are in order for a start.  And I think maybe opening up those catacombs under the Vatican, and returning all our treasures and secrets and lost scrolls, along with a humble apology, and giving up of all stolen treasures and gold as at least part reparation, would be a good start.   Maybe some confessions of their dastardly deeds in the past, and some recognition of the real origins of Christianity.  Maybe they could take a leaf out of that Indian Princes book, and create a space where all religions can come together and work out a wholistic way forward between them all.  And use that obvious great power and persuasion they have for GOOD in the world!  The confessions of an ex- conqueror.  Or something like that.  And maybe some of those stolen goods could be used to fund great cultural centres all round the world, especially in the places where they’ve done the most damage, to rekindle some of the love of those thousands of generations of ancestors with whom we’ve lost touch. 

And maybe we can all now get back to the business of finding where we belong on the planet, and finding our communities, and speaking our languages, and telling our stories, and exploring our pasts and the spectacular array of our possibilities for how to do it all…….better.