Diversity and the One -- and Song

My friend Anton has reminded me that it would be well to take another step in my comments (in my last post) on the importance of cultural diversity. The beauty of multiplicity in life and spirituality is that all can be seen as expression, the activity of That One which knows no diversity and indeed, cannot be described. This "Mysterium Tremendum" might be said to be the Essence, the Light to the variegated patterns of peoples, cultures, religious beliefs, and the arts which decorate our evanescent world.

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In his book The Wayfinders (Toronto: Anansi Press, 2009) , Wade Davis describes the Aboriginal people of Australia. These people, with their nonlinear way of thinking, live a very sophisticated cosmology. At the heart of the Aboriginal world are the primordial ancestors. To quote Davis (p. 148): "The Aborigines accepted life as it was, a cosmological whole, the unchanging creation of the first dawn, when earth and sky separated and the original Ancestor, the Rainbow Serpent, brought into being all the primordial ancestors who through their thoughts, dreams and journeys sang the world into existence."

A favorite picture that I keep in my bedroom shows a perfectly shaped maple tree, bare-branched, silhouetted against a vibrant orange sky. Under the image is printed this version of Psalm 50:1 (I don't know which translation this is from): "God the Lord speaks, and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting."

Canadian philosopher-metaphysician Kenneth G. Mills, when asked why singing has such magic to it, replied ". . . It says that the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and it could not have helped but be a sound or a song, because in essence it was vibration." (from Question and Answer Encounters with Kenneth G. Mills, Toronto: The Kenneth G. Mills Foundation, 2008; p. 38).

Across multiple cultures, what an exquisite mystery!

Demise of Our "Elder Brothers"?

While in Arizona last month, I heard a talk given by a Navajo artist, a creator of kachina sculptures. The kachina are spirits in the Navajo belief system, and it has been traditional for Navajo carvers to create kachina dolls to educate the children about their culture. This artist said something which to me was very sad: the young people leave home to go to school and then to find work (there is little on the reservation) away from their culture, and the tradition of kachina dolls is dying.

Ethnobotanist Wade Davis, in his book The Wayfinders (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2009), describes a number of different cultures that he has encountered in his work. Several points he makes in his book are especially vivid to me.

Most of the cultures he describes live directly off the land -- as hunter-gatherers or farmers -- and do not see themselves as separate from the natural world. They experience all that surrounds them as sacred. In their eyes, the violation of the earth, whether by deforestation, strip mining, mountaintop removal or the like, is a puzzling and terrible act of sacrilege.

Davis describes a tribe of natives living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in South America who consider the land where they live as "the heart of the world." As such, these people call themselves the "Elder Brothers," the caretakers of the whole world. The outsiders who desecrate the earth and threaten its very existence by their ignorant and careless actions are considered as the "Younger Brothers."

The other point I wanted to highlight here is that of the dying of whole cultures. Davis notes that half of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today are not being taught to indigenous children. As the elders die, so do the languages, and within one or two generations, the social, intellectual and spiritual heritage once passed along through those languages, the culture, is gone forever.

Davis tells the horrific story of how the colonialists and missionaries considered the indigenous peoples they encountered as savage, backward, not quite human. These views persisted even into the 20th Century. And the indigenous peoples began to die off, devastated by new diseases as well as by the loss of their lands and way of life.

In this small space it's impossible for me to describe some of the truly lovely spirituality typical of these ancient peoples. Suffice it to say that their cultures represent different skill sets, artistry, and cosmology; different world views; wholly different paradigms than the"modern" way of viewing things. The industrialized mode of seeing and doing is so commonplace to many people today that they don't realize it isn't the only way of understanding the universe.

It seems to me to be incredibly arrogant that one culture would attempt to force itself on hundreds, thousands of other cultures, as though there is only one "right" way. This is not to idealize all indigenous cultures, nor to deny that these peoples must change to some extent to meet the changes in the contemporary world (such as global warming!).

Yet it certainly seems a good idea to realize: we are distressed by the genocide that still occurs in some parts of the world, but what about what Davis refers to as "ethnocide"? When a unique world view is lost, what is the cost to all of us?

Hatred No Match For Love

H.H. the Dalai Lama has said: "War and violence would become extinct in one generation if, beginning at the age of five, children were taught to meditate on compassion for an hour a week for the rest of their lives." (as paraphrased by Dr. Wayne Dyer)

This world picture certainly could use some help. This week, we hear of a new terrorism story from New York City and increasing racial slurs sufacing as a primary election approaches in one of the southern states. These are just two small examples from the U.S., let alone the racial and religious hatreds and unspeakable poverty appearing in other areas of the world.

What can one individual do in the face of such boggling attitudes and circumstances?

Emphasize compassion in your every thought, word and action, and encourage others to do the same. Expect to see compassion increase.

Pray, in whatever fashion you know, for all who appear to suffer and for all who appear to inflict suffering.

Acknowledge what you know to be true: that the Source, the Essence of all -- vast, unchanging, ever irradiant -- knows nothing of hatred and human frailty. For the shadowy world picture is like a movie, and as such, is as evanescent as a small cloud before the blazing sun. The Light is the Light of Love, and it can never be overwhelmed.

Rejoice in Love's glory!