Laine's Blog, Thinking Out Loud

Our Better Angels...

 

It might seem incredulous

that there were peaceful, cooperative, undefended cities in so called prehistory.

But go back as recently as 1492, when Columbus sailed across the Atlantic

in search of a route to China and India.

Luckily for him and his crew,

there was land in between,

and after nearly 3 months of sailing,

they landed in what he named Hispaniola, in the Bahamas.

 

*"The Indians," Columbus reported,

"are so naive and so free with their possessions

that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it.

When you ask for something they have, they never say no.

To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone."

 

How he and his men responded to these handsome, well built people

who carried no weapons,

is shameful and obscene.

 

And thus began the conquest of the Americas,

spreading the European model of power and tyranny like a disease.

 

We are the descendants of these warring people

who believed in a winner take all mentality.

 

We are also the descendants of the peaceful, generous people,

who loved nature and life.

 

We can set our sights on making more and more powerful and accurate weapons.

 

Or we can set our sights on technologies that support life

and can turn back the clock on certain environmental collapse.

 

Love will get us there and respect -

for each other and for the world we live in.

 

Let's let our better angels have their day once again.

 

 

 

*From Howard Zinn's, A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1492 - PRESENT.

 

 

A Mistake...

 

When you have peaceful, cooperative cities

that are unfortified:

no walls or fortresses -

that have not developed weapons of death:

there was no need for those things,

as their neighbors were friendly -

and violent warring tribes from the surrounding arid lands

invade and destroy everything in their path,

installing their vengeful, jealous gods to displace the nurturing goddess -

things change.

 

And they change dramatically and violently and relatively quickly.

1,000 or 2,000 years to undo 30,000 years

of human development.

 

In her book, The Chalice and the Blade,

Eisler makes the case that patriarchy and its elevation

of war and fear and power over others

is an anomaly,

a blip on the evolutionary screen.

 

The Pale Blue Dot

View from Voyager, Earth as seen from deep space. NASA

 

It's a detour off the path of human development.

 

A mistake that needs correction.

That must be corrected.

 

 

 

Photo of the Earth from deep space. APOD "ThePaleBlueDot"

Astronomy Picture of the Day, February 14th 2020.

 

 

Everyone is King of the Hill...

 

"Our hopes for peaceful human coexistence are not,

as we are so often told, utopian dreams."

                                                                           Riane Eisler

 

Peaceful cooperation existed long, long ago and set the foundation for civilization.

 

Human HISTORY OURSTORY goes back 30,000 years.

In most early societies technologies were developed

that supported and enhanced

the quality of life.

Otherwise what might have become of us?

 

These were cooperative societies,

with both men and women working together for the common good.

30,000 years of improving life for all.

Over millennia, these early societies developed farming,

fishing, the domestication of animals,

weaving, and even town planning.

 

The arts flourished.

 

As a result of that cooperative living,

10,000 years ago - thriving, complex city states were abundant in the fertile Mediterranean Basin.

 

Yes, these were "gynocentric, or woman-centered societies,

with the deity represented in female form,

symbolizing the generative, nurturing and creative powers of nature."

These peoples, our ancestors, lived close to nature and the stars

and had great respect for all life.

 

Was it a matriarchy? Not in the sense of being opposite to patriarchy.

These were egalitarian cultures that bestowed equal value on all citizens.

 

 "A partnership society,

in which neither half of humanity is ranked over the other

and diversity is not equated with inferiority or superiority."

 

Everyone is King of the Hill!

(Queen, Princess, Prince and Spot!)

Of the Hill!

 

 

 

 

Quotes are from the amazing book, The Chalice and the Blade, Our History, Our Future, extensively researched and written by Riane Eisler in 1987.

 

 

Obscene...

 

The word obscene in Greek Tragedies meant that the action took place off scene,

behind the curtain, because it was too terrible to actually depict on stage.

 

I've gone back 100 years to shake up the past and improve our lives.

Going back farther one is confronted with obscene brutality.

 

Imperialism - the way of the world -

an arrogance and entitlement that justified horrible acts of murder,

slavery and abuse on all levels.

Anyone perceived as different, inferior, or threatening,

and women and children of all stripes were dispatched or used with impunity.

 

 

Four thousand years of that arrogance landed in the Americas.

Spanish, French and English fought fiercely for the rights of a land already occupied.

And finally, the newly minted Americans were the victors,

and ran over the continent and her people without conscience.

 

King of the Hill...

whoever gets to the top makes the rules and breaks the rules and changes the rules.

They tell the story, HISstory,

not OURstory.

 

We still live under this archaic model

of might makes right

and the person with the most gold is King.

 

But, it was not always this way.

There is an older way.

A Peaceful way.

Long, long ago...

 

 

More tomorrow...

Re-enactor, St. Augustine.

 

Revolution?

 

 

...It''s about my journey going from a liberal civil  rights lawyer

who was tinkering with the machine,

and believed that we could somehow get the to the Promised Land

if we just filed the next best lawsuit,

or met the the governor,

or organize the right number of people for the next protest,

to someone who now believes that much more revolutionary change is required,

and it's not simply a political revolution.

 

A moral and spiritual revolution is also required of us now.

 

                                                                                          *Michelle Alexander

 

This is what is required of us to begin to treat each person decently,

with respect and love

and by extension,

the earth and all aboard her.

 

 

 

 

*(Author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness",

talking about her new book.)

 

 

Photo of Tropical Day Flower and Dragonfly, ©2013 Laine Quinn

Taken at Longwood Gardens, in Delaware.

 

So, Imagine This...

 

So,

in my alternate universe...

There was no degradation of the earth.

Clean Air.

Clean Water.

No lies, no wars in the oil rich Middle East, no lives lost.

The U.S. military would be doing what it is charged with-

protecting Democracy,

not dismantling it worldwide.

Cancer would still be a rare disease,

not the Big Business that it is today.

 

Our Government by the people, and for the people would stand by the people,

and not the greedy aggressive corporations that have given us this dystopia.

 

Family Farms would have been protected,

and the Giant Agri-Business would never have been allowed.

Our food would be wholesome and delicious-

the soil rich in nutrients-

bees would thrive.

 

And the peacemakers never would have been assassinated,

and they would have led the way to peace and prosperity for all people.

 

"You might say I'm a dreamer,

but I'm not the only one."

                                                        John Lennon

 

 

©2020 Laine Quinn, Earth Flag, Home!

John Lennon Quote from the song "Imagine"

Nature's Heart...

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

There Is Hope...

 

There is an interview with the Four Women of "The Squad" on Democracy Now.

After reading the transcript of these four diverse women,

at a time when I was getting very disheartened about the state of the country and the world,

I found HOPE!

 

They are, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,

Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts,

Rashida Tlaib of Michigan

and

Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

These women are on the front lines and they are passionate and positive

and Hopeful!

 

 

So, whatever you do, don't lose Hope.

Hope will get us through.

Love and compassion

and passion for the things we love -

will get us through.

 

 

 

©2020 Laine Quinn, Wild Waves

The Hungry Caterpillar...

 

 

While burning a few things on the deck in the chiminnea,

I noticed these caterpillars munching away on the Butterfly Weed.

It was over a month ago. There were about 10 or 12 of them, and they decimated that plant.

 

 

Then yesterday,

while leaning over the rail to reach a hanging pot I spied this little one in the same area.

 

She is no bigger than the joint of my thumb.

Will she emerge from her cocoon?

We will have to wait and see.

I brought her indoors, as the temperature was dropping.

 

There is so much hidden in plain sight that we never even notice.

It was chance that led me to the caterpillars and the butterfly.

 

 

Look at the little bugs on the left.

I didn't even see them until I blew the photo up!

 

 

 

 

Garden Joy! February in Florida, annuals to plant!

©2020 Laine Quinn

 

 

 

Paradise Reclaimed...

 

What if, instead of multiple networks of highways,

America was crisscrossed with lines of light rail?

And there were lovely terminals scattered everywhere,

and people could travel safely and comfortably,

south to north and east to west and back again,

in climate controlled modern rail cars?

 

Imagine the lives that wouldn't have been lost over the last 50 years to highway fatalities.

 

Wakanda!

 

The fictional city in the Black Panther movie,

where women were empowered equally to men

and developed technologies of peace.

 

A City outside of the greedy capitalist unsustainable consumer economy

that we have spread through the globe like a virus threatening our very existence.

 

A fictional utopia?

Yes.

 

But we are living in a real dystopia,

one that with a few different choices would improve exponentially.

 

This Earth really is a Paradise that we need to reclaim.