Sunday Musings - July 28, 2024
I am fascinated with the attempt of we humans to invent theories of our worth by envisioning gods which elevate us to a position which is superior to all which exist. Even when the gods we create offer a playful relationship, humans have a special or elevated position.
In the United States many of the Europeans brought with them the Christian god who according to their sacred scriptures:
“And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” https://www.bible.com
Genesis 1:26-31 Share - Bible.com
The Jewish sacred text begins the same.
As the United States grew welcoming immigrants and bringing others as slaves or indentured servants many brought other religious beliefs.
The Native Americans as well as immigrants from indigenous tribes in various parts of the world often posited God or Gods who had a more synchronistic relationship with humans, Mother Nature and all which exists. The following poem illustrates that relationship.
Indigenous Americans: Spirituality and Ecos
AUTHOR Jack D. Forbes
An ancient Ashiwi (Zuñi) prayer-song states :
That our earth mother may wrap herself
In a four-fold robe of white meal [snow]; . . .
When our earth mother is replete with living waters,
When spring comes,
The source of our flesh,
All the different kinds of corn
We shall lay to rest in the ground with the earth mother’s
living waters,
They will be made into new beings,
Coming out standing into the daylight of their Sun father, to
all sides
They will stretch out their hands.
(Ruth Bunzel, “Introduction to Zuni Ceremonialism,” Forty-Seventh Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932), 483–486)
Some humans have posited either all is sacred, or nothing is sacred. Other have suggested that just as “one cannot step into the same river twice” (Heraclitus) the essence of al is more than the individual parts. When I ask the river the nature of its essence it replies that it is all its parts and more than its parts. It is not the water, bed, or banks since all of these are constantly changing, constantly in the state of becoming. Yet there is an essence we name the river.
We humans also have an essence which is more than our individual parts; more than our achievements; more than our physical bodies and more than our thoughts or emotions. Our actions are affected by and affects all which exists at any one moment, but they alone are not our essence. Just as with the river we are constantly in the process of becoming. We have an essence which is more than our individual parts and is not separate from all the rest of the universe. If we humans bit by bit destroys the earth, we cease to exist.
Many visions of healing/growing include the concept of connectedness. It is thought by many that death is both the state of disconnectedness and opening to reconnecting. Many healers would maintain that to heal - to reclaim one’s essence - one must die unto a reconnection with the universe. It is interesting that in some religions one must be baptized - symbolically cleansed with/rejoined with water.
Paradoxically our attempt to have dominion over all the earth is resulting in our physical, emotional and spiritual death as well as the death of the planet.
No one “knows” God. We humans are not God. Perhaps there is no God which gives humans dominion over all that is. There may be a God who/which exists as the whole; a God which invites each of us to embrace our essence; an essence which cannot have dominion over other people, the earth, the birds, the cattle, every creeping thing but coexist as part of the whole.
Written July 28, 2024
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
I am fascinated with the attempt of we humans to invent theories of our worth by envisioning gods which elevate us to a position which is superior to all which exist. Even when the gods we create offer a playful relationship, humans have a special or elevated position.
In the United States many of the Europeans brought with them the Christian god who according to their sacred scriptures:
“And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” https://www.bible.com
Genesis 1:26-31 Share - Bible.com
The Jewish sacred text begins the same.
As the United States grew welcoming immigrants and bringing others as slaves or indentured servants many brought other religious beliefs.
The Native Americans as well as immigrants from indigenous tribes in various parts of the world often posited God or Gods who had a more synchronistic relationship with humans, Mother Nature and all which exists. The following poem illustrates that relationship.
Indigenous Americans: Spirituality and Ecos
AUTHOR Jack D. Forbes
An ancient Ashiwi (Zuñi) prayer-song states :
That our earth mother may wrap herself
In a four-fold robe of white meal [snow]; . . .
When our earth mother is replete with living waters,
When spring comes,
The source of our flesh,
All the different kinds of corn
We shall lay to rest in the ground with the earth mother’s
living waters,
They will be made into new beings,
Coming out standing into the daylight of their Sun father, to
all sides
They will stretch out their hands.
(Ruth Bunzel, “Introduction to Zuni Ceremonialism,” Forty-Seventh Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932), 483–486)
Some humans have posited either all is sacred, or nothing is sacred. Other have suggested that just as “one cannot step into the same river twice” (Heraclitus) the essence of al is more than the individual parts. When I ask the river the nature of its essence it replies that it is all its parts and more than its parts. It is not the water, bed, or banks since all of these are constantly changing, constantly in the state of becoming. Yet there is an essence we name the river.
We humans also have an essence which is more than our individual parts; more than our achievements; more than our physical bodies and more than our thoughts or emotions. Our actions are affected by and affects all which exists at any one moment, but they alone are not our essence. Just as with the river we are constantly in the process of becoming. We have an essence which is more than our individual parts and is not separate from all the rest of the universe. If we humans bit by bit destroys the earth, we cease to exist.
Many visions of healing/growing include the concept of connectedness. It is thought by many that death is both the state of disconnectedness and opening to reconnecting. Many healers would maintain that to heal - to reclaim one’s essence - one must die unto a reconnection with the universe. It is interesting that in some religions one must be baptized - symbolically cleansed with/rejoined with water.
Paradoxically our attempt to have dominion over all the earth is resulting in our physical, emotional and spiritual death as well as the death of the planet.
No one “knows” God. We humans are not God. Perhaps there is no God which gives humans dominion over all that is. There may be a God who/which exists as the whole; a God which invites each of us to embrace our essence; an essence which cannot have dominion over other people, the earth, the birds, the cattle, every creeping thing but coexist as part of the whole.
Written July 28, 2024
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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