More Than We Think
My mother's parents were born and raised in Lithuania. The story I recall is that they were sent to the U.S. by their own families to achieve a better life. They were sent to relatives that had already come here... parent-less, these people carved out their niche in America, knowing the possibility of ever seeing the families left behind were remote. At the time they came through Ellis Island, they did not know each other, but later met in the same community of immigrant Lithuanians in Connecticut. They soon married and had five girls. My grandparents never learned English despite the fact that my grandfather worked in factories in the Waterbury area. I'm sure he was not alone in having to have his tasks interpreted by a fellow Lithuanian who was bilingual. But these two people raised their own five kids knowing that they had to learn English and paid to send them to private schools.. Catholic schools.
My father was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I know very little of his background but once heard through his older and only sister that their father was the fourth cousin of the Confederate General, Robert E. Lee. The Lee-half of my lineage had been well-entrenched in this country for possibly a couple of hundred years or so... the first immigrating from England.
I bring this up since all the rage in our country today is over the immigration problem and what to do about it. Back at the turn of the last century, early 1900's, this country was eager for a work force and immigrants sailed into the U.S. from all parts of the world with the American Dream spinning wildly in their heads. Where all these early immigrants came from was a good place to leave... times were a struggle in their birthplace with no dreams to sustain them.
We've heard it repeated endlessly the past month - 'This is a Nation of immigrants!" Who can argue with that? Certainly our Native American population can curl their brows when they hear that. So too, can the Mexican population... our Southwest and California was indeed their land historically not to long ago. Even when we refer to these people as 'immigrants', I doubt the pure-blood Mexican buys into that other than accepting it as a key to being here... the key is not taken with a great deal of sincerity, it's only a token.
American history is written that the indigenous peoples of the Americas initially came here through the then passable Bering Straights... the now semi-link between Russia and Alaska. This theory, I've read, originally came from the times of European immigrants that came to these shores... and the theory has become much more fact than theory. Our Native American peoples says it quite differently in referring to themselves, with tribal differences, but basically as 'always being here'. No oral traditions have ever included coming from up north across the sea, and they did not have any written language speaking of their history. Too bad for them! It was up to our European ability to write the history of these same people that have inhabited this land for thousands of years. Possibly this would exclude them from being immigrants.
The original peoples of Mexico, the Aztec culture, have been in the area well-before the Europeans came over to plunder and pillage... arguably the original immigrants. Certainly to this culture and the more northern Native Americans.
How long should a people, a culture live upon their land before it is 'theirs'? One hundred years..? Two hundred? Maybe 500 hundred? Two thousand years? I don't know of any hard and fast rule for this. But I do know, given what our science has so far learned, is that our original humanity began in Africa. From there humanity spread out over thousands of years across the globe. Did we not 'immigrate' into those virgin lands years ago? Did we not, according to the latest theories, knock off the Neanderthal that shared certain areas with us 'homo sapiens', the thinking man.
Even though we homo sapiens might be accused of thinking too much, we are also one hell of a horny hominid. We procreate with great abundance and have been doing justs that for thousands of years. In so multiplying we have had to cover this earth to find food and space to become what we think/thought of as exclusively 'ours' to differentiate between those that don't think like us. Here in our private little worlds, we have become such a varied species identifying ourselves with what we think. We identify with our cultural upbringing, we identify with our belief systems, we identify with our tribal needs to survive in the only ways we know through the use of our minds.. our thinking.
Given our innate ability to think, why do we think we are better than some and less than others? Why do we think we 'should' do some things that destroy other thinking people? Why do we think we 'need' somethings more than other thinking people? Why can't our thinking do only 'good things' and not include bitching, hollering, destroying, killing, warring..? Our thinking is stinking. Our thinking has created such beauty and conversely has created an equal amount of ugliness... all at the mercy of other thinking people.
I doubt if there are many of us who would think peace is not a good thing... only a few warrior types that always see it necessary to be at war to correct something they think is not quite the way they think it should be, but thankfully they're few. But they are powerful. They got guns and missiles, they have the ability to kill and destroy things. They may be the few but these few are loud... loud in action, loud in bravado, this primal instinct within we homo sapiens has written our history - conquering this and that, taking over these and those... brutality commands attention.
But brutality requires a great deal of energy. Even the most brutal seeks respite from their thinking, if only to recharge their thinking. This primal negativity within us, even those that don't subscribe to a life of negativity, is mind's response to fear. We fear those powerful that command and demand. But ironically, it is this same fear that drives the warrior - they fear losing, they fear being seen as less than how they see themselves. Their fear subjugates our fear making more fearful the opposing sides.
Those that don't like war and fear still deal with it. We may fear losing our mate, losing our home, losing our ability to feed ourselves... but these are necessary for our survival, our individual survival. But is bombing a country, annihilating a culture really necessary? This seems to be based on too much thinking and thinking negatively where it dominates our logic and well-being. It is an unbalance healthy mind that does these things. How else and why else would someone instigate such extreme levels of violence? They are trying to rid themselves of their own fear by seeing their enemy as fearfully as they view their own self... the true enemy is within us and our thinking we are or should be more that what we are.
Not knowing who we are is homo sapien's biggest hurdle. As long as we live within two levels, that of body and mind, we limit our dimensionality to the three dimensions that we live in. Our third dimension, that of spirit or soul, keeps be whispered about through our religions, our philosophies, even our instinctual voice, but we generally put these things in the background and stick with our two dimensions of body and mind to sustain us.... it's done good enough for us to get us to where we are. We're complacent in doing so. We minimize our thinking and leave so much of it to others. But these others think as nominally as we do. What good comes from that?
We let politicians and preachers do our bidding... and it's all two dimensional. We allow ourselves to be led because we don't think much of ourselves. We don't think hard enough, but we certainly work hard at wearing out our bodies. Others overwork their minds and pay little attention to their bodies. But how many of us put any credence to our 'inner voices', to the words of those that speak of this third dimension that is as real as our bodies? As real as our thinking mind?
We are not only physically three-dimensional living in a three dimensional world. We have a three dimensionality of body/mind/soul that we doubt... our thinking mind cannot fully grasp this. We allow mind to continue on by giving mind domination over Self.
We may one day immigrate to this third dimension of our being. We may one day find our wholeness. We have traversed the globe in search of a 'something more' and extended this search to the moon, Mars and other planets in our Solar System, We've seen parts of the universe through our giant telescopes to search for our meaning, our possibility... this part of us that we instinctively know is 'here' but we know not, yet, where. Until that time arrives, we homo sapiens will remain the thinking hominid, not fully in touch with our Self, and we will continue immigrating into regions that are inhabited by others and confusion, misunderstanding and war will continue. Mind will never be able to take in all that is outside it... mind is not eternal. Find more than what you think 'is' - find your 'are' in the Now that puts mind at rest.
Cecil
07 Mayo 2006
roots
unlike this tree
our own roots
are mobile
in their search
of the
eternal nourishment
* * * * *
our own roots
are mobile
in their search
of the
eternal nourishment
* * * * *
