My ancestors include tribal people who inhabited the ancient
forests of Norway, Wales, and Germany. Bits
and pieces of their myths and folkways have managed to survive the passage of
centuries. These people lived close to
wild nature, and venerated oak trees, salmon, wolves, ravens, mistletoe,
thunder, rainbows, and so on.
Their cultural heroes were a pantheon of human gods and
goddesses who possessed metal weapons, chariots, and domesticated horses. Clearly, these stories were not from the era
of hunter-gatherers. Their deities were
not all knowing and omnipotent; they could be deceived, or make foolish mistakes. They were mortals who would someday die.
Like many triumphant sagas, these heroes eventually became
victims of their own success. Prophecies
had long predicted the twilight of the gods.
Their fatal mistake was fettering the four forces of nature — Surt the
giant (volcanoes and earthquakes), the Midgard Serpent (turbulent seas), the
Fenris wolf (powerful animal wildness), and Loki the trickster (fire and air).
With nature fettered, the world tumbled out of balance. Wolves swallowed the sun and moon. Fimbulwinter brought nonstop snow for three
seasons, followed by three seasons of nasty weather. Earthquakes pulverized mountains, and the
world was covered with a thick layer of ice.
Society plunged into helter-skelter.
One day, the four forces of nature broke free, and obliterated the gods
at the battle of Ragnarök.
Surt the giant spread fire over the whole world, leaving
behind nothing but naked soil. Flames
purified the land. Then the rivers and
seas rose up, and all dry land was submerged by a huge flood. In Norse
Mythology, Peter Andreas Munch described the dawn of world renewal
with a beautiful line: “Out of the sea there rises a new earth, green and fair,
whose fields bear their increase without the sowing of seed.”
Later, a new deity arrived, when the black robes from
civilization forcibly penetrated northern Europe. They had just one god. He created the world and all living things. Humans were his masterpiece, made in his
image. Our original home was a
wilderness paradise, the Garden of Eden.
At this point, we had everything we needed — food, water, clean air, a
magnificent ecosystem, and a hot date.
Like any other healthy wild animal, Adam and Eve were naked
and not ashamed. The lad and lass were
permitted to eat the fruit of any tree, except one — the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. Like many other animals,
they really liked apples. The creator
was a peculiar stranger. Imagine telling
a wolf not to eat the bunny of good and evil.
What does “good” and “evil” mean to naked wild animals?
A serpent, another mysterious stranger, highly recommended the
forbidden fruit, “…your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil.” They indulged. Suddenly, they were extremely embarrassed
about their beautiful animal bodies. The
creator gave them some leather clothes, and threw them out of paradise, “to
till the ground from whence he was taken.”
The punishment for disobeying the creator’s instructions was to be condemned
to the drudgery of farming.
The troublesome humans had many children, grandchildren,
etc. The growing mob really got on the
creator’s nerves. Man was unbelievably
wicked, and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually.” Humans were a terrible
mistake, and the creator regretted creating us.
“I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both
man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air.”
The creator told Noah to build an ark and load it with wild
critters. Then it rained for forty days
and forty nights, and the mountains were covered. The flood lasted 150 days. Everything not on the ark died. The creator was happy again. Yet the surviving humans were still flawed critters. He realized this, but took pity on his
imperfect boo-boos. “I will not again
curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is
evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as
I have done.” He told Noah’s family to
“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” You and I are their flawed descendants.
There are many versions of this story, and Genesis was
included in the Bible. Another version is The First Book of Adam and Eve. In it, the two humans were motivated to eat
the forbidden fruit by a “desire for divinity, greatness, and an exalted
state.” The creator told Adam that
before he impulsively ate the apple, “thou hadst a bright nature within thee,
and for that reason couldst thou see things afar off.”
The Hebrew flood story is similar to the story of the nearby
Sumerians. The Sumerian version says
that the gods were drunk when they created humans. This is why every human has at least one
serious defect. Eventually, the gods
could no longer tolerate humankind, because we made too much noise. The gods couldn’t sleep. At this point, Ziusudra (a mortal human) was
instructed to build a large barge, gather up specimens of the various animal
species, and spare them from the coming floods.
There literally were great floods in the ancient Fertile
Crescent. Archeologists have discovered
a heavy layer of silt in the region, which dates to around 2900 B.C. Because the civilizations converted vast
ancient forests into fields, flooding must have been frequent, and sometimes
catastrophic.
Anyway, the Teutonic, Hebrew, and Sumerian stories describe,
in various ways, the notion that humans are flawed. Certainly, in these three cultures, humans
did not live in harmony with the family of life, and their stories throbbed
with weird vibes. In all three stories,
the prime troublemakers (and countless innocent critters) were drowned, setting
the stage for world renewal, a beautiful healing.
Portions of the Jesus saga offer a more wholesome message. One day, he dropped out and headed for the
hills. After being baptized by a wild
holy man, Jesus was filled with spirit power.
He went to the wilderness, and spent 40 days in the perfection of
creation. This experience flooded his
heart with profound knowledge. He
realized that the civilization around him was insane, and he decided to
illuminate his neighbors. Give away your
wealth and live a life of unconditional love. Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.
The Jesus movement fragmented into many variants as it
spread. In the Roman variant, the
patriarchs worked aggressively to eliminate all competitors. They selected an official collection of
sacred texts, which was a small subset of the writings generated by the Jesus
movement. The banished texts included a
number of gospels — the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the
Egyptians, Gospel of James, Gospel of Mattheus, Gospel of Truth, and Gospel of
Mary.
In 1945, a farmer found an ancient jar near Nag Hammadi in
Egypt. Among the papyrus pages in this
jar was the Gospel of
Thomas, a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus. Here is saying 113: His disciples said to him, “When will the
kingdom come?” Jesus said, “It will not
come by waiting for it. It will not be a
matter of saying ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is.’
Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men
do not see it.”
Look! Paradise is
where your feet are standing. This
sounds remarkably similar to the mindset of the Pygmies, Anishinabe, Inuit, and
other wild folks. Wild cultures don’t
tell stories reeking of human supremacy.
The creator might be a frog.
Humans are among the youngest critters in the family of life, mischievous
two-year olds playing with plutonium. We
have so much to learn from our older relatives.
It’s interesting to contemplate what a wholesome creation
story would sound like. Imagine a story
where we skipped the toxic apple, remained in the garden, and lived in balance
with the family of life, like the deer and ravens. When we inform our offspring that they were
flawed before they were born, the result is the world outside your window — a
bloody lunatic asylum.
And so, today, we’re zooming down the Ragnarök Expressway,
and Big Mama Nature will once again hurl the crazy mob into oblivion, big
brains and all. When the storms pass, fires
burn out, and floodwaters recede, the dawn of world renewal will rise once
again, “a new earth, green and fair.”
