(These excerpts are copies of email messages from Ken Homer. Ken's comments are prefixed with "KH:". These messages are in most recent one first order. -WLA)
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Ken Homer kenhomer@sonic.net Date: Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 1:10 PM Subject: [OGM] More from Sand Talk
KH: Here are some more quotes from Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta. These seem particularly OGMy to me…
“Sustainable systems cannot be manufactured by individuals or appointed committees, particularly during times of intense transition of upheaval. For those seeking sustainability practices from Indigenous cultures, it is important to focus on both ancient and contemporary knowledge of demotic origin, rather than individual inventions or amendments. That Is not to say that all demotic innovations are benevolent. But if you listen to many voices and stories and discern a deep and complex pattern emerging, you can usually determine what is real and what has been airbrushed for questionable agendas or corrupted by flash mobs of narcissists.” “After three or four years of schooling, the nucleus basalis, which forms sharp memories in the brain, falls into disuse and decays. This is the part of the brain that makes learning so effortless for small children, and it is always activated in undomesticated humans. But neuroplasticity research has shown that damage to the nucleus basalis can be reversed by reintroducing activities involving highly focused attention, which results in a massive increase in production of acetylcholine and dopamine. Using new skills under the conditions of intense focus rewires billions of neural connections and reactivates the nucleus basalis. Loss of function in the part of the brain is not a natural stage of development––we are supposed to retain and even increase it throughout our lives. Until very recently in human history we did. Bearing this in mind, the reclaiming of Indigenous ritual and cultural activities as exercises in concentration, rather than just performances or sokf-skill craftwork, may be just what is needed to grow or repair the minds required to create complex solutions for sustainability issues.” “Inspirational connections to unseen inner and outer worlds are part of Aboriginal Knowledge transmission all over Australia. This connection is interwoven with every learning experience within the communities of First Peoples. It is ritual. It is the force that animates all Aboriginal Knowledge––a spirit of genius that shows the difference between yarning and conversation, Story and narrative, ritual and routine, civility and connectedness, information and knowledge. Most of all, it highlights the massive divide between engagement and compliance. Most of us today are living in a state of compliance with imposed roles and tasks rather than a heightened state of engagement, We are slaves to a work ethic that is unnatural and unnecessary.” “I am often told that I should be grateful for the progress that Western civilization has brought to these shores. I am not. The life of work-or-die is not an improvement on preinvasion living, which involved only a few hours of work a day for shelter and sustenance, performing tasks that people do not for leisure activities on their yearly vacations: fishing, collecting plants, hunting, camping and so forth. The rest of the day was for fun, strengthening relationships, ritual and ceremony, cultural expression, intellectual pursuits, and the expert crafting of exceptional objects. I know this because I have lived like this, even in this era when the land is only a pale shadow of the abundance that once was. We have been lied to about the “harsh survival” lifestyles of the past. There was nothing harsh about it. If it was so harsh––such a brutish, menial struggle for existence––than we would not have evolved to become the delicate, intelligent creatures that we are.” “It is possible that the resources to support technological growth will last for several years yet, certainly long enough for most jobs to become automated, potentially freeing up a lot of workers to pursue more satisfying and sustainable lives. The only problem is, what will they do for money when their jobs are gone? How will they eat? There will soon be a lot more irrelevant, disgruntled, hungry people in the world. This has never been a circumstance that has added to the longevity of a civilization. People don’t tend to remember these lessons from history, though. There seems to be a collective memory loss, even over the short term, in some of the adolescent cultures of the world. The amazing thing discovered by brain researchers is that humans never actually lose memories––we just lose access to them, but they somehow still guide our actions, We might lose conscious access to the traumatic memory of our hair catching fire yet still remain afraid of flames, for example. Part of us remembers. Each of us has indirect access to the memory of every moment of every experience of our lives. It must remain indirect or our brains would explode with the volume of data. It’s all there in unconscious zip files. You have to be connected to daily intuitive or extra-cognitive ways of thinking and being if you want to utilize this knowledge. Ancestor-mind is worth considering as a kind of Paleo thought-path to take you where you need to go and help you to tap into this unconscious knowledge system. If you think about the time when you have attained this altered state in your life, through a near-death experience or peak performance moment or meditation or just through doodling thoughtlessly on a page, you may recall that complex decisions and activities in the hours afterward were effortless and elegant. You were performing feats of rapid calculation that would crash a quantum computer, accessing a lifetime of memory all at once. You did this without conscious thought, because to attempt it consciously would fry your entire neural system like an egg, This incredible ability is a gift from your Paleolithic Ancestors, who had the time and liberty to live within this heightened state of mind every day. I have previously talked about civilized cultures losing collective memory and having to struggle for thousands of years to gain full maturity and knowledge again, unless they have assistance. But that assistance does not take the form of somebody passing on cultural content and ecological wisdom. The assistance I’m talking about come from sharing patters of knowledge and ways of thinking that will help trigger the ancestral knowledge hidden inside. The assistance people need is not learning about Aboriginal Knowledge but in remembering their own.” “In Aboriginal worldviews, relationships are paramount in knowledge transmission. There can be no exchange or dialogue until the protocols of establishing relationships have taken place. Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? What is your true purpose here? Where does the knowledge you carry come from, and who shared it with you? What are the applications and potential impacts of this knowledge on this place? What impacts has it had on other places? What other knowledge is it related to? Who are you to be saying these things? In our world nothing can be known or exists unless it is in relation to other things. Critically, those things that are connected are less important than the forces of connection between them. We exist to form relationships, which make up the energy that holds creation together. When knowledge is patterned within these forces of connection, it is sustainable over deep time.”
“Sustainable systems cannot be manufactured by individuals or appointed committees, particularly during times of intense transition of upheaval. For those seeking sustainability practices from Indigenous cultures, it is important to focus on both ancient and contemporary knowledge of demotic origin, rather than individual inventions or amendments. That Is not to say that all demotic innovations are benevolent. But if you listen to many voices and stories and discern a deep and complex pattern emerging, you can usually determine what is real and what has been airbrushed for questionable agendas or corrupted by flash mobs of narcissists.”
“After three or four years of schooling, the nucleus basalis, which forms sharp memories in the brain, falls into disuse and decays. This is the part of the brain that makes learning so effortless for small children, and it is always activated in undomesticated humans. But neuroplasticity research has shown that damage to the nucleus basalis can be reversed by reintroducing activities involving highly focused attention, which results in a massive increase in production of acetylcholine and dopamine. Using new skills under the conditions of intense focus rewires billions of neural connections and reactivates the nucleus basalis. Loss of function in the part of the brain is not a natural stage of development––we are supposed to retain and even increase it throughout our lives. Until very recently in human history we did.
Bearing this in mind, the reclaiming of Indigenous ritual and cultural activities as exercises in concentration, rather than just performances or sokf-skill craftwork, may be just what is needed to grow or repair the minds required to create complex solutions for sustainability issues.”
“Inspirational connections to unseen inner and outer worlds are part of Aboriginal Knowledge transmission all over Australia. This connection is interwoven with every learning experience within the communities of First Peoples. It is ritual. It is the force that animates all Aboriginal Knowledge––a spirit of genius that shows the difference between yarning and conversation, Story and narrative, ritual and routine, civility and connectedness, information and knowledge. Most of all, it highlights the massive divide between engagement and compliance. Most of us today are living in a state of compliance with imposed roles and tasks rather than a heightened state of engagement, We are slaves to a work ethic that is unnatural and unnecessary.”
“I am often told that I should be grateful for the progress that Western civilization has brought to these shores. I am not. The life of work-or-die is not an improvement on preinvasion living, which involved only a few hours of work a day for shelter and sustenance, performing tasks that people do not for leisure activities on their yearly vacations: fishing, collecting plants, hunting, camping and so forth. The rest of the day was for fun, strengthening relationships, ritual and ceremony, cultural expression, intellectual pursuits, and the expert crafting of exceptional objects. I know this because I have lived like this, even in this era when the land is only a pale shadow of the abundance that once was. We have been lied to about the “harsh survival” lifestyles of the past. There was nothing harsh about it. If it was so harsh––such a brutish, menial struggle for existence––than we would not have evolved to become the delicate, intelligent creatures that we are.”
“It is possible that the resources to support technological growth will last for several years yet, certainly long enough for most jobs to become automated, potentially freeing up a lot of workers to pursue more satisfying and sustainable lives. The only problem is, what will they do for money when their jobs are gone? How will they eat? There will soon be a lot more irrelevant, disgruntled, hungry people in the world. This has never been a circumstance that has added to the longevity of a civilization. People don’t tend to remember these lessons from history, though. There seems to be a collective memory loss, even over the short term, in some of the adolescent cultures of the world.
The amazing thing discovered by brain researchers is that humans never actually lose memories––we just lose access to them, but they somehow still guide our actions, We might lose conscious access to the traumatic memory of our hair catching fire yet still remain afraid of flames, for example. Part of us remembers.
Each of us has indirect access to the memory of every moment of every experience of our lives. It must remain indirect or our brains would explode with the volume of data. It’s all there in unconscious zip files. You have to be connected to daily intuitive or extra-cognitive ways of thinking and being if you want to utilize this knowledge. Ancestor-mind is worth considering as a kind of Paleo thought-path to take you where you need to go and help you to tap into this unconscious knowledge system. If you think about the time when you have attained this altered state in your life, through a near-death experience or peak performance moment or meditation or just through doodling thoughtlessly on a page, you may recall that complex decisions and activities in the hours afterward were effortless and elegant. You were performing feats of rapid calculation that would crash a quantum computer, accessing a lifetime of memory all at once.
You did this without conscious thought, because to attempt it consciously would fry your entire neural system like an egg, This incredible ability is a gift from your Paleolithic Ancestors, who had the time and liberty to live within this heightened state of mind every day.
I have previously talked about civilized cultures losing collective memory and having to struggle for thousands of years to gain full maturity and knowledge again, unless they have assistance. But that assistance does not take the form of somebody passing on cultural content and ecological wisdom. The assistance I’m talking about come from sharing patters of knowledge and ways of thinking that will help trigger the ancestral knowledge hidden inside. The assistance people need is not learning about Aboriginal Knowledge but in remembering their own.”
“In Aboriginal worldviews, relationships are paramount in knowledge transmission. There can be no exchange or dialogue until the protocols of establishing relationships have taken place. Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? What is your true purpose here? Where does the knowledge you carry come from, and who shared it with you? What are the applications and potential impacts of this knowledge on this place? What impacts has it had on other places? What other knowledge is it related to? Who are you to be saying these things?
In our world nothing can be known or exists unless it is in relation to other things. Critically, those things that are connected are less important than the forces of connection between them. We exist to form relationships, which make up the energy that holds creation together. When knowledge is patterned within these forces of connection, it is sustainable over deep time.”
From: Ken Homer kenhomer@sonic.net Date: Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 3:35 PM Subject: Re: [OGM] Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Will Accelerate Climate, Energy, and Deep Technologies — Part 1…
KH: In reading more of Sand Talk, it is clear that the Aboriginal view is that the land and the sky change over time and cities are unable to do that. So, from their perspective, just about everything we in the industrialized world do is unsustainable.
KH: Interestingly this ties to something that Jerry has long advocated for: a way to create a durable and accessible public memory. Specifically, one that records and retells stories of catastrophes - the Great Flood of 1862 for example that created a flood from the Columbia River in OR to San Diego to Utah and Arizona, but, not surprisingly, one where very few Indigenous encampments were flooded because they had all encamped on high ground.
KH: Here’s another snippet from Sand Talk:
“When it comes to global environmental catastrophe, the jury is done deliberating and the case is closed. It requires no more debate. The apocalypse is real. On the upsides, apocalypses have proven to be survivable in the past*, although on the downside it usually means your culture and society will never be the same again. Oldman Juma says all this has happened over and over again and will continue to happen as the Universe breathes in and out. You can live with it but you need to adapt and change every aspect of your society and culture when transitioning from one era to the next. All over Australia we have stories of past Armageddons, warning against the behaviors that make these difficult to survive and offering a blueprint for transitional ways of being, so that our custodial species can continue to keep creation in motion. Butterfly goes off on her own o opal Country to chase shine new brightness, only to become trapped in ice. Millennia later, the ice melts and her colors run down the into the opal, while saltwater people all around the continent keep stories of how to preserve the maps and memory of lands drowned after the big ice melt. The stories are passed down, and people partner with whales, dolphins, and others to continue caring for the land beneath the sea. This is important, as the oceans will fall again as they have before, and we want to return to that Country.”
“When it comes to global environmental catastrophe, the jury is done deliberating and the case is closed. It requires no more debate. The apocalypse is real. On the upsides, apocalypses have proven to be survivable in the past*, although on the downside it usually means your culture and society will never be the same again. Oldman Juma says all this has happened over and over again and will continue to happen as the Universe breathes in and out. You can live with it but you need to adapt and change every aspect of your society and culture when transitioning from one era to the next.
All over Australia we have stories of past Armageddons, warning against the behaviors that make these difficult to survive and offering a blueprint for transitional ways of being, so that our custodial species can continue to keep creation in motion. Butterfly goes off on her own o opal Country to chase shine new brightness, only to become trapped in ice. Millennia later, the ice melts and her colors run down the into the opal, while saltwater people all around the continent keep stories of how to preserve the maps and memory of lands drowned after the big ice melt. The stories are passed down, and people partner with whales, dolphins, and others to continue caring for the land beneath the sea. This is important, as the oceans will fall again as they have before, and we want to return to that Country.”
KH: *A factoid that sticks in my brain from some obscure tome I read decades ago: Anthropologists studying Australian Aboriginal culture have determined that they still tell stories of animals that went extinct over 40,000 years ago. Think about that! The First Peoples of Australia have a culture that stretches back at least 40,000 years. How far back does the memory of contemporary people with our fragmented tribal structures reach? We have written histories going back about 5,000 years and maybe a few stories that might be another millennia or two older than that. Yet anatomically modern homo sapiens have walked this world for some 300,000 years. As those who are going to gather to study The Dawn of Everything, will soon learn, there are forgotten element of our history that tremendously expand our views of what is possible when large groups of people find they need to coexist in close quarters.
From: Ken Homer kenhomer@sonic.net Date: Tue, Mar 29, 2022 at 11:11 AM Subject: [OGM] A few quotes from Sand Talk
KH: It’s striking how often people on the OGM list will point to the need for application Indigenous thinking/wisdom in order to recover some balance in a world horribly off kilter. I thought the following quotes might be worth bearing in mind next time that idea arises in this email stream…
“All Law-breaking comes from that first evil thought, that original sin or placing yourself above the land or above other people.” “Containing the excess of malignant narcissists is a team effort.” “The combination of social fragmentation and lighting fast communication today, however, means that we have to deal with these crazy people alone, as individuals butting heads with narcissists in a lawless void, and they are thriving unchecked in this environment. Engaging with them alone is futile – never wrestle a pig, as the old saying goes, you both end up covered in shit and the pig likes it. The fundamental roles of human interaction don’t apply to them, although they weaponize those rules against everyone else.” “The basic protocols of Aboriginal society, like most societies, include respecting and hearing all points in a yarn. Narcissists demand this right, then they refuse to allow other points of view on the grounds that it somehow infringes on their freedom of speech or is offensive. They destroy the basic social contract of reciprocity (which allows people to build a reputation of generosity based on sharing to ensure ongoing connectedness and support), shattering this framework of harmony with a few words of nasty gossip. They apply double standards and break down systems of give-and-take until every member of a social group becomes isolated, lost in a Darwinian struggle for power and dwindling resources that destroys everything. Then they move on to another place, another group. Feel free to extrapolate this pattern globally and historically.” “In our traditional systems of Law we remember, however, that everyone can be an idiot from time to time. Punishment is harsh and swift, but afterward there is no criminal record, no grudge against the transgressor. Perpetrators are only criminals until they are punished, and then that may be respected again and being afresh to make a positive contribution to the group. In this way, people will not lie and shift blame or avoid punishment by twisting rules to escape accountability. They can look forward to a clean slates and therefore be willing and equal participants in their own punishment and transformation, which is a learning process more than anything else.” “Perhaps the transferrable wisdom here is simply that most young men need something a little meatier than mindfulness workshops to curtail the terrifying narcissism that overtakes them the moment their balls drop. Maybe then they won’t grow up to be the men who start wars in the first place.” “Solutions to complex problems take many dissimilar minds and points of view to design, so we have to do that together, linking up with as many other us-twos as we can to form networks of dynamic interaction. I’m not offering expert answers, only different questions and ways of looking at things.” “For the purposes of the thought experiments in this book, an indigenous person is a member of a community retaining memories of a life lived sustainably on a land base, as part of that land base. Indigenous Knowledge is any application of those memories as living knowledge to improve present and future circumstances.” “Sustainable systems cannot be manufactured by individuals or appointed committees, particularly during times of intense transition of upheaval. For those seeking sustainability practices from Indigenous cultures, it is important to focus on both ancient and contemporary knowledge od demotic origin, rather than individual inventions or amendments. That Is not to say that all demotic innovations are benevolent. But if you listen to many voices and stories and discern a deep and complex pattern emerging, you can usually determine what is real and what has been airbrushed for questionable agendas or corrupted by flash mobs of narcissists.”
“All Law-breaking comes from that first evil thought, that original sin or placing yourself above the land or above other people.”
“Containing the excess of malignant narcissists is a team effort.”
“The combination of social fragmentation and lighting fast communication today, however, means that we have to deal with these crazy people alone, as individuals butting heads with narcissists in a lawless void, and they are thriving unchecked in this environment. Engaging with them alone is futile – never wrestle a pig, as the old saying goes, you both end up covered in shit and the pig likes it. The fundamental roles of human interaction don’t apply to them, although they weaponize those rules against everyone else.”
“The basic protocols of Aboriginal society, like most societies, include respecting and hearing all points in a yarn. Narcissists demand this right, then they refuse to allow other points of view on the grounds that it somehow infringes on their freedom of speech or is offensive. They destroy the basic social contract of reciprocity (which allows people to build a reputation of generosity based on sharing to ensure ongoing connectedness and support), shattering this framework of harmony with a few words of nasty gossip. They apply double standards and break down systems of give-and-take until every member of a social group becomes isolated, lost in a Darwinian struggle for power and dwindling resources that destroys everything. Then they move on to another place, another group. Feel free to extrapolate this pattern globally and historically.”
“In our traditional systems of Law we remember, however, that everyone can be an idiot from time to time. Punishment is harsh and swift, but afterward there is no criminal record, no grudge against the transgressor. Perpetrators are only criminals until they are punished, and then that may be respected again and being afresh to make a positive contribution to the group. In this way, people will not lie and shift blame or avoid punishment by twisting rules to escape accountability. They can look forward to a clean slates and therefore be willing and equal participants in their own punishment and transformation, which is a learning process more than anything else.”
“Perhaps the transferrable wisdom here is simply that most young men need something a little meatier than mindfulness workshops to curtail the terrifying narcissism that overtakes them the moment their balls drop. Maybe then they won’t grow up to be the men who start wars in the first place.”
“Solutions to complex problems take many dissimilar minds and points of view to design, so we have to do that together, linking up with as many other us-twos as we can to form networks of dynamic interaction. I’m not offering expert answers, only different questions and ways of looking at things.”
“For the purposes of the thought experiments in this book, an indigenous person is a member of a community retaining memories of a life lived sustainably on a land base, as part of that land base. Indigenous Knowledge is any application of those memories as living knowledge to improve present and future circumstances.”
“Sustainable systems cannot be manufactured by individuals or appointed committees, particularly during times of intense transition of upheaval. For those seeking sustainability practices from Indigenous cultures, it is important to focus on both ancient and contemporary knowledge od demotic origin, rather than individual inventions or amendments. That Is not to say that all demotic innovations are benevolent. But if you listen to many voices and stories and discern a deep and complex pattern emerging, you can usually determine what is real and what has been airbrushed for questionable agendas or corrupted by flash mobs of narcissists.”