2014 YEAR-END ESSAY: ON FENCES, WARS & CONFLICTS

NOBODY OWNS THE LAND: WE ARE ALL ONLY TEMPORARY CARETAKERS, STEWARDS OF THE EARTH

Some people use the quote “good fences make good neighbors” to amplify their ownership of the land (a line from the poem “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, 1874-1963).

The implication? Fences are good because they make the boundaries clear.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, I am here to tell you that there are no good fences. Only good or bad neighbors.

Because all fences incite conflicts or wars. If not between the current neighbors, then between some future ones.

That’s also what poor Frost was trying to say in his poem. Alas, the “good fences” quote is being taken completely out of context. In the poem, Frost was actually opposed to the fence his neighbor wanted to build. It was his neighbor who asserts “good fences make good neighbors” in the poem. Much to Frosts’ chagrin.

Here’s the opening line of the “Mending Wall“:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. (Robert Frost)

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

Indeed. She is called Mother Earth. She doesn’t love a wall. And right behind her Father Sun. And behind both of them and their celestial brethren – the Creator.

Nobody Owns the Land

Indeed, whenever a visitor to our Yin home, the beautiful Rainbow Shower, in Maui, Hawaii, asserted that I was the “owner” I would reply:

“I am just a caretaker, a steward of the land who has been blessed with the privilege of looking after this Garden of Eden in Paradise on Earth.”

Owner? That’s extreme arrogance.

How can someone who lives for a few decades on a land old 4.5 billion years call himself an owner of it? That takes a lot of hubris, doesn’t it? To me, it seems more like the other way around.

The land and all creatures on it, including us humans, is a physical expression of our living Mother Earth. We are nothing but part-time visitors. And at that, in just one of the many dimensions of the universe.

Borders, statehood, restrictions, prohibitions… they are all inventions of a greedy and power-hungry Man who was out to lord over others. None of them part of natural laws of the universe.

The Native Americans, the “Indians,” understood that. They roamed the prairies and the deserts without ever building a wall or a fence to keep others out. Like the animals, or the birds, or the wind, they were FREE to go wherever the Spirit moved them.

And not just the “Indians” in North America. The Incan Empire, for example, created many splendiferous structures, like Machu Picchu, Sacsaywaman, Vilcabamba, etc. Even today, they amaze and confound the modern architects and builders with their sophistication. But there are no walled cities. No moats. NO fortresses.

That only started after the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the 16th century, and carried out terrible massacres of the local tribes. Just like the White Man did in North America three centuries later, as the western “civilization” forcibly pushed its boundaries westward, reducing the Indian territories to mere dots on the map.

Definition of Insanity: Not Learning from History

Why bother bring up this ancient history now, at the end of 2014?

Because we, humans, evidently haven’t learned a thing from history and our past mistakes. 

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” (George Santayana)

 

We keep building new fences. Which incite new conflicts and wars.

   

Undaunted, like the inmates of an insane asylum, we keep doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome. Which is the definition of insanity:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And then there are also lies and deceptions. And apocryphal interpretations of history.

Just like Man has tried to manipulate and misinterpret the holy books, like the Bible, for example, in his quest for domination and power, we sometimes use historical facts selectively (see SANANDA/JESUS: BIBLICAL DISTORTIONS OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS, SEPT 3, 2013 and EASTER MESSAGE: “I DID NOT COME… TO DIE FOR ANYONE’S SINS” (JESUS), APRIL 19, 2014).

Here’s a new case in point…

Manipulation of History for Political Purposes: Weapons of Mass Deception

This morning someone posted this image at a Facebook page:

The intended message? The Native Americans “understand” the plight of Palestinians because they both suffered similar fates.

The post was shared thousands of times, suggesting that many people bought into this historical “truth.”  But as with CNN and other “lamestream” media reporting, a lie or a falsehood is best hidden behind omissions of the whole truth. 

My first thought when I saw that image was that the US maps shown above don’t tell the full story. So I created one from circa 1620, the year the Mayflower landed on Plymouth Rock (right).

ALL of North America was the land across which the “Indians” were free to roam unobstructed by fences, borders, laws or any other western inventions or limitations.

So I added that map to the original FB image.

But then I thought, what if I did something similar to the map of Israel?  Go back in time and see what it looked like in the past.

When I went back in time to circa 1000 BC and time of King David and his successors, I came up with this map of Israel (right). As you can see, the territory of the Kingdom of Israel was roughly twice the size of today’s state of Israel.

In other words, if you go far enough back in history, you may find that the fate of the Israelites is actually more analogous to that of the North American Indians. They are now merely experiencing the “second coming.”

So I added that map to the original image, too.

So what lessons can we learn from history?

So what lessons can we learn from history?

All these borders have been drawn in blood for thousands of years. Over and over again. And what was the outcome? More wars.

That’s just plain stupid, isn’t it?  Yes, even insane, as we saw earlier.

Yet, this is not only limited to the Middle East or North America. Just look at what’s happening right now in Ukraine, for example (see FALL OF WALL FOR NAUGHT AS ANOTHER RISES FARTHER EAST, NOV 7, 2014). Or in Iraq. Or in Afghanistan. Etc.

People killing people so they could move their fences this way or another.  My, did you know that the United States alone is involved in (gasp!) 134 wars right now? That’s what the Bushama’s “war on terror” has evolved into right now.

And it always starts with someone somewhere building a fence that his neighbor doesn’t want.

So let’s stop this madness. Let’s start saving our planet by tearing down the fences between neighbors and nations. That’s my New Year’s wish for 2015.

Happy holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!