Cave 13b - the 164k question

[woodrabbit]

Ishtar, thanks for wonderful Bee story, I am going to enjoy the mulling of its portent.

As an artist on the rare good day, but a designer every day, the sketch and working drawing is never "art" or the object desired, but the bridge to my fabricator. The better, more beautiful, organized, coherent my drawing the better I am able to romance my cabinetmaker to "see" and capture my intent. My final drawing/plate is my membrane to pass on and through to the physical.

My hunch is the Shaman did not partake in the hunt, his work being done when he left the cave. Not even sure that the actual hunters had to witness the drawings being drawn to successfully bring home the bacon.

As to drawing....choosing not to include painting as its a more studied and layered process for a desired effect and affect, where as to draw is to CAPTURE the essence. All hunting implications intended.

Back to drawing.. which we think of being done at a table or desk and engaging muscle and neuro pathaways from the wrist down, sometimes elbow down. Thinking our Paleo forebeares drew from the shoulder down, which lights up a different part of the brain. A favorite art school exercise is to put the paper on the floor and tie your charcoal to a stick and let it fly, my personal experience was a flush of visceral excitement that had no comparison to the endless drawing of naked ladies (in class) for 6 hours a day. twice a week. The floor drawings were powerful, empowering, always surprising and never dull, not unlike stumbling on a world you didn't suspect existed.

With the advent of the computer, have been drawing with a mouse 90% of the time, not so much because its faster, because its not, but for industry file format requirments, manangement and ability to make small changes without erasing a weeks work. When I sketch, more when travelling, I continue to be surprised by the magic of what shows up on the page.

As an occasional guest lecturer at College Design Depts, I see the loss in form and quirky finesse that used to show up in the students work, most having never actually drawn to see their quarry, relying on key commands and mouse. When asked if they "draw", I often recieve the answer, "No way, I do it all on the computer. Then there the student whose work somehow stands out and when asked if they actually "draw" the answer is invariably yes.

Its been my experience that, once the neuro pathways of pencil-hand-wrist-arm-brain have been opened and exercised, you get to keep them and THEN can apply them to the device of choice. I lament the loss for future artists and designers of the access to the unbroken heritage from their Paleo-Ancestors that literally runs down their arms on to the page.(don't get me going about 3D)

Ish, being that the right side of my brain pays my bills, have never had trouble journeying. But have found that the spoken out loud/told journey has a linear coherence of time, geography, event, and encounter that gets hazy and misty when I keep it to myself and don't speak it as I go.

John, as for the development of the alphabet mucking with our brains, I recall Leonard Shlain having something to say on that subject, but can't put my hands on the book at the moment.

Ish, regarding that East/West mind shift, may have something to do with alphabet verses pictographs?

[dannan14]

i have often wondered if the part of the brain that controls speech also controls other communication functions. In my experience, the more i explore what i call the 'senses other than the physical five' the harder it becomes to communicate verbally.

Hmmm, it looks like i've completed one circle on this board, on this one thread even. This is the second paragraph of my first post.

i've found that many people talk so they don't have to think. They've become afraid of what their minds and senses are trying to tell them. i'm now even more curious about the possibility of a continuum with speech and reading and writing on one side and the abilities of the bicameral mind on the other.

Next month when work slows down i am really going to have to look for research into that dichotomy. Expecially now that i'm armed with a term i didn't know before (bicameral mind).

[Forum Monk]

The bicameral mind is an interesting idea. I recall long ago being aware of the fact that I have one stream of thought that uses the personal pronoun "I" and the other uses the personal pronoun "You" when referring to myself. I am willing to bet all people have those streams, whether they are aware of it or not. So why is it I would to myself as you? Like a mental parent addressing me. I guess this is what is meant by the bicameral mind.

[rich]

Maybe the ancients didn't develop the technologies we have out of reverence for other species as well as reverence for the earth and universe. Doesn't mean they were not smart enough to - we did and I'm sure modern man is not as intelligent as the ancients were. Does a father teach his child all that he experiences? Or does he lay the way open for the child to learn and grow?

When we developed laws to follow we took control from that part of our mind and gave control of it over to those laws. I think this was the start of the bicameral mind set - the demiurge was no longer within from the viewpoint of the many. Think they felt it wasn't trust worthy?? Or were they afraid of what the mind of man could do? Or were they just plain interested in controlling everyone - "POWER". As you said John - the polititians, rulers, and priests. They gave us the laws. The law binds man - it doesn't free him.

[Ishtar]

Hi Rich. That's a beautiful post and it speaks deep truth.

I think that the time that that gradual change began to happen - when power over others became more important than truth and life - is what's referred to in mythology as the Fall. It's represented in the Bible by the banishment of Adam and Eve But that story is based on an ancient Mesopotanian one, and the same motif occurs in many mythologies.

I don't know if if you've read Malidoma Patrice Some's Of Water and the Spirit? I can highly recommend it as an authentic account of ancient, indigenous shamanism from the horse's mouth. He was born in Burkino Faso to a tribe whose practice of shamanism was so ancient that their tribal stories, passed down orally, generation after generation, included probably the oldest one about the Fall.

We always say that mythology is not history - one of my teachers used to say: "The only difference between history and mythology is that mythology is true". Of course this is a play on words - about truth and the Truth - but it always made us laugh anyway, as we know history is always written by victors whereas mythology contains deep Truth. And so Malidoma's tribe's story about the Fall rings 'true' in that sense.

[Ishtar]

Ish ... have found that the spoken out loud/told journey has a linear coherence of time, geography, event, and encounter that gets hazy and misty when I keep it to myself and don't speak it as I go.

My teacher Simon has worked extensively with indigenous tribes both in south America and Africa, and he told us once that this is how he found tribal shamans would often journey – that journeying was a communal activity rather than a lone, individual one. He said that the tribe would sit in a circle and the shaman would be in the middle, and he would start to go into trance and say:

“I’m approaching my tree. I’m approaching my tree. I have reached my tree.”

And the tribe would all call out in unison,

“You’re approaching your tree. You’re approaching you’re tree. You’ve reached your tree.”

And the shaman would continue,

“I’m climbing my tree. I’m climbing my tree.”

And the tribe would respond,

“You’re climbing your tree. You’re climbing your tree,” and so on.

It’s quite enlightening to experience rural, indigenous shamanism as opposed to how we do it in our modern society, journeying by ourselves in our apartments and houses. Shamanism in tribes is a community activity, not an individual activity. Any healing of individuals within a tribe is seen as a tribal matter not an individual matter, as any illness impacts the whole tribe. (For example, everyone has a role and they are all interdependent. So if one tribal member is too ill to fulfil their role, everyone’s wellbeing is affected.)

It’s also interesting that the metaphorical language that the spirits use to communicate to the shaman varies from tribe to tribe. It has been built up over millennia by their ancestors and has been constructed around what is most appropriate for that tribe. Apparently, this is how shamanism always used to work and it’s only now that we all live such – probably unprecedented - siloed, individual lives, that the spirits have to work with us as individuals and develop with each person their own system of metaphor and symbolism.

Simon told us an amusing story to illustrate this: He was with a group of British and American shaman students travelling in Africa and working with the Kalahari bushmen. When they reached a certain tribe, one young man in the group sought out the shaman, and asked him to journey for him. The shaman found this a strange and novel idea — to journey for one individual — but he did it anyway and came back with the message that in the journey, he had seen a black bird, and this was a portent for imminent death.

The guy was totally stunned and shocked, as you can imagine, and particularly as he had no health problems or anything that he was aware of. So, Simon said, the poor chap spent the next few days in a terrible state ...and then it was time to move on.

They travelled more than a hundred miles through the veldt and then came to their next tribe. Obviously, the guy who’d been told he was going to die wanted a second opinion! So he went to that tribal shaman and, without telling him why, asked the shaman to journey for him. The shaman expressed the same surprise about journeying for an individual, but agreed to anyway. And so he did, and then he came back and said that on the journey, he had seen a black bird and this meant that the guy was just about to receive some amazing good fortune!

Simon told us this story to illustrate how the spirits communicate differently with each tribe – and so how, in our cases, because we don’t live in tribes, the metaphorical language would differ from person to person. He told us this, I think, because when we first started to journey, we were buying all these books about Celtic totem animals so we could work out what seeing a certain animal on a journey would mean. And there’s also a book called the Celtic Language of Trees, which we were trying to use in the same way. But we had to learn what our spirits were saying to us - not to the Celts - in the same way as the young shaman student in the Kalahari had to understand what the black bird meant to him personally.

So I found it very interesting that because of the way we live now – many of us in a way that tribal people would find impossible, such is our isolation from each other – that the spirits have had to change their modus operandi, and work to develop meta languages with each individual, rather than a whole tribe.

And what I find even more ironic is that those of us who feel the most isolated (not necessarily physically, but mentally and emotionally) are those of us who question everything society tells us because we’ve gradually realised that we’re not being told the truth. And so we cut ourselves off in order to search for a deeper and truer meaning, or at least a more holistic one. We may not actually distance ourselves to the point of becoming a hermit and going to live in a cave or up in the Himalayas. We may even look like we’re still integrated into society. But we’re not. We’ve separated ourselves psychically. So that’s the irony - the most isolated people in our society today are the seekers and the dreamers and those who are the most likely to end up becoming shamans.

[rich]

Ish -
That was exactly what I was referring to - in Genesis man was told not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - once he did he was "cast" out. But you must realize it is a repeating story of genesis - not a solitary one. That Eden is inside - not outside - although the actual place might be somewhere on earth the actual event is not.

[Ishtar]

I don't think the Garden of Eden, as the home of Adam and Eve, was ever a place on earth and neither were Adam and Eve historical characters.

Spirits speak in metaphors and most of mythology is constructed in the same way, sometimes even metaphors within metaphors, or what some south American shamans call 'twisted twisted'.

The Fall and banishment from the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for the death of the bicameral mind and a time when man saw himself as part of nature and could converse with all the spirits of nature - whether in animal or plant or tree form - rather then as he is today, separate and isolated from nature except when he's plundering it.

[Minimalist]

I saw a show which pointed out that the Cain/Abel part of that nonsense was clearly depicting the changeover from pastoralism to agriculture...from the point of view of the pastoralists.

Cain, the farmer, offers his sacrifice to "god" and it is rejected. Abel, the shepherd, offers his sacrifice and it is accepted. Cain kills Abel.

What better set of metaphors for a bunch of goatherders to say "god likes us best and watch out for those murderous farming assholes!"

[Digit]

god likes us best and watch out for those murderous farming assholes!"

All those in favour say 'Aye!'

[rich]

I though they were sheep - - farmers - not goat -- herders.
And no way am I gonna say "oye ve"!!!

[Ishtar]

What better set of metaphors for a bunch of goatherders to say "god likes us best and watch out for those murderous farming assholes!"

Metaphor, yes. But once you're into the "god likes us best" frame of mind, you're a million miles from the bicameral one.

[Minimalist]

Every people seems to be told that their god likes them best....even when he/she/it is kicking their asses all the time.

[Beagle]

frame of mind, you're a million miles from the bicameral one.

Ishtar, are you referring to the theory by Jaynes? That was proosed back in the '70's and is generally regarded as one of the biggest crackpot theories to come out of that decade.

Back then, anyone could write a self-help book and they were just gobbled off the shelf. Everyone knew they were screwed up but just couldn't figure out how.

Excuse me if that's not what you're talking about, but I saw it referred to yesterday also in Rich's hello thread. But if it is, I encourage you to check carefully and see if anything that he said was correct.

[Minimalist]

I though they were sheep - - farmers - not goat -- herders.
And no way am I gonna say "oye ve"!!!

Sheep...goats....doesn't matter. Watch where you step.