Extinct Ancient Civilizations: Our Future?

untitledWhat were the inhabitants of Easter Island thinking and feeling when the last tree was felled on the island? The dye was cast for their demise because ships and shelters could no longer be built, animals had no homes, and vegetation soon disappeared as food source. The citizens resorted to cannibalism and other degenerate behavior. A generation later, a European ship accidentally landed and rescued the last few living inhabitants who conveyed the island’s narrative. Less lucky were other land cultures that destroyed the natural environment and depleted the resources, like the Anasazi, Maya and other known civilizations. According to the most recent archeological findings, draughts, food shortages, migrating animals that lost habitats, and the invention (or reinvention) of agriculture (and hence food storage), all led to the fall of many ancient people who depleted the resources of the region. Is history repeating itself on yet a grander scale?

If Homer’s rendering is true, were the inhabitants of Atlantis watching, aware and conscious that their homeland was about to sink? OR were the people in denial, living decadent lifestyles, living for the moment without consideration of future generations or their own demise? Upon reflection, it appears odd that such an outstanding and advanced civilization was so blind-sided. Or is it? Did the ‘knowing ones’ disperse into other continents spreading their knowledge while those in denial, unconscious and blind sank to the ocean floor?

In the 1960’s, Reader’s Digest published ‘2200 AD; Archeologists Unearth Religious Site’. According to the fictitious article, the site had many small rooms (a motel) and skeletons still intact praying to a square box across the room in a supine position on the sacrificial mound (the bed). Archeologists concluded that the tiny adjacent room with a bowl attached to the floor and a large containment area must have been the actual ritual room. The offering garment must have been an earring (the old fashion bathtub rubber plug with a long chain) and the ornamental collar (the toilet seat) was obviously worn while kneeling at the ‘bowl’ (the toilet) to pray to the gods. The article went on to describe tongue-in-cheek each object in the room from a religious perspective as modern archeologists tend to do. Yet, is there any doubt the worshipping of material objects, money and power in the modern world is any different or saner than the Easter Island Moai worshipping the large figures that look out over the ocean and depleting their natural resources in order to build them?

An anthropologist (whose name has long since left memory) wrote a book many years ago describing how mammals (of all kinds) invade a territory and behave like leaches and destroy the natural environment. As the oil spill grows, extinguishing the life of marine species, seaweed and heaven knows what else; As the mountains of West Virginia are leveled for coal extraction and the slug builds along with the air, water and land pollution; As mines explode, oil wells blow, nuclear power plants bury toxic waste; As the atmosphere heats, the ice melts, virus and insects take over, the land is raped of its mineral content, drinking water is undrinkable, food sources disappear, is anyone wondering to what end the planet will survive? Is there something else in store for us?

Ancient Technology

Archeology and its scientific relatives abound in resurrecting and recategorizing history. Ships were landing in the US thousands of years before Columbus and the crossing of the land bridge. Huge vessels capable of traveling the oceans are found in Egypt preserved by the desert sands. Giants whose skeletons are found in Ohio, red haired-blue eyed people in China, Semitic Jewish inscriptions and Egyptian hieroglyphics in the Mississippi Valley are the imprints of these ancient voyagers. What happened to those relationships and travel adventures over the generations that were long forgotten until resurrected in the 1400’s? Do civilizations ebb and flow with the tide re-remembering the technology of the past and capitalizing on the global Mind-Memory?

Ancient technology existed thousands and thousands of years before being reinvented by modern humans. The battery found in Turkey, the Anticatherian mechanism (the first computer and clock) in Greece, the vestiges of what look like aircraft in pictographs, petroglyphs, art and sculptures around the globe, the craftsmanship and irreproducible architecture, are all missing links and anomalies, divergent and dissimilar from the his-storical time line conveyed in text books and condoned by scientists. Can anyone peruse the caves of France and not feel awestruck by the level of skills of ancient artists? Is life on the planet, as renegade archeologist Michael Cremo writes, DEVOLVING rather than EVOLVING? Does Mother Earth behave like the fertilized egg in a woman’s womb that separates and divides in order to create something new, wonderful and magical? Does the earth constantly regenerate itself to start fresh and new by eliminating the leaches that attempt to devour its aliveness?

Earth Body

What kind of earth would there be today had the Native Indians (who respected, stewarded and gave back to the land) won against the invading English, Spanish and French (who consumed, destroyed and multiplied)?
Mother Earth is not unlike the human body:
The oil is the blood which when depleted causes the moving of the tectonic plates (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes) like the body suffering from arthritis, hip fractures, and disease outbreak. The land is the skin which when exposed through farming techniques, raping the land for coal, building concrete monuments, develops cancer, psoriasis and burning. The ocean, much like the great volume of water in the body, when polluted diminishes oxygen, regeneration, cyclicity and overall health and well-being. The trees and vegetation are like body hair, which protects the surface from over exposure.

Is there a direct correlation to the treatment of the earth and the expansion of disease, uncontrolled human behavior and multiplication of virus? As the earth is often referred to in the feminine gender (Earth Mother), if the land is raped do the incidents of female rape also increase? Humans are made of the very same ‘stuff’ of earth and stars. It’s all the same. Yet, earthly inhabitants consume, consume, consume as if there is a never-ending amount of natural resources and regenerative body parts without gratitude, or respect for the fragile balance and habitats. Does the decline in resources in a civilization become directly reflected in its behaviors as well? The Moai, who gave verbal testimony to seafarers, would appear to affirm those actions.

Transformation

The transformational warning signs are everywhere. During the 2000 election when the media portrayed the nation as split between red states and blue states, it reminded me of the split between the Roman Empire (east and west), the Egyptian Empire (upper and lower kingdoms), and the decline and abolishment of these civilizations shortly thereafter. Decline is transformation; destruction of the old to make way for the new. Inhabitants still exist in these areas of the world, albeit somewhat less proficient as their ancient counterparts in some ways (who built pyramids and designed civil codes of conduct). Slowly, now quickly, the wheels of change move causing upheavals and fear to those who lack integrative centers as the inhabitants sense the future.

The Future

Now that water has been rediscovered on Mars, no doubt, a human expedition will uncover archeological evidence that humankind walked that planet a long time ago. It would beget the question; did human beings already destroy a planet and seek refuge here on earth? In trying to adapt to the new planet, did technology, knowledge and former expertise decline with spending days in survival mode?

OR did extraterrestrials land here with futuristic technology and assist the retrograding culture? The Dogan Tribe of Africa celebrates every 50 years as Sirius comes around again, the return of the alien beings that lived in the water from the dark star. The 13th Century book Otis Imperialia describes a person from the sky descending on Bristol, England. Columbus recounted lights in the night sky prior to his landing. People during the Black Plague described cigar shaped objects overhead. There is a plethora of art over the ages that depict unfamiliar objects in the sky. Do more intelligent beings keep a watchful eye, The Overseers as Arthur C. Clark called them in Childhood’s End, over the planet to avoid its total annihilation? Is humankind worth the effort? Does it learn the lessons of the past or is the soul of the species so imprinted in greed and consuming that reformation is impossible?

Hope cannot be based on being rescued from alien beings. SETI still hasn’t found intelligent life elsewhere (as if intelligence were defined by human characteristics). There seems little doubt that conscious beings are about to take another evolutionary leap. Is this what occurred throughout the his-story of this planet as other civilizations vanished? If so, where did they go? Will the inhabitants of this planet be staring at the last tree much like our Easter Island counterparts and wonder, ‘how will we ever survive?’ ‘What’s next’? Will we Wake Up In Time asks physicist Peter Russell or will we just choose to migrate our energies elsewhere? Will human ingenuity develop technologies at lightening speed to supersede the current trajectory? For certain, change and transformation is about to leap. Where the steps will lead is yet another unsolved mystery. His-story will no doubt repeat itself at an ever-higher level of existence.