Help your children to fall in love with being human.
A fully dignified adult is a one who has received a special gift from their elders. The gift is this: A young initiate is to be handed a story that contains a reason to love this Earth and to love the group with whom he survives. When he receives this gift properly, his love will fill the world, so much so, that it eclipses his love for himself. This transfer from generation to generation is what carries a human lineage down the river of time.
Contrarily, when time and destiny have been squashed down into a single story-less moment, life becomes barren of meaning. When life loses its meaning, a human lineage expires. When the lineage has forgotten its reason for bearing all measure of life's discomforts, the story dies. More than anything, a successful lineage needs a beautiful reason for which to bear the discomforts of time, and that reason must be conveyed through a story.
This age-old transmission (that delivers the beautiful reason––– the reason that allows a person to fall in love with a life-affirming world) is packaged into a story. The transmission of the story is what produces the glue that holds the group together, it's the same glue that holds time and meaning together. The moment we recognize the beautiful gifts that Earth has bestowed upon us, our heart activates, which thereby sets the reciprocity-muscles in motion. When reciprocity starts, the glue that holds a group together is made manifest. Here, for the first time, the heart fills above the half-empty mark, it rises above life’s discomfort and pessimism. When eyes become optimistic, Earth’s landscape comes alive, we enter its story, and we stand upon its theatrical stage. During this performance, moments become ceremonial and sounds of cheer shower down upon us. Millions of viewers from the forest canopy bear witness to our paying back the debts of our gratitude. When our life’s performance celebrates Earth’s generous bounty, Earth’s story becomes flesh. We and the story, merge. Why are human beings designed as a species of story-creature? Because the story is what holds a lineage together, the story is the raft upon which our DNA travels the river of time.
By what method, process, or story did your elders guide you? Did they fill your heart? Did they open your eyes? Have you had the good fortune of outgrowing childish beliefs?–––Have you gone from believing that objects are alienated, dead, unrelated, and isolated, to recognizing the beautifully functional relationships between all of Earth’s contents? By what methods did your worldview expand from a single momentary loop set on replay–– a continuous moment of meaningless sensory stimulation, to your becoming a character in a story, a story in which meaning magically impregnates time? By what method did you go from living in an ugly world, a world that owes you something, to feeling that you owe everything to a world worthy of your love? By what method did you go from powerless lab-mouse (mentally enslaved), to a fully dignified human? By what method did you go from a fearful and weak-minded sensory-creature, to a fully courageous and brave story-creature? By what method did you go from self-centered (evidenced by an association with an army of mentally enslaved “oppression identifiers”), to your making all measure of sacrifice––– both for the landscape (the landscape that feeds you) and for the people with whom you survive? If your elders have not given you these gifts, then the road you’re on, hence, the road you’re taking all of us down, is the road that leads to slavery and tyranny.
We are story-creatures. Therefore, we must ask: What happens when a lineage allows its precious story to die or be replaced by sensory impulses? Since sensory-impulse is the child’s innate starting point, what I really mean is this: what happens when a lineage no longer offers the ancient process that helps the child fall in love with the world, and what happens when the lineage no longer allows the child to grow into a fully formed story-creature? Ans: The road ends at both slavery and tyranny.
(The tranmission process is something called “The Bundle Reveal.” The bundle is not my term, but has been used by indigenous peoples. It distills a lineage's glue down to one pouch-sized set of items, a seed from which a worldview will blossom into a complete story that depicts everything essential and human. The cornerstone of a lasting human-worldview-structure is realized in the marriage between matter and meaning, which is revealed through the smallest grouping of natural objects, hence, a bundle.)
Further explained…
The word sacrifice comes from a Latin meaning, “to make sacred.” What initiation process is used to transform a child’s vision from sensory-meaninglessness (seeing only isolated or story-less objects), to seeing a world of life-affirming relationships? –––– Receiving this gift means receiving a new set of eyes, eyes tuned to the ancient, eyes that behold a story as old as our DNA. When the meaning and the matter are woven together into a strong and beautiful fabric of reality, the initiate will find himself willing to make all measure of sacrifice to protect and maintain the balance that holds his people together.
Where there is sacrifice, romance still holds, the lineage still holds, and the initiation-story still holds. Therefore, when the process of transformation has “made sacred” all that is both visible and germane to our survival, we will readily make the sacrifices required to hold the lineage together. Sacrifice is what it means to become human, and sacrifice is what it means to remain human, on this journey down the river of time.
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