History, Culture and Psyche

I was thinking yesterday, I know, it came to a shock to me as well.  I was thinking about what I learned about Mexico in the two years that I lived in Mexico City (D. F.).  I suppose that because I saw the people and their culture from the perspective of an outsider that I was able to see and appreciate the effects of history on culture and the combined effect of both on the collective psyche.  This was something that until then I had never noticed with my own culture.

Our Western cuture and psyche have been shaped by the history that we have inherited from the "Good Book".  It is a mythology that many have come to accept as recorded fact, true history as it were.  And what does that history contain?  Well how about a fall from grace resulting in an "original sin" into which or through which all of us are born.  This fall was a consequence of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (and why could knowing that be bad?) and resulted with their explusion from the Garden of Eden into a land that was cursed on their account.  If you grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home as I did then how does that view affect your culture and view of yourself?  I grew up seeing myself as fallen and corrupt and that doesn't help build healthy self-esteem.  I also grew up seeing Nature as hostile, a force to be reckoned with and subdued and although we refered to the earth from time-to-time as "Mother Earth" I never did feel a sense of support, love or longing for her like I should a real mother.

All of that changed with my first trip to South America in 1971.  I had dropped out of college and decided to move South for a few years.  I ended up working as a teacher in a literacy project teaching Quechua speakers in Bolivia to read Spanish.  I was young enough to be shaped by the experience and I it changed me forever.  I lived and worked with people who were part of Pachamama, the real Mother Earth.  They didn't live apart from nature, they were part of Nature and felt connected to Pachamama and Intitayta (Father Sky).   They were (they didn't just feel like it) a manifestation of the Divine Love of Mother Earth and Father Sky.  Poor and humble they had already inherited the Earth because they were part of it and connected to it.  No fallen state for them, how can you be fallen when you are part of the All That Is.

These wonderful, loving people gave me more than I was ever able to give in return.  How can the gift of a little Spanish compare to a view of my real self?  It can't and never will.  Like them I now reach down and touch Pachamama every morning and thank her, she who feeds and nourishes me, she who supports my every step.  I look into the sky and thank Intitayta for light and warmth.  I remember that every time I light a fire I am releasing sunshine that was captured in a living tree, my Earth Brother.  I lift my flute and greet the spirits of the South, East, North and West for they too are my brothers and sisters.  Finally I call upon my ancestors, those who went before me, who lived well and died well, to teach me what they learned and to walk with me.

We are all connected, you and I, and All That Is.  May you find peace and joy this day and all days.