Hillhippy Historical Perspectives on Pagans, Christians and the Earth

[ Disclaimer: It is recognized that a lot of good people are Christians and that Christians do important good works. Of course, the same is true of pagans. ]

Out here among the hills and dales of the far fringe of the frontier, nothing is really for certain, unless the earthly gods desire it.

For only about a century has anything remotely similar to what modern folks call “civilization” spawned upon these wild lands. But for millennia before, another practice graced it, with remnants still powerful and emerging, the ways of the aboriginals.

The most formidable and valuable word in any human tongue is most surely, “ferine,” the quality of being an animal in nature. Aboriginals well understand this truth. Most modern folks do not understand it, at all.

When the first immigrants (white-men) showed up around here (1850), they were intent on only one goal: gold. Overflowing from the initial metal mines in the mid-Sierra Nevadas, these miners gradually crept toward the furthest, promising outreaches, durably and finally penetrating the veil of the last and perhaps greatest indigenous wealth of the (contiguous) U. S..

Natives of these regions were blessed by an abundance of life and power. Understanding this blessing, they kept confidence and peace in this land.

Freezing and starving, mongrel miners showed up on their doorstep, back in 1850; and, like other aboriginals before them, their mercy and kindness to these newcomers was their undoing. By saving the lives of these few fortune-hunters, they swiftly illuminated modern mapping by revealing Humboldt Bay (which until then had happily resisted such discovery).

The world of these local aboriginals was turned upside down, and many perished. Amidst the lure of the (soon played-out) metal mines and the gigantic and primal, redwood forests, such a vast and natural, service harbor as Humboldt Bay provided comfortable conveyance, swift use of which by the immigrants quickly conquered these ethical native tribes.

Soon, natives were being being shot for either sport or gain, herded and slaughtered, shoved into the nooks and crannies (which happily they knew quite well), back away from these immigrants’ new aggrandizement.

Of course, this was / is the “American Way.” Aliens (those humans in the way of progress and relevantly different from the immigrants) are soon scheduled for exploitation or elimination.

Half a century later, President McKinley and his political associates would lead the next stage of expansion, based on the moral premise of U. S. “manifest destiny,” that era’s equivalent of the current neo-Conservatives’ “new American century.” The goal was annexing to the U. S. whatever wasn’t tied down in the Pacific Ocean (like Hawaii) or could be sliced away from the scuppered Spanish Empire (from Philippines to Puerto Rico).

Dubbing natives “savages,” for purposes of best savaging them, the local immigrants simply kept up the solidly inculcated, cultural traditions of their forefathers. Many aboriginals, though, survived this mayhem to swim in or around the new cultural currents and forces transforming the land, and manage to infect and infiltrate this new system by re-emerging as a very powerful cultural influence, through following their own ancestral spirits.

Strangely though, to conquering sensibilities and convenience, the gods of these natives have never layed down their earth weapons. Their lands are so difficult to contain and bring to domain, that the long reach of the new, so-called “civilization” still has immense logistical difficulties with managing such a frontier scene.

And only a few generations since the cataclysm of the immigrants’ arrival, these local aboriginals are regaining their legitimate power. General human consciousness and activity (including of these immigrants) must soon adopt approaches and styles of aboriginal awareness, understanding and application, if it is to reverse the increasingly deletrious, environmental effects of its evolution.

The spiritual and intellectual sense of these aboriginals, within related bounds of their associated tribes throughout the Americas (for example, of the Iroquois Nation, upon some of whose governing insights and principles the U. S. Constitution is based), is perhaps the genuine crown of creation. Surrounding such logical earth-worship swirls a vast form of life of which lemmings might be jealous.

So why bother with these local and exotic, cultural distinctions, trans-religious affairs?

Perhaps the most enlightening and horrifying words ever uttered by a human being recently came out of the mouth of Rev. James Dobson, a leading figure of the Christian religion, by far the most prevalent form of religion within the U. S.. These words express the fundamental problem with post-modern culture, governed and expressed as it is, through grotesque and obsessive waves of mass materiality, detached from any proper conception of ethics, sweeping across nearly all social activities and disciplines, and finally permeating into every tiny corner of the world.

Spoken by a person who genuinely does not understand / comprehend the obvious moral ramifications of his view, Dobson’s concise remark provides stark insight into the central, bedrock matter of contemporary affairs, humankind’s relationship with its home.

Dobson claims that the modern “culture war” in the U. S. boils down to one issue, one elemental factor: “[Essentially, the pagans] claim that man was made for the earth, while we Christians know that the earth was made for man.”

Greed and exploitation never possessed such a useful, yet (purportedly) morally cleansed, machine of conquest, prior to the rise of Christianity throughout Western civilization.

Ultimately unethical cultural conduits were created and entrenched within the early eras of Christianity, grappling with its many religious divisions and conflicts over various authorities and practices, not to mention key doctrinal matters with strategic, political edges (such as the concepts of “original sin” and the specific role of a church).

In mid – 7th Century A.D., after about 70 years of preparation on the part of the Roman Christian Church, a Synod was convened at a place named Whitby, in the British Isles. As a tactic to move forward its determination to consolidate all Christians under one religious and liturgical authority (the Pope in Rome), the specific issue of the proper dating of Easter on the calendar was the subject. A side issue was a fascinating, early style spat, recognizable in contemporary life: what’s your hairdo? In dispute was the proper tonsure (haircut) for monks.

Originally, there arose a separate Christian Church in the British Isles, in the initial years of infant Christendom, founded and developed by followers of persons like Saint Patrick and Saint Brighid, who famously converted most pagan tribes of those regions without any form of coercion or violence, simply by moral persuasion. One might believe such attitudes and talents to be valuable.

Presently, this particular and quite interesting aspect (original component) of Christianity is known as the Celtic Christian Church. During the first few centuries of Christianity’s existence, there was a profusion of sources and interpretations about the utter details of its doctrines and practices, one example being the rise and fall of Pelagianism (promoted by the Celtic monk, Pelagius).

Power-mongering of the Christian Church in Rome, during and following the final collapse of the Roman Empire, demanded to incorporate this competing, “Western (Celtic Christian) Church,” which durably challenged its conception of a monolithic model of religious apparatus that could be more easily and profitably made to ride upon the old Roman system of cultural rails. All of this business was soley to save souls, eh?

Europe was eventually carved into various Christian enclaves, fiefdoms of the purported, single authority in Rome; yet primarily feudal in nature, engaging in endless wars for local power of some kind. Some even say the Christian Crusades against Islam were at root intended as a political tactic to help resolve these local conflicts within Europe.

Man became the earth’s steward, the earth was created for his use, that he might most magnificently ravage and plunder it. Just review the religiously inspiried work of the Conquistadors (unleashed on entire continents to subjugate and pillage in the name of the one, true Lord). Related to purposes / argument of this essay, watch Werner Herzog’s cinema masterpiece, “Aguirre, the Wrath of God.”

Folks of the U. S. would do well to consider that this nation’s power stems from its original immigrants arriving from the Old World to a New World, obtaining, occupying a perfectly situated and vastly bountiful continent to use and misuse, committing fraud and genocide against indigenous peoples in the name of the Lord, in order to achieve that unimpeded economic and political access, with a morality cloak for its “manifest destiny.”

Today, most of earth’s human population has slowly become determined to follow U. S. – style, mass-consumer-cultural footsteps, and that inclination likely leads to global, environmental catastrophe. Human beings were made for the earth, and if that’s not now as clear to Christians, as are the annual seasons, they have a lot of explaining to do.

The – purportedly – religous notion that from all of nuture’s vast profusion, man was the creature chosen to perform his mighty, moral duties over and upon creation, is ethically preposterous, judged by the dynamics of general human nature. Man’s supposed stewardship of the earth, perpetuated by this dangerous gospel of such devine intent, exists now as an unconscious bedrock within the mind of ongoing post-modern culture. Spiritual devolutions often develop an intense whallop.

But now, the entire planet is at stake, ultimately burning at the stake of (pseudo) Christian avarice, while (most of) these Christians blame “those Muslims” for not being well-civilized, by not finally subjugating themselves to a relentless, economic / cultural grasp, an updated “manifest destiny.” Many folks realized in an instant, on the morning of 9-11, that this basic problem had finally (and politically) come home to roost. Sure enough.

It’s being said (carefully bragged-about) that there hasn’t been another attack against this country. Well, Bush (the U. S.) invading Iraq was like pulling the primer-pin on an irreversible, global grenade, an opening of the fabled “gates of hell,” that has also blown open the dense drapes of huge domestic drama, and ironically ushered in political waves gaining the first shallow buoyancy for true social progress and democracy in the U. S. in nearly a half-century.

Given such political and moral instincts as Bush and company were likely to display – attempting to establish a “new American century,” with an initial gambit of engaging a coup and occupation of Iraq, . . .over an instant and unfathomable abyss of national hubris and folly – Osama didn’t even need to take a second shot. 9-11’s mortal injury to a certain nature of national spirit was quite inevitable. Moving off of that fulcrum, perhaps we may yet save the earth; this would be a fitting, ironic legacy.

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