AFTER THE ICE HAS GONE
About 12,000 years ago, there is a
change in the climate. It gets warmer, the ice starts to melt.
It becomes apparent that if wild
plants can be domesticated, life in a given location will become more
predictable. Settlements based upon knowledge and belief are
established. Boundaries between settlements are disputed and agreed. Plants
and animals are domesticated....horse, pig, sheep, cow, goat plus cereals, fruit trees, vines,
roots and vegetables.
People believe, based upon current
verifiable evidence, that agriculture and cuniform writing skills have been part
of a working civilisation for 10,000 years.
The impact of writing is
particularly striking. Knowledge transported beyond the
present independently of the person who first acquired it, becomes immensely
influential.
There is an
understanding of the meaning of planning. There is a compulsion
to order and cleanliness. Patterns in nature and behaviour are
recorded.
The rope, the net, traps,
axes, knives and hammers. The circle becomes significant. The
wheel is developed.
And take for example the
domestication of the cat...grain is near people, rats are near
grain, cats are near rats, cats are near people, and before we know it we are
sharing the common ecosystem with the highest possible degree of compatibility.
THE FARMER AND THE FIDDLER
Once upon a time there was a dilligent farmer.
He awoke at dawn, worked hard, ate modestly and went to bed early.
All the while the farmer tutted at
his neighbour for wasting time inventing silly gadgets especially the stringed
instrument that emitted strange sounds when plucked.
As Summer turned from Autumn to
Winter, the farmer filled his larder.
The
neighbour's larder remained empty.
One dark night, cold it was, a
knock came upon the farmer's door. There stood the neighbour, pitiful and gaunt,
begging for food.
"Why should I give you anything,"
demands the farmer.
" Where were you all summer while I worked?"
The neighbour pulled out a fiddle and
played a melody so sweet that it transformed the austerity of the farmer's hovel
into a warm hearth of love.
The farmer opened his door and the
neighbour danced across his threshold.
PROCEED
or ABORT