A Quest for the Wisdom of the Elders...July 20, 1999

A Quest for the Wisdom of the Elders...July 20, 1999

As a child, I hated reading. In retrospect, I cannot for the life of me remember why, as it seems such a stark contrast to the person I am now. Perhaps it was because I could always find something better, it seemed, to do. Perhaps it was just laziness. Indeed, it could have very well been a combination of the two, as I seem to recall the act reading feeling much more like a chore than something one does for enjoyment or enlightenment.

Things changed, as they invariably do, as I became older. I remember in my teens, during the infrequent times that my quest for "literature" went beyond the sneaking of my father's Penthouse and Playboy, I would often pick up one of my parents' recently read and left-laying-around novels to peruse. After seeing something sitting there, day in and day out, it was difficult not to pick it up, dust it off, and take a peak. Being a curious, hormonal, pubescent young man, of course I would immediately scan for lust filled, highly descriptive, erotic sex scenes. My mother's literary interests (Harold Robbins, Jacqueline Suzanne, Sydney Sheldon) seldom disappointed me there. My father, on the other hand, had much more diverse reading interests: Wilbur Smith, Clive Cussler, James Clavel, and the occasional Stephen King. I almost stopped scanning the pages of my father's recently read novels. Beyond lacking smut on every other page, they seemed too intellectual and provocative. Furthermore, they seemed to be written in a different language, and much, much too lengthy.

However, one hot summer afternoon, with nothing to do, and none of my mom's usual compliment of glossy romance novels laying about, I picked up a book my father had finished reading a couple weeks earlier. It was quite long, there was no partially clothed embracing couple on the front cover, and it was written by an author I had not encountered before. Why I picked it up to begin with escapes me now. It certainly did not fit my criteria. It was Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cavebear.

I was captivated after just the first few pages. I was fascinated with how Auel's use of description transported me back thousands of years, to days long ago, when the world was more tranquil, much more picturesque, and life was less complicated. Further, I could not remain still with the anticipation of what would become of child Ayla. Had I known at the time that the full story would have required my reading four complete novels, I would have abandoned the activity altogether, and gone to find my dad's latest issue. Nevertheless, I read Clan of the Cavebear cover to cover in only a few days. I loved it, and I was hooked.

It was the first leg in what has become a never ending journey. Since that time, I have never not been reading something. Quite often now, I am usually reading two or three books at a time. My interests have evolved, as well, from adolescent delusions of erotic grandeur, to the diversity of authors such as George Elliot, Margaret Lawrence, Diana Gabaldon, Vikram Seth, Thomson Highway, and of course, Stephen King. However, my thirst for literature now goes beyond the scope of fiction, and I find it necessary to be reading something for enlightenments' sake as well. One such thought eliciting volume that I am currently reading is entitled Wisdom of the Elders by David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson.

For many years now, I have grieved about the effects of our species' misplaced superiority. In the name of Industrialization, we are killing our animal relatives and our natural resources. In the name of Capitalism and Organized Religion, we are killing ourselves and our humanity. In the name of perpetuating this existence we are killing our Mother Earth. The few that know another way are shackled or executed by the fewer still that have their hands on Mother's life support.

The premise of Suzuki's and Knudtson's book it to offer a vaccine for this plague on our planet. They purport that by merging contemporary scientific knowledge with traditional Aboriginal custom, we may yet save that which provides us the only means to survive. In a broad examination of First Nation Culture the world over, they found many similarities: the kinship of all life, Earth as Mother, our relationship with other animals, plants, and the land itself, the necessity of balance, the rhythm (cycle) of all life, and the respect of knowledge obtained by First Nation ancestors (Elders). By combining these philosophies with our scientific knowledge, we may find a way to stop the degradation of our planet. They have a provocative theory.

I as yet have to finish reading Wisdom of the Elders, and while I wholeheartedly believe and respect the authors' theory, we must first want change to occur. We must first tire of drinking chlorinated water. We must first want to stop struggling to breathe. We must first want to stop seeing our fellow animal spirits as product. We must first want rain that does not burn. We must first see a tree as Mother's blood. We must first give Aboriginal Peoples a voice. We must first stop blindly trusting rhetoric that there is no other way. We must first find our lost humanity. We must first see that, without Mother Earth, we will not be.

I am not optimistic. We are a society programmed to fear change, programmed that only a few know what is in our own best interests. These few only know what is in their own best interests. Nevertheless, the road to change is there. We merely need to muster the courage to travel it. It is not paved, mind you. It is grown over with weeds in some places, completely washed away and ostensibly impassable in others.

The trek is very, very, long.

However, in the spirit of Wisdom of the Elders, and my own sense of honour and compassion to our planet, I hazard to speculate that the journey's end can be found somewhere around the midpoint of one's own backyard and the cave of the clan of a little girl named Ayla.

...Blessed Be