 |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Nature of the Mineral Kingdom | |||||
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995
 |
|
|
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Nature of the Mineral Kingdom | |||||
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995
|
You must leave your measuring sticks and clocks on the verandah where they will be safe from the rain. They are not welcome in my abode, for they are the attachments attended by a material mind. You must leave behind your trinkets and your tokens and your money also.
There is no use for these things within.
For I shall speak to you of nature by the fire of the Mineral Kingdom, and nature has no use for such petty observances.
And if I speak to you of the eternal, and I see you start, and I hear the words of reason for this many thousand years and that many billion years then I will laugh at you, and you may return to your measuring sticks and clocks outside.
Examine an ordinary rock of the high mountain passes and tell me its age. Explain to me its location with reference to the mountain ranges and with reference to the sky, to the valley and the highland. But do not explain to me its age in years with scientific notation and a proud exactitude ...
I can understand a day, and a moon, and a season and a year. I have seen the years dawn on the mountains and set on the seas, and rise on the oceans and sunset on the peaks, but my life is not made any richer for the knowledge of the age of the hills, or the age of the seas.
For these things of nature, to my poor terrestrial heart, are eternal .... They may outlast us all, and I count myself wise to therefore accord to them the respect of my terrestrial heart, for it shall not outlive them. And I manifest this repect, by examining the nature of the eternal which surrounds us at every beat of the heart.
Rather examine the things which are visible in the world, and look to their nature ...
And if you still cannot reason with this simple way of thinking then I will say to you, go away alone and live in a cave for three days, and watch alone the life of the earth and of the sky, and listen alone to the life that is within your mind and heart and soul alone. And after these three days have passed, return and tell me then whether or not you have learnt the error of your measurements and materialistic ways.
For those who are left, I welcome to the fire in the Mineral Kingdom.
You would observe the earth and the sky.
The eternal earth upon which you stand, and the eternal heaven above the earth upon which you stand.
Remember, I have already explained to you why I call these things 'eternal' ...
And this is the first and greatest observation of life - for in this observation is DIRECTION given.
You would observe the elements of nature ... the earth, the water, the air and the fire.
You would observe the snow capped mountains and their foothills, the valleys, the hills, the plateaus, the canyons, the craters of meteors, the deserts, the dry salt lakes, the rocks and rock faces against the sky, the stones and the pebbles and the sand of the beaches, the headlands and points, the lakes and the billabongs, the ponds and the pools, the bays and the gulfs, the waters and the surf, the oceans, the breakers, the wild blue seas and the waves that journey thereon, the waterspouts, the tides, the rivers, the streams, the waterfalls, the creeks, the brooks and the rivulets after the rain, the snow, the ice and the glaciers, the dew, the clouds, the fog and the mist, the dust, the wind, the breezes, the zephyrs, the winds, the hurricanes, the jet streams, the atmosphere, the stratosphere, the edge of the terrestrial planet .....
And the arrival of the fire ...... the sunlight, the SunShine, the day, the days and the nights, the mornings and the evenings, the dawn and the dusk, the twilight and the glimmer, the midnight and the noonday, the moon and the moonlight, the stars and the wandering stars, the planets, the phases of the moon, the months, the years, the centuries, the comets, the ages and the eons, the nova, the galaxies, the Universe, and the ocean of Light which immeasurably fills it ..................
All these things and vastly many more, constitute the Mineral Kingdom. You get the drift?
Standing UTTERLY ALONE in the mineral kingdom, one stands on the planet earth. This simple undeniable fact is common to all the sages of the eons, all the scientists, philosophers, parents, teachers, healers, warriors, children, students, everyone ....
EVERYONE, then and now, today, this very minute, tomorrow ... even though our children's children may one day journey to the stars. The vantage point of the Earth will always be very special. It is fundamental to the history and development of man in the Outer World, and it is therefore foundational to the understanding of his Inner World. From this vantage point, all plants, and animals and humans have searched the mysteries of the Mineral Kingdom since time immemorial.
It is built into our psyche, into our genes, into our every thought and feeling whether we are aware of it or whether we are not. It is built into the way we perceive nature, and ourselves, the nature of Nature.
The vantage point of the earth is buried deep within it, and unless we truly understand it, then I believe we shall never be able to reach out to the stars, for we will not be sufficiently evolved. And it for this reason that I speak. I speak for the sake of our ancestors who brought us to this place beneath the stars, and for the sake of our children's children, who will one day look out from them.
The elements of nature - EARTH, WATER, AIR and FIRE - are the composition of the mineral kingdom. In order to understand nature of the outer natural world, these are all that are required ...
And to this statement I hear a gathering murmur of discontent. For surely, this is a backward step into the world of the ancients?
I can perceive in your thoughts the doctrines of matter, the periodic table of elements with their unique atomic structure, the quantum mechanical model of the atom and of the molecular bonding and structures, the standard and group models of the elementary sub-atomic particles .... I can sense that these educational quanta are being accelerated to impact on the peace ....
The peace of the Fire is broken, and a bunch of sparks dart around the top of the burning flames and up the chimney .....
Yet I see many of you start again, and reach to the Reason to which you have been educated ....
This material Reason which would surplant the living EARTH with the concept of SOLID, which would surplant the living WATER with the concept of LIQUID, which would surplant the living AIR with the concept of GAS, and which would surplant FIRE with a theoretical and remote concept of a PLASMA.
This intellectual reason which has analysed and then exploited the properties of the mineral kingdom, and which in return, is providing the ability to construct environmentally independent worlds of commerce and transportation and communication. Such is the evidence and such are the benefits of intellectual progress you would say to me ...
This same material and commercial reason to which you automatically turn, would have you eat the chemicals, and would have you drink the liquids, and would have you breathe the gas. And when you were cold, you it would have you turn on your artificial fires and read about the wonderful works of reason under an artificial light. And to finalise any argument, you would switch on the TV and the WEB and seek, in this artificial world, the meaning of life itself.
I say beware of it ... for materialistic and commercial reason is a breed of its own. It is a weed, which if left unchecked, will throttle the earth and all green things, and all that will be left on earth will be the herds of poor animal creatures which are penned up and fattened towards their slaughter, and the video-tapes of an earth which once was. But your reason will explain this to your children's children, for it is an inventive device.
I will be content to remain in my solitary mountain air beneath the sky, with its garden of vegetables and its stream of water.
And seeing that you have travelled here, then amidst the elements of the mineral kingdom - the earth, the water, the air and the fire - I shall continue the saga which you must know. And I tell a simple story which has been told to you before in many ways and in many languages and at many times.
For the perception of nature is the heart's desire of all living souls, and in today's times it is unfortunately not such a simple task of trying to see the wood for the trees, for the trees are vanishing, and on the paper into which they pass, other intellectual entities are growing and assuming a life of their own. And it is the mass of these intellectual works which now must be rationalised to the fundamental nature of which they purport to discuss.
When the world received the glass lens merely a few centuries ago, then did the mind try and follow the nature which it perceived in the magnification of that which is small, and in the magnification of that which is remote.
It was at this point in outer world history and inner world evolution that man fell through the looking glass (LC as it were) in two directions at once .... (1) away from the natural world and into the world of the atom, and (2) away from the natural world and into the world of the cosmos. And this state of affairs seems to summarise the closing of the second millenia of this original and natural world.
The "Invisible World" of the ancient sages, which seemed forever to be inaccessible to the eye of their mind, BEHOLD! was opened for the natural scientist, and he lead the way on a number of grand expeditions which have covered the continents of the last few hundred years leading up to the close of this second millennia, and the age of global knowledge.
Settle back, and I will tell you a true story ...
The first journey led into the development of the visible natural world, while the other two journeys led to the development of paths into two separate previously unseen worlds and both of these used the concept of light passing through a lens made of glass.
It were as though the nature of vision was evolved to include things previously invisible to the eye and thus to the mind.
On the one hand the development of the microscope commenced the journey towards the world of the minute, while on the other hand the development of the telescope commenced the journey towards the world of the remote.
Thus it may be clearly understood WHERE the visible natural outer world (The Mineral Kingdom) sits in relation to the vast disciplines of worldly knowledge today. It is important to be able to classify the diversity of "natural phenomena" as above, for since that time, the diversity of knowledge has increased exponentially.
Furthermore, this observation enables us to track the emergence and development of all scientific disciplines.
Beneath the visible world and above it there has always been the invisible and far-flung worlds which the senses have not been able to immediately and directly perceive. Figurative literature and documents of knowledge (such as the Vedas, the Uppanishads of the East and the Old Testament of the West) repeatedly allude to this.
Whereas these "sciences" (!!) explored the notion of the Inner World, and their testament remain basically unchallenged for millenia, the rise of the western physical sciences explored the outer mineral kingdom, and its testament has been changing with each generation.
The western MEASURE of progress into the these two unseen worlds (one beneath or within the natural world and the other above or outside the natural world) commenced slowly, but in the closing stages of this millenia has increased dramatically. As a result of the expansion of human observation in these realms, new fundamental structures were conceived. Cellular, molecular, atomic and sub-atomic models of nature have been developed in the microcosm. Heliocentric, planetary, galactic and universal models of nature have been developed for the macrocosm. Moreover, these have been established in a relatively short period of time compared to the evolution of man.
On the one hand, beneath (or within) the visible and sensible natural world the development of the lens used in the microscope has brought the nature of the cosmos cloaser to human observation. Directly attributable to the use and improvement of the microscopic lens, the very substance of the element called EARTH in the Mineral Kingdom has been brought closer to the enquiring scientific mind. The atomic structure of matter first postulated by Democritis over two millenia before was apparently substantiated, and so the four elements fell into the spectrum of the periodic table (and literally vanished), and the proliferation of new classical intellectual studies evolved. And all seek relationship to the nature of the outer cosmos:
On the other hand, above (or outside) the visible and sensible natural world the development of the lens used in the telescope has brought the nature of the cosmos closer to human observation. Directly attributable to the use and improvement of the telescopic lens, the heavens above the earth have been brought closer to the enquiring mind, and the nature of the cosmos is revealed. The Earth, the moon and the sun, the planets of the solar system, the galaxy and the galactic clusters have been put into certain perspectives, and again, a new spectrum of physical scientific research within specialised areas has evolved. And all seek relationship to the nature of the outer cosmos:
And while others, reliant upon their measuring sticks and clocks, may pursue the microscopic and/or the macroscopic, I will be content to explore this narrow band of the mineral kingdom in the middle of these two worlds within worlds. For it is my intent to show that it is only in the understanding of this natural Mineral Kingdom, and its inter-relationship with life, that a complete and natural description of man may be put into a natural perspective.
And again, there are those who are now not comfortable, who wish to get up in support of either one or the other worlds of the lens. Well, I will not argue - you must follow your instincts - and leave this fire, and gather what measuring sticks and clocks and possessions which you carried up here, and leave my abode and return to that niche wherein you seek your peace with the world.
For now I have dealt with the many faceted disciplinic prism of the material and physical sciences, I will return to the undisturbed fire in the hearth, which has been burning at the center of mankind's consciousness since before time immemorial.
 |
|---|
The cosmic environment of the Earth is |
Therefore, we may conclude that we live on the planet Earth as observers of a terrestrial nature which appears to literally disappear in two directions at once, one towards the heavens above our heads, and one towards the very earth upon which we stand.
Thus, for my purposes, the realm of the mineral kingdom has been sufficiently clarified.
The elements of nature - EARTH, WATER, AIR and FIRE - are the composition of the natural world of the mineral kingdom. And in this description, I am using FIRE in the sense of the sunshine. Therefore, it usual to speak of Terrestrial nature is the environment of Terra - the planetary Earth. Three of the natural elements - earth, water and air - form the structure for the global tapestry into which the sunshine (FIRE) continuously and eternally streams.
However, there is one other important entity which has its place in the evolution of the terrestrial environment, and this too, like the sun, APPEARS to operate as it were, from outside the "sensible physical" environment. This other natural terrestrial influence is of course the moon. The moon is currently perceived to be the natural satellite of the earth and the chief agent which causes the phenomena of the tides upon the earth.
The moon has been so close to the earth, as it were, in all this evolution of humanity, that it is quite literally forgotten. Neverthess, as our stories will reveal, this closeness has been interwoven with our very evolution. Sufficient for the moment, it is appropriate to relate that the moon - earth's natural satellite - has played an essential role in the fashioning of the terrestrial nature of the mineral kingdom.
The moon is often described as the natural satellite of the earth, however it would be far more correct to say that the earth and the moon together form an earth-moon dual system.
If the moon was still (which it isn't), and if the earth was still (which it isn't) then science would disclose to us that the center of gravity of this earth-moon system is located well and truly within the mantle of the earth.
It was the first of the lights in the ancient skies (after the sun), being the closest and the brightest. Today, all the other lights in the sky (including the sun) have lost their geocentric nature with the exception of the moon.
The moon is often if not always surrounded by ancient lore of myth in every terrestrial civilisation and tribal superstition since time immemorial. It is the brightest light in the night sky and has travelled with the earth as its natural satellite for a considerably long time. That it has been earth's eternal companion would be an appropriate statement in terms of the timeframes we may attribute to evolution of life on earth.
Although it has been studied by every living being which has had cognisance of it since time immemorial, it is only (again) in the last few hundred years that this study has commenced to entertain any form of standard intellectual inertia. Less than thirty years ago, man walked upon it, and staked his terrestrial flag upon its ancient surface.
Neverthess, I quite candidly tell you that the true nature of the moon's influence over the affairs of men has not yet been completely established ... and we will finally get to this issue.
As I hear your minds ticking over with sudden pulses of reasonable disbelief, I will avert the course of this story now to the entity which is of the utmost importance to the nature of the terrestrial mineral kingdom. And this entity does not reside within terrestrial nature yet it is within it. This entity is a long way in the sky above our heads, yet it is at our VERY CENTER.
For it is the nature of the Mineral Kingdom to have extent, and its extent is the extent of the universe. The part of the mineral kingdom to which we are accustomed and into which we have evolved and descended is simply the terrestrial part, which is the earth enclosed by the global blanket of water and air. In order to more completely understand the nature of the terrestrial mineral kingdom, one must be cognisant of its more primal cosmic environment.
That the combustible timber or coal fire was always at the center of human habitation, community and evolutionary life can never be disputed ... one only has to sit back around a fire - such as this present one - and relax in the observance of its primal nature.
That the cosmic fire of the sun was at the center of the terrestrial world was not a sensible idea according to the ancient record. Simply stated, the mind was not sufficiently equipped with the necessary information to deal with the sensibility of this fact. The sun clearly rose in the east and set in the west. The terrestrial observer need only stand still. Even after circumnavigating the entire terrestrial planet, in the mind of Magellan the phenomena of the day and the night was nothing but the sun rising and orbiting the stationary and fixed central earth.
The fire of the sun (through the sunshine) warms and moves the air of the global atmosphere and, apart from the agency of "spin", is the agent responsible for the creation of the wind. Moreover, in the wind's capacity to carry the water of life from place to place in the clouds, the sunshine stands at the center of the global water cycle and heating/cooling engine. Erosion from water and ice, the development of geographical and global environmental knowledge and all other earth science disciplines have also only recently been developed in the last few hundred years.
Moreover, before the telescope, the heavens were but a tapestry thrown over the sky, and were without any depth. The lights of the stars therein were just lights in the shroud, for no concept of the immensity of cosmic space had yet dawned upon our ancestors.
That the earth was round was known to the ancients, but that it spun on its axis such that the heavens appeared to revolve about its horizons, was an earth shattering "discovery" for the human mind of the 1600's and 1700's and 1800's and 1900's ....
The complete implications and ramifications of this "discovery" are as yet not clear to the human mind......
GEOCENTRICITY - The belief that the heavens revolve around the earth, was "suddenly" replaced by ...
HELIOCENTRICITY - The belief that earth is spinning, and is in orbit around the sun.
How many of you have left, amongst your possessions on the verandah, a pocket particle accelerator or a pocket radio telescope? In this generation you are not many. And in the generation of the 1800's (ie: last century) the journeyers around my fire were similarly devoid of possession of telescopes and planetary charts.
In other words, their knowledge of either geocenticity or heliocentricity was one of EDUCATION. And thus it still remains today. If it were not for education and the systematic development and recordal of knowledge repositories, then everyone born into the terrestrial environment would literally have to start out all over again (from basics) to establish "THE TRUTH" of their respective frame of reference to the sun.
In the western world, the charter for education was once held with the older and wiser people of the tribes, and then as the tribes formed nations, the charter was split by virtue of "non accord" into various schools of classical philosphers and various old world religious groups.
In these ancient times, over two millennia ago, all these souls - those to whom history gave a mention and those to whom it did not - almost without exception believed that the cosmic perspective of the mineral kingdom was such that the sun and the moon and the planets and the stars all revolved around the earth. And how on earth could they be expected to think or "know" in any other manner?
With the life of Christ, and the life of Mohammed, great changes occurred with the manifest possession of this charter. When the western civilisation fell, as it is so often remarked, it was into the hands of those in the churches, who held the candle of the ancient and classical paradigms through the long years of the Dark and Middle Ages, that the charter of education and the keys of nature passed.
Faced with the revolutionary concept of a non-geocentric cosmos, the church at first suppressed and openly burnt all manifestation of testament to the concept that the earth revolved AND that the spinning planet was in fact a satellite of the sun.
Yet with the persistent application of intellectual effort, the concept of a heliocentric cosmos grew and became part of the current body of human knowledge.
The publication, distribution and reliable (commercial) applications of a growing number of physical theories (eg: Newton's Universal Gravitation) slowly, yet with an irresistable intellectual will, attracted the charter of education away from the geocentricity of the church and religion, and firmly established it in the schools and universities, colleges, institutions, government and corporate organisations.
The cartesian light of Reason clearly illuminated a path which appeared to be winding away through the mysterious and ancient nature of the foundations of the world, and the travellers journeyed on, following their guides from the earlier generations.
The inquisitive and commercial backed society of natural scientists and business generated the industrial revolution and then then technological revolution and in so doing, captured not only their own imagination, but the imagination of all those whom they educated. Specialised subject matter related to the development of the basic physical scientific and mathematical skills are continuously published and utilised, time and time over, class after class, generation after generation
Consequently, the "Laws of Nature" are thus also reportedly searchable somewhere amidst this collaborative archival of scientific and mathematical endeavour. However, this I believe to be a fallacy.
The materiality of the physical sciences do not warrant (even in their own measurement) against the eternal laws of nature as I perceive them to be, for they are as yet too diverse, and their language is not from the heart as it were, but rather from a commercially and materialistically oriented orbit of intellect which mathematically deals in such things.
Firstly, the natural TERRESTRIAL environment on the earth-moon system, is not yet recognised for the part it represents to the consciousness of life.
Secondly, the natural COSMIC environment of the earth-moon system is not yet recognised for what is it.
These two aspects of the natural and "visible" Mineral Kingdom still stand today between the two "invisible worlds", and represent the very environment into which life and man have evolved, for all yesterdays, for today, and for all tomorrows, so long as the earth stands.
The direction home to the natural world of the mineral kingdom which has always stood between these two "Invisible Worlds" starts with the feet of the searching soul and extends to the mind above his eyes. And this, much to your utter amazement, I mean quite literally.
But this thread will be for another tapestry, for in this garment we must speak of life.
The nature of Nature can only be understood by a living being. To artifically animate matter and expect it to accord with certain rules and constraints is one webulous thing, but to think that this may provide an undertanding of the ultimate and fundamental ends is quite literally another.
We have spoken of the mineral kingdom, but not yet spoken of sensible life.
The naturally visible mineral kingdom is the foundation of life in that it supports the other kingdoms of a foundation wherein they may sensibly exist, dwell, grow, develop and evolve.
In classical terms the first of the Kingdoms of Life is the Plant Kingdom.
Therefore, the next time we meet I will speak of the Kingdom of Plants.
For it only by understanding the nature of plants, that you can appreciate the nature of the life which has evolved within the realms of the Mineral Kingdom, entered the threshold of the Animal Kingdom and finally given rise to current Age and the Kingdom of Man.
So the stars are getting dim and the sky to the east is beginning to glow with the approach of the terrestrial view of the sun. It is time to let the fire burn low, and it is time to collect your worldy goods from the verandah and make the long journey back to your homes wherever they be today. Remember our time together. Remember my words.
My words are like the waves on the deep blue sea ...
They are part of the ocean but they belong to another sea.
And so I cast them upon the ocean.
FareWell.
PRF Brown
BCSLS {Freshwater}
Mountain Man Graphics,
Australia
|
|
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Nature of the Mineral Kingdom | |||||
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995
|