In Part 1 of the “Evolution of Sex,” I described a few of the major problems facing boys and men said that what boys and men need more than anything else is to reconnect with the community of life on planet Earth. In Part 2, I said that the ancient philosophical dictum to “know thyself” must start with understanding the biological basis of maleness and the importance of evolutionary science. In Part 3, we delved more deeply into the importance of our sex chromosomes and how they help us understand and who we are and how we can heal ourselves.
In Part 4, we will address the truth that humanity has become so disconnected from the community of life on planet Earth that we are in grave danger of destruction. Thomas Berry, the geologian and historian of religions, warned us.
“We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”
The core problem we face and the hope for our future is Berry’s recognition that a large part of humanity has come to see itself as existing outside the great family of life on planet Earth. Dr. Christine Webb is primatologist at Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. In her book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters, she reminds us:
“Darwin considered humans to be one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This flawed thinking enables us to exploit the earth toward our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance.”
She concludes saying, “The Arrogant Ape shows that human exceptionalism is an ideology that relies more on human culture than on our biology, more on delusion and faith than on evidence. What’s at stake is a better, sustainable way of life with the potential to rejuvenate our shared planet.”
The Vision of the Sinking Ship of Civilization and Introduction to Father Earth
In 1993 I attended a Men’s Leaders’ Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of the activities offered was a traditional Native-American sweat lodge ceremony where we ask for guidance and support for ourselves and our communities. In the sweat-lodge I experienced a vision where I saw “the sinking of the Ship of Civilization” and the launching of “lifeboats for humanity.” You can read about what I learned in this article, “How You Can Survive and Thrive as The Ship of Civilization Sinks.”
That same year, I remember sitting with 200 men and women at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. My wife, Carlin, and I were attending a special workshop for women and men, appropriately titled “Ovarios y Cojones: Labyrinths of Memory and Danger Within Women and Men,” with author Clarissa Pinkola Estés and mythologist and storyteller, Michael Meade.
Towards the end of the day, Clarissa shared a few poems, including, “Father Earth.” As soon as she shared the title, the hairs on the back of my neck began to tingle. I knew I was going to hear something special. Here’s what she shared:
Father Earth!
There is a two-million-year-old men, no one knows.
They cut into his rivers.
They peeled wide pieces of hide from his legs.
They left scorch marks on his buttocks.
He did not cry out.
No matter what they did to him. He did not cry out.
He held firm.
Now he raises his stabbed hands and whispers that we can heal him yet.
We begin the bandages, the rolls of gauze, the cut, the needle, the grafts.
Slowly, carefully, we turn his body face up.
And under him, his lifelong lover, the old woman is perfect and unmarked.
He has laid upon his two-million-year-old lover all this time
Protecting her with his old back, with his old, scarred back.
And the soil beneath her is fertile and black with her tears.
Both experiences occurring thirty-three years ago had a profound impact on my understanding of humanity, my place in the community of life, and what we need to do to reconnect with our biological and evolutionary roots as males. Here are a few of the most important things I learned from these two experiences:
1. “Civilization” is a misnomer. Its proper name is the “Dominator Model.”
In her international best-selling book, The Chalice & The Blade: Our History. Our Future, originally published in 1987, historian Riane Eisler said,
“Underlying the great surface diversity of human culture are two basic models of society. The first I call the dominator model, what is popularly termed either patriarchy or matriarchy — the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking may best be described as the partnership model.”
You can view my podcast with Riane and her team at the Center for Partnership Systems here.
2. There is a better world beyond civilization.
In 1992, I was given the book Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I got a clear sense of the two worlds that are competing for our attention: A world where hierarchy and dominance rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Takers) and a world where equality and connection rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Leavers. In his book, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, Quinn says,
“The tribal life and no other is the gift of natural selection to humanity. It is to humanity what pack life is to wolves, pod life is to whales, and hive lives is to bees. After three or four million years of human evolution, it alone emerged as the social organization that works for people.”
Returning to our tribal roots reconnects us with the community of life on Planet Earth and our best hope for the future.
3. Becoming fully human means we must reconnect with the earth.
In her book, The Arrogant Ape, Dr. Christine Webb asks the question “what does it mean to be human?” Her reply offers us all hope for the future.
“Our first hint might come from the world ‘human’ itself — which derives from the root word humus, meaning ‘earth.’ To be human thus means to be of the earth, not apart from or better than any of the other beings with whom we share this planet.“
4. In her wonderful poem, Clarissa Pinkola Estés offers a wonderful new vision of the healing that is needed.
When women changed their vision of God from a hierarchical one headed by a male deity to one that included female goddesses it gave women a more engaged view of their spiritual essence. It was no longer God the father and mother Earth. Now men were being given a more masculine connection with the Earth and a new integration of the male and female essences.
Our job as men has been as a protector and our role now is to create a new partnership as the last lines of the poem, “Father Earth” remind us:
He has laid upon his two-million-year-old lover all this time
Protecting her with his old back, with his old, scarred back.
And the soil beneath her is fertile and black with her tears.
Author and philosopher Sam Keen offered a simple, yet powerful, call to action:
“The radical vision of the future rests on the belief that the logic that determines either our survival or our destruction is simple:
- The new human vocation is to heal the earth.
- We can only heal what we love.
- We can only love what we know.
- We can only know what we touch.”
If we want to survive and thrive, it begins with our getting in touch with ourselves, the other creatures of the earth, and the earth itself.
I look forward to your feedback. Drop me a note to [email protected] and put “The Evolution of Sex” in the subject line. If you are not already a subscriber to my free weekly newsletter, you can sign up here.
Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by healthlydays.
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