The 2012 Story (51 page)

If we remember our previous discussion of the dialectic between Seven Macaw and One Hunahpu in
The Popol Vuh,
we might begin to suspect what these two modes of culture are really about. Seven Macaw is about ego and gives rise to the modern crisis that is fueled by a narcissistic pathology. One Hunahpu represents the consciousness renewed by reconnection with the source and mystery of life, consciousness returned to right relationship with the One, the whole. The return of the partnership style, after the demise of Seven Macaw, is one manifestation of the second part of the Maya prophecy for 2012. But it requires that human beings choose to make it happen, choose to sacrifice the illusions of pathological ego dominance, and work to remake themselves as well as the world at large.

A lingering question remains: Why do these two tendencies in human beings exist?

Let us return to the chimps. Not too long ago, evolutionary biologists considered the savannah baboon to be the closest living cousin of human beings. That primate had adapted to the same ecological conditions that prehumans faced when they descended out of the trees and entered the plains and savannahs. The search for the common ancestor, the point at which human beings diverged, was loaded with mystique and meaning. Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the taxonomic categorizing of genus, species, and subspecies into related family branches, dictated that the primates were our closest living ancestors.

Among the primates are several species that also bear close relations to human behavior, and behavior was indeed considered to be a relevant indicator. With the work of Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, in the 1970s the chimpanzees became the preferred model. Traits not observed in the baboons were present among the chimps, including pack hunting, tool use, food sharing, power politics, and primitive warfare. This occurred before the breakthrough perspectives of Marija Gimbutas and Riane Eisler were given credence, when male aggression and dominance were assumed to be defining, hardwired characteristics of human societies. This trait is observed in both baboons and chimpanzees, so the assumption of male superiority among all of the common human ancestors was not threatened. Indeed, the chimps provided classic examples of male power politics.

The chimps received support from advances in DNA testing, in which it was determined that they shared 98 percent of the genetic heritage of human beings—as close as a fox is to a dog. But another primate was lingering on the sidelines, one that was causing hushed whispers among the pri matologists. The bonobo is as closely related to human beings as the chimps are, but their social behavior is markedly different.

Frans de Waal has pioneered a clear understanding of this new kid on the primate block, after years of observing bonobo groups. The results are startling and upset cherished notions of human nature. The bonobo species is best characterized as female-centered, egalitarian, and peace-loving, one that substitutes sexual contact for aggression as a means of conflict resolution. De Waal framed the larger sociological implications of his findings in an article he wrote for
Scientific American
: “At a juncture in history during which women are seeking equality with men, science arrives with a belated gift to the feminist movement. Male-biased evolutionary scenarios—Man the Hunter, Man the Toolmaker, and so on—are being challenged by the discovery that females play a central, perhaps even dominant, role in the social life of one of our nearest relatives . . . the bonobo.”
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Bonobos are roughly the same size as chimpanzees. It is an entirely distinct species within the same genus as the chimpanzees. The role of sex in bonobo social relations is central, whereas in other species sex is a distinct, circumscribed behavior. Like human females, the bonobo female remains sexually active continuously. Bonobos engage in virtually every type of partner combination, and engage in sexual contact much more frequently than do other primates. The behavioral separation between sex and reproduction is a unique trait that bonobos share with humans.

Although engaging in sex for reasons other than reproduction is a defining human behavior, there are some people, mainly religious fundamentalists, who decry this practice as amoral. Such puritans are usually very well connected with the political and corporate culture of the Seven Macaws, who seek to control humanity. For them, the freedom of choice, personal empow erment, and fulfillment that are practiced in a sexually diverse culture are dangerous.

In physique, the bonobos are observed to be much more graceful than the chimps. They have a flatter, more open face than the chimps, with a higher forehead, making them look more like humans. In our own biased aesthetics, they look to us more intelligent than the chimps. Whereas bonobos in captivity can use tools, in the wild they tend not to. Instead they spend time in creative play, food gathering, and sharing tempered with frequent sexual exchanges. These exchanges should not be viewed as a type of excessive pathology, for they serve a purpose. They establish nonviolent, readily accessible, mutually beneficial reciprocity as a means of conflict resolution and social cohesion. We might say it is a nonmaterial currency that has value in establishing a pact of egalitarian partnership. It is practiced in the atmosphere of nonpossessiveness and nonaggression, constantly shifting and being renegotiated. It is not simply a utilitarian adaptive strategy in the Dar winist reductive sense—often it is simply part of the play that maintains affection and relationship.

Bonobos evince a greater emotional sensitivity than the chimps and a surprisingly wide spectrum of emotional responses and expressions. Young bonobos make “funny faces” in long pantomimes, alone or while tickling each other, and are more controlled in expressing emotions than the chimps. Joy, sorrow, excitement, and anger, and surprisingly human nuanced combinations occur during a typical day. Bonobos also are very imaginative. De Waal observed captive bonobos engaging in a “blindman’s bluff” game, in which the eyes are covered with a hand or leaf and the bonobo stumbles around, bumping into others, navigating the unknown space as if with the inner eye. De Waal writes that they seem to be “imposing a rule on themselves, such as ‘I cannot look until I lose my balance.’ Other apes and monkeys also indulge in this game, but I have never seen it performed with such dedication and concentration as by the bonobos.”
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Although it may seem laughable to say it in such blunt terms, the bonobo prefers love, not war. Earlier we discussed the difference between partnership and dominator modes of culture. I believe it is possible and appropriate to emphasize the connection between the bonobo style of society and the ancient human partnership society identified by Riane Eisler. If we are committed to the myth of progress—the idea that the modern world and modern humans are more advanced than in former times—we must ask ourselves how the modern fixation with the dominator mode is more advanced than the egalitarian partnership focus of “prehistory.” Clearly, the assumptions of our mainstream anthropologists and historians are flawed, and this problem must be explained. The chimp example of aggression being hardwired into our humanness is challenged by the gentle bonobo, who is as much a part of our genetic heritage as the chimps. The image of the club-wielding Neander thal, so ingrained into the collective imagination, is a joke, a propaganda stunt designed to buttress a kind of social Darwinism that justifies Seven Macaw’s dominance fetish.

The war on nature, on our inner bonobos, on the partnership mode of culture that held humanity steady for five hundred centuries, is essentially a war on ourselves. How do we end the war on us? The following suggestions all fall under the heading of “easier said than done.” The more difficult challenge of how we do it will be taken up in Chapter 12. For now, the writing is on the wall. We need to stop working for Seven Macaw. We need to embrace our shadows, integrate our lower and higher selves. The indigenous societies have been a screen for Western civilization’s shadow projections for too long. These exemplars of living within a multidimensional ecology of nature, of practicing partnership, of forging mutually beneficial alliances, need to be honored and included as leaders and decision makers. The territorial imperialism that we have used to colonize the New World must shift to behaving as if we live here. When Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519, it was like foreground meeting background, like form meeting its essence. It could have been a harmonious “East meets West,” but it wasn’t. On some level this unresolved situation still haunts the subconscious of America, where selfish lifestyles usurp a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources. The only way out, it seems, is to embrace our full beings; divest ourselves of selfish greed and resurrect the unity consciousness exemplified by One Hunahpu reborn. The kind of human being we will be is a choice, is generated and reinforced by our behaviors and the principles we want to install at the forefront of our society’s institutions. The high principles of the American democratic experiment have been overtaken by a coup. Our founding fathers have had their heads cut off and hung in a tree while self-serving plutocrats magnify themselves, clinging to the shreds of control and power in a world gone trendy.

It is a simple step to see that the two choices have their own distinct consequences. The partnership mode held humanity steady for tens of thousands of years. It is a choice that results in a long-term sustainable world. The dominator mode, on the other hand, leads us ineluctably and relatively quickly to the brink of destruction. It seems as if we accidentally fell into the ego-based dominator mode, but perhaps forgetting our connection to the whole is part of the process. Now we’ve gotten the message. We know what it is like to live in a debased world disconnected from its eternal root. With all our information and data and historical perspectives set out on the table, we should now be able to make an informed and conscious choice about what kind of world we want to live in. Instead of a return to something in the past, and rejecting everything in the world around us, we can choose to make a new synthesis. We can adopt the best advances that the modern technological world offers, but combine it with a social style of relating that values peaceful conflict resolution, nonmaterial systems of exchange, nonviolence, and mutual respect for all beings.

The world is in a crisis. Systems need to be transformed, social activism is called for, but the new synthesis demands a spiritually centered and inspired social activism. We must do the inner work while engaging in the outer transformation creatively. There is a revolution afoot, a quiet transformation led by conscious people, emissaries of One Hunahpu. They believe that a sustainable world can be made now, and the future looks bright. Not to be cast as idealistic Pollyannas, this is the realm of inventive Americans, innovative young people intent on divesting from the Seven Macaw system and establishing community-based economies, mutually beneficial trade alliances, blending high tech with low impact while placing an emphasis on human fulfillment where it matters—in the hearts and minds of conscious human beings making peace.

The Maya possessed an insight into cycle dynamics and conveyed these ideals in their Creation Mythology. At the end of each cycle, a transformation and renewal can occur. But only if a sacrifice is made. This big “if” in the Maya prophecy exists because they understood the principle of individual free will, rejecting fatalistic determinism. They understood that nature inevitably cycles through phases of increases and decrease, day and night, awakening and forgetting. There is every reason to believe that 2012 represents midnight in the precessional seasons, the end of the phase of increasing darkness and the first glimmer of increasing light. Year 2012 is not about apocalypse, it’s about
apocatastasis
, the restoration of the true and original conditions. Galactic midnight is upon us, but we are turning the corner, and this is the perfect time to set intentions for the next round of the human endeavor. Each person can choose where they want to be, inwardly, regardless of the circumstances of the outer world.

There’s reason to believe that change is already happening. Amazing things are happening in grassroots communities, and we should try not to be distracted by negativity. It is usually the artists and visionaries who anticipate and intuitively extrapolate what is coming up for humanity around the next bend. In her conflict-resolution work, Corinne McLaughlin facilitates communication and bridge building in business and politics.
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Social activist Charlene Spretnak envisions a future humanity seeing beyond its current limitations: “The knowing body, the creative cosmos, the complex sense of space—all these are asserting their true nature as we increase our abilities to see beyond the boundaries of the modern worldview.”
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We can’t expect all of humanity to wake up and respond to the challenge of returning balance to the world, but it’s likely that a significant portion will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve been examining the Maya prophecy for the years leading up to 2012. The second part of the prophecy is where free will comes into play. The biggest free-will act we can do, right now at this crisis-filled juncture, is to sacrifice our inner Seven Macaws—that is, our attachment to the illusions that keep our consciousness fixated to domains of limitation—and stop feeding the monster that is generating a debased, controlled, deceived world. We can pull the plug and simply not reinforce a world generated by the illusions of Seven Macaw. This is a core truth that the world resists embracing, and it requires that we take responsibility ourselves for making the change.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MAYA RENAISSANCE