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Why Humans Are the Sorriest of Species … Apocalyptic Foretellings Hidden in Myths of Eden, Prometheus, Pandora, Icarus, Cain and Abel: 21st Century and Its Discontents, Part 11
Kaleidoscope of Postmodern Life, Part Eleven: Prometheus, Meat-Eating, Pandora, Eden, the Apple, the Fall, Cain, Abel, and When and Why Human Life Became All About Work
Meat-Eating and Apocalypse…First Falls and Last
After writing the previous section on fire, meat, Prometheus, and Icarus, and in subsequent research into the Prometheus myth, I found there is far more connection in the myth to the eating of meat than I realized. 
Also, the myth’s elements underscore the idea in the previous article that in stealing fire/ eating meat, we set off the developments that would lead to our apocalyptic prognosis today. Further, it is clear that the Prometheus myth is the Greek analogue to the Judaic myth of Eden and the Fall, which supports my thinking that the apple in the Garden of Eden represents meat—meat eating…hunting…killing of planetmates.
The Greek Fall from Grace—Prometheus
Prometheus’s Meat Trick
In the Prometheus myth, the fire stealing started with a trick that Prometheus played on Zeus. Prometheus—midway between gods and men, a Titan—gave the god two offerings from which Zeus was to choose. He gave meat and bones. Zeus chose the bones, supposedly because it was packaged more attractively. This is said to be the basis for why humans eat meat, according to ancient understandings.
Zeus—Not Amused
But when Zeus realized the 
trick, he was pissed … understandably. He hid fire from humans in retribution. Subsequently, Prometheus stole the fire and gave it to mankind. But this angered Zeus even more. So, this time to take revenge, he sent the first woman, Pandora, to live with men.
Ha Ha … Very Funny, Zeus. Thanks a Lot for the Pandora
Pandora literally means “all gifts.” So it is that Pandora represents all the blessings that come with human advancement, represented by harnessing fire. But Pandora, as we all know, brings all troubles as well.
She carries a jar that, opened, releases all “evils, harsh pain and troublesome diseases which give men death.”
Pandora shuts the jar but it is too late, and many of the evils had already escaped. Interestingly, what remains in the closed jar along with the rest of the evils is hope. This is a theme that I return to again and again in this book and the subsequent one, The Great Reveal, in discussing what we need to do about our dire situation: That is, turn and face it, delve deeper into it and not turn away, for therein lies our only real hope.
Eden – the Biblical Fall – Life Becomes Endless Work and Struggle
But notice the parallels with the myth of Eden. In the Biblical rendering, the eating of the apple—which I say represents eating meat—results in the end of easy existence and that from then on humans survive only through “the sweat of one’s brow.”
The Original “Leisure Society”
Sure enough, the end of the nomadic and 
vegetarian existence of early humans—called the first “affluent society” because it required only three hours a day of work to garner what was needed for survival—occurs with the introduction of hunting, then agriculture, then husbandry. [The Great Reveal and Footnote 1]
Strenuous Living, Slavery to Survival
And in the Bible, we notice that immediately after Eden, the “second generation” of humans is seen working strenuously to survive as represented by Cain and Able, who were one a tiller of the soil and the other a herder of animals.
That not bad enough, but then after Cain slew Abel, like a second fall from grace God added an even greater load of hard work. Cain was told that to punish him, the earth that had soaked up the blood he’d spilled would resist aiding him in producing his crops and he and those who came after him would have strenuous work in eking sustenance from 
her and a hard life in simply surviving.
As an aside, notice how whenever we talk about the deepest structures of our mind—and myths provide a glimpse into that—we see the perinatal gestalt. For the Earth here—the placenta—is no longer rich, nourishing, and helpful but, as is the case for the prenate in the late stages of gestation, is impoverished of oxygen and nutrients and less vital, less supportive of one’s continued living.
Promethean Fall – Defiance is Punished by Hard Work, Like in Eden
And the Prometheus myth also has this same sequence as in Eden and the Fall of a defiance of the ways of Nature and God followed by a punishment and suffering, but also by strenuous work as being the lot of humans from then on. For as Hesiod relates the myth, Zeus did more than take fire from humans in revenge for being tricked out of the meat that Prometheus first deprived him of (and for that you can read that humans 
took from God/Nature the determination of life and death, which in our deciding to kill planetmates, we most assuredly did, see next post), but Zeus also took from humans “the means of life.”
And the consequences of this are similar to being cast out of Eden. For if fire 
had not been stolen…meat not eaten by humans…humans not adopted hunting, horticulture, husbandry, 
as Hesiod puts it, “you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste.”
Continue with Deep Thoughts on The Fall – On Sacrifice, Dominion Over Death, Meat, and Murder … Beginning Our Apocalypse: 21st Century and Its Discontents, Part 12
Return to Sorry, Billy Joel, But We Did Start the Fire: Why Humans Are So Big on Burning…And Its Apocalyptic Prognosis For Us Today: 21st Century and Its Discontents, Part 10
Footnote
1. Excerpted from “From Hunting and Gathering to Sowing and Reaping”
Cultural evolution can be defined as the process of developing the tools and skills to deal with certain challenges. Therefore challenges present the key stimulus for any kind of development. The challenge to survive as a hunter/gatherers is not inconsiderable – and early humans met the challenge for hundreds of thousands of years, without depleting their natural environment. Agriculture was invented about 10000 years ago and many of the environmental crisis we face today are directly related to this paradigm shift, from the destruction of the world’s forests in order to grow crops, to the depletion of land due to monocultural plantations, to salination and a thousand other woes.
Early humans were nomads. They roamed within a certain range. Trespassing into another group’s range could result in conflict. However, due to population limits, each group’s range was quite extensive. It is often assumed that finding food must have been incredibly challenging and time consuming, yet, research has demonstrated that in favourable habitats only an average of 3h per day are needed to collect food, plus some more time for preparation. Anyone who has ever even partially lived on foraged foods knows that nature supplies plentifully – each thing in its season. It is also a popular idea to imagine that people were moving around constantly, only remaining in one place for a matter of days. But there is no reason to assume such restlessness. It seems far more likely that people would move from campground to campground in accordance with the seasons, in tune with the things they would find in each place. And it seems reasonable to assume that they would remain in each place long enough to gather and process for transport whatever gifts Mother Nature had offered. Only in areas that are particularly hostile, such as deserts or the circumpolar regions, would frequent moving be necessary since food supplies are less abundant.
(At the 1966 ‘Man the Hunter’ conference, Marshall Sahlins presented a paper entitled, “Notes on the Original Affluent Society,” in which he challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherers living lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” as Thomas Hobbes had put it in 1651. According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well. Their “affluence” came from the idea that they are satisfied with very little in the material sense. This, he said, constituted a Zen economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer)
More at “From Hunting and Gathering to Sowing and Reaping” at http://www.sacredearth.com/ethnobotany/food/civilization.php
Continue with Deep Thoughts on The Fall – On Sacrifice, Dominion Over Death, Meat, and Murder … Beginning Our Apocalypse: 21st Century and Its Discontents, Part 12
Return to Sorry, Billy Joel, But We Did Start the Fire: Why Humans Are So Big on Burning…And Its Apocalyptic Prognosis For Us Today: 21st Century and Its Discontents, Part 10
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Planetmate Communion: “I Trust Planetmates Implicitly Now … Got Affection — Huge”
Planetmate Communion: “I Trust Planetmates Implicitly Now … Got Affection — Huge”
Planetmate Communion: A Personal Note Upon Receiving The Second Prasad
I feel changed, feel confident, I trust PlanetMates implicitly now. More than a gift, got kindness, affection-huge
Don’t let this be confused with The Second Prasad. That is from The Planetmates, and it is presented in the previous chapter. This is SillyMickel, and this is not a quote from them. But I think it is very important for me to share this, as part of anyone’s attempting to understand this phenomenon. Here’s the latest on The Great Reveal—arranged by the Planetmates for the benefit of Humans on the eve of the biggest challenge ever to face humans or even the planet at any time of its existence—which is being released in snippets.
This time, if no other, I am going to relate something very personal around this thing I’m involved in. 
You will see that it is appropriate and fitting considering the way the event was set up. And it will probably be the first really good insight for you, as it was for me, into the nature of these Planetmates, and also into the feelings, emotions, and motivations behind the entire “Great Reveal.”
To be specific, I was absolutely delighted to find that my best friend, a feline planetmate, was serving as First Consciousness in The Second Prasad’s delivery. It struck me that it was meant as an honor to me and my place in their endeavor.
The First Prasad came primarily through a venerable elder, an aged primate with much stature among the Planetmates, though I was astounded to see how humble and down to Earth this venerable wise one was. Nevertheless, my good friend, Muff, though a free consciousness and wise, would be outranked by a multitude of longer-lived, more experienced, and generally more prestigious Planetmates.
So this honoring of him, and by extension me, probably was due to our friendship and perhaps 
to express their encouragement of our rare interspecies relationship and the scientific and cultural collaboration that came of it, without which none of this would have happened.
I must admit to having been more than touched by their action. I sobbed as I realized that I had been really included and accepted; putting to rest previous uncomfortable feelings of being an outsider. In fact, that was the first really emotional experience that I shared with these Planetmates; 
everything previously had been more business, actually, more benevolent teacher and respectful student-like. Now I felt that I had passed training and was being included as an equal 
with them—an honor so rare only a handful of humans have ever been so respected as to receive.
Tears flowed freely as these realizations occurred among us, as the Planetmates shared in my Experience, and they understood that my tears were like a solid bonding of allegiance, but for me it was more like joining a family. I also had the exquisite pleasure of partaking of the experiences of a number of kinds of Planetmates as they each processed the same emotional bonding 
with me and even the emotional release of joy in many different forms other than my tears, but all equally unique and, for me still, very bizarre and totally irrational ways.
But the really different ways that this was processed by different forms of Planetmates led me to realize, at what I knew was the precise time, and couldn’t have been a moment sooner, nor a moment later, that absorbing that experience, as unusual as it was and somewhat off-putting at times, had led me to the otherwise unexperienced access into the sublime feeling that was the same in all—that essence was a sweeter experience than I had ever had when previously experiencing acceptance, belongingness, and a sense of being embraced in a way as to be included like family—oh,
it was mostly love, as one can imagine, and of course belonging and security, but the essence of it all was prominently one of experiencing a love and unity that surpassed any love I had ever known. It made me see the deepest loves that are possible, and alongside them the many things that we call love couldn’t be seen, being so outshone by this clear perfect thing–that I won’t call love, since it’s so much more and would be reduced to mere love. It should have another name.
I’ll see what I can do about that. But in the meantime, you get the point that it was something beyond anything I’d experience and much more 
wonderful than just about the most wonderful things one could experience as a human.
And I feel changed. And I feel more confident. I trust these Planetmates implicitly now, for that was more than a gift, it was an unexpected kindness above all—it emanated from feelings of affection and appreciation that they had toward me, that led to the honoring, and then to the sharing in that most blessed (how to describe it…oh:) free, expansive, inclusive, nofence, among all, and the
God-coddling feeling of being held in God’s very loving hands.
I thought it important to relate this experience, as I being human should relate how at least one human experiences the Consciousnesses of the Planetmates, since I know of no other such report; and this one glimpse into the beings we are dealing with is I’m sure better than nothing. As I’m sure you who were reading were, like me, wondering what they were like on the inside and if they felt any experiences like ours, and so on. Natural questions.
So I hope my experience throws some light in that formerly murky and somewhat anxiety seeping aspect of this experience.
I feel pure clarity on this now, absolutely no fear, anxiety; rather just the opposite.
I know that is not conclusive that this experience is guaranteed to be the benevolent operation that was most prominently felt among all those tuned in to it. I can just say that it is now guaranteed in my mind, because of what I found out about them on the inside,
I can’t imagine not loving them without question anymore, and beyond that sensing a purity of heart, a goldenness of soul, 
a meek yet unbreakable nature, with an unquestioned absolute and total acceptance of the most profound toward myself and our species, which was so real I felt it as the foundation that I would walk on from then on.
Take these reports however you wish to. I can only say that I attest I did my best and retrospectively I think a good job in my attempt to capture and communicate, also in as unslanted, accurately, and truthful way, the experiences that came and blessed me, the way they happened, and their context. For whoever would wish to ponder; and who knows, if these sorts of things between species should begin to be at least less rare, then I hope to have provided a little something of help in the preparation of others for these encounters.
So, judge this however you wish. I’m satisfied that I did my duty, indeed, a very profound dharma. – S.M.
Continue with The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Third Prasad: Humans Only Half Ready for Life at Birth
Return to The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Second Prasad: Truth Become Invisible
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“Kill or Be Killed”: Planetmates View Their Deaths with as Little Gravity as a Game – The Thirtieth Prasad
Planetmates Do Not Fear Death the Way Humans Do…. They know their consciousness continues on, does not end, cannot end…. The Thirtieth Prasad
Planetmates Release the Thirtieth Prasad
We do not wish death. But we risk death often in our immersion in fantastic life. We experience life as highly enjoyable, but in knowledge of our blessedness at all times, we view it much as you would sport. So its consequences are no more grave than that in a game.
Hyena is first consciousness at the Thirtieth Prasad.
“Since…consciousness…can never really “die” or be destroyed, there is nothing dire about [death]; it is seen as simply another game beginning.”
The Thirtieth Prasad – “Kill or Be Killed”
First off, we would not imagine keeping and using another Earth Citizen.
Certainly, we find that the Reality that sustains us includes a plan wherein some of us prey upon others and the others try to get away. The prize for winning, if one is the predator, is food, which extends one’s life; the prize for winning, if one is the prey, is escape from becoming food, which extends their life.
But in that all lives end; and most are not very long at all; and because there is no reason to not expect that this Reality that suffuses and defines us is anything but Beauty, in that our abode of existence is paradisiacal in its beauty, complexity, and qualities of change and surprise which are, along with our imagination, the foundation of a lifetime of entertainment, engagement, and joy, losing is of no more consequence to losing any other kind of game. And since new games can begin at any time, i.e., consciousness continues and takes on new forms always, and can never really “die” or be destroyed, there is nothing dire about it; it is seen as simply another game beginning. (to be continued)
Paraphrase/ Summary/ Abstract of “The Thirtieth Prasad” — by SillyMickel Adzema
We, planetmates, could never conceive of doing what humans do in the throes of their controlling mania. 
We would never care to, let alone seek to, keep and control the destinies of others or use them to inspire phantasms of vanity. If nothing else, we would see that as an unnecessary burden.
In trying to craft your future that way, you cannot take in nor enjoy the blessings of the present. That is why it is called that, in fact, for it is a gift. The present is a gift that humans do not open.
This is ironic, for as we have said, you refuse Divine Providence, whose only stipulation is that you accept the pain of uncertainty so you might enjoy the gift presented afterward of knowing you are always loved…which we have compared to waiting till Christmas to open one’s gifts. In doing this, you create the exact opposite abnormality—when you actually receive a blessing in the present, you then wait to “open” it. You will not bide your time waiting for your blessings; but when you receive them, then, you decide to wait. In this way, again, you create that which you tend to flee from. 
This is just another way in which you create the “hell” in existence that you fear and, unbelievably, attribute to a loving God.
But we do have inner knowing of such a Providence. This Reality sustains us throughout life. We therefore have no doubt that Its blessings include the ending of this game in a manner, uncertain as is all of life, but in accordance with our Ultimate Good, which only That Which Is can know. But neither do we seek death, as you, in your mania do. As in so much else you create abnormal fears only to seek out the sources of them…death you fear extraordinarily yet unthinkingly draw to yourselves through myriad self-defeating decisions.
As for us, no, we do not wish death. But we risk death often in our immersion in fantastic life. We experience life as highly enjoyable, but in knowledge of our blessedness at all times, we view it much as you would sport. So its consequences are no more grave than that in a game.
So how do we view this death that you fear so much? In this game of life, there are rewards for playing well. These prizes are sometimes food, and this sometimes involves the total vanquishing of one or more of one’s opponents in this play in a way that ends their “game.” 
On the other side of this, there is the reward of continuing the game longer if one is able to foil one’s opponent’s move toward defeating oneself. 
There is pleasure in escape; there is pride in being clever enough to fool one’s opponent. You bring forth your remembrance of this apprehension of living that we planetmates have in all the sport, all the play that you do. You are endlessly driven to remember your consciousness as other beings like planetmates, but you do not carry over that feeling into life outside the parameters of that which you call “game” and “sport.”
But these plays in our lives we know are ultimately of very small significance. Unburdened of the desire to control and completely trusting, rather completely knowing of the beneficence and beauty of it all, we welcome either outcome. 
If we win, there is a prize in that. If we lose in this exciting drama, we know there will always be more games, endlessly.
And why would we not expect as much? Our lives, throughout, are endlessly beautiful and delightfully complex and intriguing. We discover existence to contain elements of surprise and change which make it fascinating. Along with our playful mental twists of these elements, adding to them from the package of previous existence we hold at each moment and which we add to and make more interesting the longer we stay in any particular form, 
we find life’s unfolding to be immeasurably entrancing, infinitely entertaining, supremely attractive and thus engaging, and in sum, conducive to joy overall.
So, winning or losing, coming out on top or being freed to begin a new game are equally attractive. This is rooted in a memory of consciousness existing beyond that of the form in which we find ourselves at any time. Because of your amplification of darkness with your untypical births, you have the greatest forgetfulness of your nature in existence. You forget much, not only the other forms and types of consciousness…other “games” you have played, if you will…but you forget much in your current lives. You forget your beginnings.
All in all with all this forgetfulness you can project the darkness you have about the beginning of your lives onto the ending of your lives. For you to understand what we are telling you, you must consider how it might be if you did not do this. We do not forget as completely as you do, so we always know that existence is the nature of Existence, or you might say that “consciousness” is the nature of That Which Is. Existence never ends; Consciousness never ends. “I am” is the nature of It All.
Consciousness does not begin or end; it is the reality. It is these games, these forms, this physicality that begins and ends. We are surprised you don’t know this, for you can see this all around you in Nature.
But Consciousness … Subjectivity simply changes, taking on ever new games, ever new forms.
So how can we dread the ending of any form when we know that each ending is the beginning of something new and even more exciting. We see our endings of form as being more like releases from the playing which sometimes, with time, loses its appeal or freshness. But only the Divine knows the path to our most perfect joy—whether continuation in one form or initiation of another. So we embrace either as a gift.
Continue with
The Great Reveal, Chapter Thirty-Nine:
The Thirty-First Prasad from The Planetmates
Return to
The Great Reveal, Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Twenty-Ninth Prasad.
Child Abuse and Human Tool Use – Humans Become Abominations in Nature
Interchanging mind control
Come let the, revolution takes its toll
If you could, flick the switch and open your third eye
You’d see that, we should never be afraid to die
(So come on)
Continue with
The Great Reveal, Chapter Thirty-Nine:
The Thirty-First Prasad from The Planetmates
Return to
The Great Reveal, Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Twenty-Ninth Prasad.
Child Abuse and Human Tool Use – Humans Become Abominations in Nature
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The Sixteenth Prasad, of “The Great Reveal” by The Planetmates: “The Rich Begin Calling the Tune..25,000 B.C.”
The Sixteenth Prasad – “Accumulating Things, Dominating Others”
The other dire consequence of your adoption of sedentary, non-nomadic life ways was the ability to gather more
Starfish Is First Consciousness at The 16th Prasad
“things” – not just food but all kinds of “things” – for you did not have to carry what you owned, like a nomad would. When you ceased wandering and set up more permanent abodes, you enabled the gathering and storage of much more than you could possibly need.
This had effects on your unplanetmate-like greed and your unplanetmate-like desire to control, now – sadly, even this – others of your own species.
Those of you who gathered more or accumulated more, by whatever means, could have more “say” and would have more sway over those who gathered less. Big Accumulators were able to control the actions and behavior of Small Accumulators because of their ability to use their excess accumulation to gift or reward those whose actions fit with their ends.
(to be continued)
This video is a reading of The Sixteenth Prasad, as received from The Planetmates — what I’m calling “Accumulating Things, Dominating Others” — with additional explanation, context, and some commentary by SillyMickel Adzema.
The issues highlighted in the commentary concern the ways that our change of lifeways from nomadic to sedentary led to the ability to accumulate more possessions than one would ever need and how this excessive accumulation led naturally to another cancerous branch on the tree of obsessive, fearful control the branch of controlling, now, even other humans. This control of other humans derived from the ability of those who were Big Accumulators to reward and gift using their excessive store of things — Smaller Accumulators in exchange for their cooperation. Thus this enabled people to buy off other people for the first time in humans history, but it also led to an increasing diminishment of consciousness of the human species over that which humans had previously. This diminishment of consciousness was tragic and has had dire repercussions extending right up to today, as is being made ever clearer by The Planetmates.
Paraphrase/ Elaboration/ Abstract of “The Sixteenth Prasad” — “Accumulating Things, Dominating Others,” by SillyMickel Adzema
Your adoption of a non-nomadic lifestyle had other pernicious consequences. When you became sedentary – staying in one place and growing your food, eventually corralling other planetmates, and so on – you were able, for the first time in your long evolutionary history, to accumulate. You were able to store food, but other kinds of “things” as well. This was because when you were nomadic you, naturally, had to carry everything you wanted to “own”; whereas when you “nested” you not only did not have to carry possessions but you were able to create and build storage areas to protect your accumulations. In this way you gathered and stored more than you could ever possibly need.
But it did not end there, because this development led to another cancerous outgrowth in your increasing addiction to controlling your experiences as opposed to discovering the adventure that divinity would have for your development and furthering on the path back to unity with divinity.
This tragic, life-diminishing spinoff of your ability to gather and accumulate excessive “things” was a desire to control even those of your own species: Your fellow humans became the last targets of your mania for control — added to your desires to control your experiences, the timing of events, your sustenance and food sources…which involved controlling your planetmates of the Flora and Fauna Kingdoms of Consciousness…your lifestyles, i.e., becoming sedentary, and so on.
Your unplanetmate-like desire to control expanded your unplanetmate-like greed, and, sadly, you saw that gathering more enabled you to control the actions of those of you who gathered less. It was not long before some of your kind discerned that by gathering and storing excessively – becoming Big Accumulators – they could have more say and more sway over those who were Small Accumulators.
Small Accumulators were not necessarily less able to gather more. Keep in mind that gathering more required an obsession and preoccupation with that, thus it required an unremitting focus on what is now called greed, manipulation, and power. So the more congenial and less crazed and obsessed of your kind would not wish this, especially as it required the relinquishing of the other pursuits of life not involving accumulation – e.g., the relational, emotional, spiritual, and creative pursuits.
Many — who would choose to accumulate only that which was needed to sustain life and little more, so that time would be available for more fulfilling pursuits — thought the narrowing of focus to simply possessing more a sad diminishment of experience, which it was.
But this choice to use some of one’s time in the pursuit of a fulfilling life, as opposed to just the pursuit of piles of “things,” also left them vulnerable to the Big Accumulators who could tempt and persuade the Small Accumulators to act in concert with them through promises of gifts and rewards, taken from their stores of excessive accumulation.
The stage was set for Big Accumulators, who had accepted a reduced spiritual and personal richness for a richness of “things,” to overpower and silence the voices of those who refused such a diminished richness of experience and narrowing of their personality – a narrowing of personality that left out the grandeur of existence more for them than for any other “thing” of Consciousness – living or “nonliving” – on this planet.
___________________________________
The links below bring you to an mp3 clip — the audio portion only — of the video above, containing the reading of The 16th Prasad with some commentary and context provided by SillyMickel Adzema:
The 16th Prasad, \”Accumulating And Dominating\” Of \”The Great Reveal\” By The Planetmates
The Great Reveal by SillyMickel & the PlanetMates 