English Translation of “Une Bande-Annonce…”

The whole letter with which the French post starts is actually more or less, this time expressed in French, what I expressed already before Christmas with my never translated English post, ‘The Hobbit’: A trailer as Christmas gift!’.
The second part of this new French post wasn’t in the original English post, so it is that part I now translate for my English-speaking visitors:

‘A SO PRECIOUS TRAILER’ (SECOND PART OF POST)

After these remarks joyfully springing from my heart while listening to that music and also writing an email to a friend, it occurs to me to add as a follow-up a very appropriate text describing the workshop on ‘The Lord of the Rings” as I propose it under the title ‘The Middle-earth that is within us’:

“The workshop is based upon the Peter Jackson films inspired from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, the magnificent and extremely well-known book by JRR Tolkien, as well as upon that book itself.
The story happens in a past era of terrestrial evolution, not only among the Humans, but also among the various other races, very ancient, nowadays no more to be found, supposedly invented by Tolkien to people a ‘Middle-earth’ entirely born, it was said, from his fertile imagination…
But has all this been only invention and imagination? Or hasn’t it been rather indeed inspiration, revealing times so far in the past that they are usually forgotten?
Another extraordinary fact:  the whole thing gives an astonishingly complete and precise description of all the very real inner world each human being carries actually in herself/himself, usually without realizing it.
Through a deep study of the peoples of Middle-earth, of their respective way of being, of their difficulties, of their conflicts, and of the sincere union which will save them, it is all the various parts of our own being that this study will make us explore, better understand and better recognize in ourselves.
All the main characters, be they monarchs and leaders of those people or on the contrary humble and apparently insignificant folk, will be revealed as the living examples of the inner forces that move us, either to provoke our downfall to an infra-human level, or, if such is our will, our unwavering faith, to accelerate our personal evolution (as well as the collective one) towards higher degrees of consciousness, power and love – a diviner existence, right here in this physical world. For this is the Promise that the Evolutive Force, still at work upon planet Earth, ‘Arda’, just as it was already in the long past times of ‘Middle-earth’, is keeping for us…

Une Bande-Annonce très précieuse

“Chère amie,

comment vas-tu donc?…

Ici l’été est encore très supportable, il y a presque tout le temps une forte brise, je n’utilise toujours pas de ventilateur; à peine croyable, quand on pense qu’on est en Avril déjà!!! 2012 avance vite…
Pour fêter le retour de ma connection internet, après avoir rempli les tâches email et blog les plus urgentes, je me suis mise en vacances en m’octroyant un peu de musique… pour le moment je n’en ai encore pas du tout sur Merveille, alors je me suis rebranchée sur la fameuse bande-annonce du Hobbit envoyée par ma fidèle nièce, et je suis en train d’écouter en boucle le Chant des Nains, “Far over the Misty Mountains cold”… ce n’est pas évident de t’écrire en même temps en Français, mais ce chant superbe est un tel support extérieur pour mon état intérieur, je n’ai pas envie de l’interrompre.
Au début c’est l’acteur Richard Armitage, en tant que leur chef Thorin Oakenshield, qui commence tout seul à chanter; non seulement il est beau (un charme fou!) mais il a une voix absolument incroyable, tout seul comme ça, sans le moindre accompagnement; ce début est si émouvant, je ne m’en lasse pas, chaque fois il me fait le même effet: je me sens soudain un de ces Nains anciens et puissants, à l’orgueil redoutable, certes, mais avec aussi une telle volonté, et un tel amour pour la Beauté divine enfouie au coeur des montagnes sous forme de  métaux précieux et de pierres précieuses, avec cette bande-annonce (et Richard Armitage, plus quelques autres pas mal non plus…!) me voilà tombée amoureuse de ces Nains, chose totalement inattendue et surprenante. Sacré Peter Jackson, tout de même!!! Il a réussi son coup encore une fois, dès ce premier trailer. Moi qui ne m’étais jamais vraiment identifiée à cette race-là parmi toutes celles du monde de Tolkien, voilà qui est fait. Magie, encore une fois, de la musique d’Howard Shore…
Et Tolkien, donc, quel être extraordinaire, qui vivait intérieurement plutôt comme un Hobbit, d’après ses propres dires, mais un Hobbit capable de se mettre aussi intégralement dans la peau d’un Humain normal, ou d’un Ent, ou d’un Elfe… ou encore, justement d’un Nain. Et de nous les faire aimer tous, tout en nous faisant pleinement sentir la différence parfois extrême des manières d’être comme des habitats. C’est encore une fois avec tant de gratitude que je pense à lui…

Bon, alors en ce monde en pleine évolution, je t’envoie mes pensées les plus souriantes et affectueuses, auxquelles j’espère que tu répondras, même brièvement, mais très bientôt!

Bhaga”

Après ces remarques joyeusement jaillies du coeur à l’écoute de cette musique tout en écrivant un email à une amie, il me vient l’idée d’ajouter à la suite un texte tout à fait approprié qui décrit l’atelier sur “Le Seigneur des Anneaux” tel que je le propose sous le titre “La Terre du Milieu qui est en nous”:

“L’atelier est basé sur les films de Peter Jackson tirés du “Seigneur des Anneaux”, le magnifique et célébrissime ouvrage de JRR Tolkien, aussi bien que sur cet ouvrage lui-même.
L’histoire se situe en une ère passée de l’évolution terrestre, non seulement parmi les Humains, mais aussi parmi les différentes autres races, très anciennes, aujourd’hui disparues, théoriquement inventées par Tolkien pour peupler une “Terre du Milieu” entièrement sortie, dit-on, de sa fertile imagination…
Mais tout cela fut-il seulement invention et imagination? Ou ne fut-ce pas plutôt bel et bien inspiration révélatrice de temps si lointains qu’ils sont habituellement oubliés?
De plus, l’ensemble nous donne une description étonnamment complète et précise de tout le très réel monde intérieur que chaque être humain porte en fait en lui-même, le plus souvent sans s’en rendre compte.
A travers une étude approfondie des peuples de la Terre du Milieu, de leur manière d’être respective, de leurs difficultés, de leurs conflits, et de l’union sincère qui les sauvera, ce sont toutes les différentes parties de notre propre être que cette étude nous fera explorer, mieux comprendre et mieux discerner en nous-mêmes.
Tous les personnages principaux, souverains et leaders de ces peuples ou au contraire humbles et apparemment insignifiants, vont se révéler être les vivants exemples des forces intérieures qui nous animent, soit pour provoquer notre chute à un niveau infra-humain, soit, si telle est notre volonté, notre foi inébranlable, pour accélérer notre évolution personnelle (et collective tout à la fois) vers de plus hauts degrés de conscience, de pouvoir et d’amour – une existence plus divine, ici-même, dans ce monde physique. Car telle est la Promesse que nous réserve la Force Evolutive toujours à l’oeuvre sur la planète Terre, “Arda”, tout comme elle l’était déjà à l’époque lointaine de la “Terre du Milieu”…

Tolkien: Une Mythologie Inspirée, pour l’Angleterre

Traduction française de l’article précédent

25 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment

by Bhaga in ATLANTIS IN OUR LIVES, CONTEMPORARY BOOKS & FILMS, THE NEW EVOLUTIVE STEP, TOLKIEN & HIS EVOLUTIVE VISION [Edit]

Deutsch: Von 1930 bis 1947 lebten die Tolkiens in der Northmoor Road 20 in Oxford (England). English: Photograph of the building at 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford, England, former home of the author J. R. R. Tolkien (1930 - 1947). Español: Fotografía del edificio del 20 de Northmoor Road, en Oxford (Inglaterra), hogar del escritor J. R. R. Tolkien de 1930 a 1947. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grâce à une remarque exprimée dans un commentaire par une visiteuse régulière, à propos de mon article récent sur “Le Hobbit”, je me suis rendue compte que bon nombre de gens croient encore que  “Le Seigneur des Anneaux” est une allégorie représentant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale.

Il est important que cette croyance disparaisse, alors je mets en évidence sous forme d’article nouveau les réponses que j’ai données à cette remarque erronée:
Mar 24, 2012 @ 15:18:11 [Edit]

C’est une complète idée fausse qui a amené certains critiques à penser et à affirmer avec autorité que “Le Seigneur de Anneaux” est une description de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Ce n’est pas le cas, et ça ne l’a jamais été.
1/L’histoire était déjà présente dans l’esprit de JRRT longtemps avant cette guerre, et une bonne partie était déjà écrite avant même que cette guerre ne commence. L’étrange vérité est que ce fut l’inverse:

Tolkien lui-même, aussi bien que son meilleur ami à l’époque, C.S. Lewis, l’une des seules personnes à avoir lu le manuscrit non fini mais déjà existant du “Seigneur des Anneaux”, furent tous deux stupéfaits de voir l’histoire écrite par Tolkien commencer à devenir l’horrible réalité, aussi dans ce monde-ci, supposé être la Réalité Première.

Tolkien a maintes fois souligné ce fait pour corriger cette idée fausse, cependant il y a encore trop de gens qui croient cela, sur la base d’une simple supposition.
Même chose pour l’affirmation par certains que l’Anneau n’est qu’une métaphore pour ceci ou cela.
Tolkien haïssait les allégories, c’était la pire chose que vous puissiez lui dire à propos du “Seigneur des Anneaux”, que c’était une allégorie pour ceci ou pour cela. C’est exactement le contraire: cette histoire a une éternelle vérité derrière elle, si profonde que beaucoup des situations rencontrées dans la “vie réelle” semblent calquées sur elle…
2/Probablement la date de publication elle aussi conduit à l’erreur: 1954 pour les deux premiers volumes, et 1955 pour le troisième, peuvent  donner l’impression que le texte également doit avoir été écrit juste avant ces dates, alors qu’en réalité, à cause des multiples responsabilités professionnelles de JRRT prenant tout son temps, il lui a fallu de 1938 à quelques années plus tard pour écrire la majeure partie, et la fin a dû attendre 1948 pour être finalement terminée. Et alors le résultat était un si gros livre, en cette après-guerre d’appauvrissement général aucun éditeur n’osait s’attaquer à un tel monstre, si bien que c’est seulement à ces dates plut tardives, et en trois volumes, qu’enfin les éditeurs Allen & Unwin acceptèrent de lui donner une chance…

A ces réponses copiées ci-dessus je veux ajouter l’importante observation d’ensemble suivante:

Ce qu’on devrait toujours garder présent à l’esprit, c’est que depuis son enfance même, et pour toute  la suite de sa vie, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien abritait en lui-même un profond lien intérieur avec le passé lointain de la Terre (voir mon article bien antérieur sur ses  “souvenirs lointains” d’Atlantis) et une totale fascination pour mythologies et langages, et la corrélation qu’il découvrit  instinctivement entre ces deux expressions essentielles de toute culture.

C’est cette passion innée (aussi pour les dragons…) brûlant inextinguible en lui qui le conduisit à devenir un philologiste une fois adulte, et non pas l’inverse comme on pourrait l’imaginer: il eut la chance de pouvoir convertir ce qui était son véritable intérêt principal, en le meilleur équivalent possible en tant que carrière académique: la Philologie.

Mais bien que son travail de Recherche et d’Enseignement lui ait valu grande appréciation et renom, en vérité il n’était pas tellement un intellectuel qu’un artiste, un poète, quelqu’un qui vivait dans le monde extérieur, certes, mais avec tout le temps aussi la dimension secrète,  à la richesse débordante, de son propre monde intérieur, le monde créé – ou recréé – par son imagination personnelle ou ses souvenirs concrets, et son ardente aspiration pour un monde physique meilleur, rendu plus parfait.

En une personnalité si intense, il n’est pas étonnant de trouver dès le plus jeune âge le besoin d’exprimer ce monde intérieur par le medium dont il était le plus amoureux et pour lequel il était le plus doué: les mots, mots dont le son même était pour lui musique, et qui pour lui évoquaient histoires et hauts faits des civilisations entières qui avaient parlé ces anciennes langues, maintenant oubliées, dont ces mots faisaient partie.

Nous ne devrions jamais oublier que, jeune adulte, avec trois autres idéalistes, ses amis les plus proches parmi les autres étudiants, JRRT prononça le voeu solennel d’écrire pour leur chère patrie, l’Angleterre, la Mythologie qu’elle n’avait pas, ou n’avait plus, après tant de siècles d’invasion par des cultures étrangères venues d’autres pays.

La mort de deux de ces amis pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale reporta les espoirs du troisième sur celui d’entre eux tous qui était le plus capable de réaliser leur rêve commun: Tolkien.  Et en effet, au beau milieu des horribles tranchées boueuses de la Première Guerre Mondiale, JRRT avait déjà commencé à écrire de magnifiques histoires d’un lointain passé oublié où de hauts et puissants héros, Elfes et Humains, dans leur cités de pierres précieuses, avaient combattu de terribles êtres maléfiques, à l’origine et aux pouvoirs surnaturels, qui voulaient dominer leur monde, notre planète Terre elle-même, mais telle qu’ elle était en cette époque très reculée et dans sa partie centrale, la “Terre du Milieu”, où vivaient les espèces les plus importantes, qui depuis longtemps ne sont plus.

Pendant des dizaines d’années Tolkien oeuvra en secret à ces histoires et à sa propre version de la Genèse, le commencement de tout, avec tout d’abord la création du monde physique, à laquelle participèrent des dieux et déesses assez semblables à ceux des mythologies paîennes, mais avec cette différence majeure que dans le mythe de Tolkien  ils étaient eux-mêmes des émanations de Eru, “L’Un”, tous invités à participer chacun et chacune à sa manière pour faire de l’Univers et en particulier de la Terre, “Arda”, un lieu habitable pour les Enfants d’Eru qui viendraient plus tard: Elfes et Hommes, et aussi Ents et Nains… et un jour cette petite sous-espèce des Humains, si intéressante, les Hobbits.

Pour Tolkien lui-même toutes ces histoires bien-aimées mais pas encore publiées constituaient l’indispensable toile de fond et étaient tout aussi importantes que les histoires plus récentes qui, elles, avaient été publiées, d’abord “Le Hobbit”, puis sa continuation qui devint “Le Seigneur des Anneaux”, incluant maintenant les amusants mais aussi fort importants nouveaux-venus, les Hobbits – mais tout cela dans la totalité plus vaste, plus complète, fournie par les histoires plus anciennes. L’ensemble que formaient ces histoires anciennes, il l’appelait “Le Silmarillion”, car elles parlaient des Silmarils et de la Lumière divine encore pure qu’ils contenaient, en ce Premier Age d’Arda.

Tolkien essaya en vain d’obtenir que son cher “Silmarillion” soit publié en même temps que “Le Seigneur des Anneaux”, mais les éditeurs sentirent que le grand public n’allait pas vraiment apprécier ces histoires héroîques plus austères et plus épiques, et serait déçu de ne pas y trouver le moindre Hobbit; si bien que c’est seulement après la mort de Tolkien que son rêve de publier “Le Silmarillion” fut enfin réalisé, par son dernier fils, Christopher, qui avait toujours été  le plus proche de lui pour ce qui concernait ses écrits non-académiques.

C’est seulement quand, après de nombreuses années, j’ai lu “Le Silmarillion”, que j’ai pleinement mesuré la vastitude et profondeur incroyables qui imprègnent aussi “Le Hobbit” et “Le Seigneur des Anneaux” dans la vision totale que leur auteur avait de ces histoires quand il les écrivit: la vision d’une Mythologie de toute beauté, non seulement pour l’Angleterre, mais aussi pour la Terre.

Après cela j’ai aussi lu la “Biographie de Tolkien” par Humphrey Carpenter, et finalement les “Lettres” de Tolkien lui-même, et plus je lisais et plus grandissaient mon respect et mon admiration pour Tolkien en tant qu’être humain, qui intuitivement avait atteint une si extraordinaire compréhension de l’Evolution, de son But divin et du Résultat qu’elle va accomplir, … une impossibilité, semblait-il au départ…

Tolkien’s Inspired Mythology for England

Deutsch: Von 1930 bis 1947 lebten die Tolkiens in der Northmoor Road 20 in Oxford (England). English: Photograph of the building at 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford, England, former home of the author J. R. R. Tolkien (1930 - 1947). Español: Fotografía del edificio del 20 de Northmoor Road, en Oxford (Inglaterra), hogar del escritor J. R. R. Tolkien de 1930 a 1947. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thanks to a passing remark in the comment  by a regular visitor about my recent post on ‘The Hobbit’, I realized that a number of people still believe ‘The Lord of the Rings” to be an allegory of World War II.

It is important that this belief is dispelled, so I am bringing out here as a new post, first the answers I made to that comment:
Mar 24, 2012 @ 15:18:11 [Edit]

It is a total misconception that led some critics to think and then authoritatively say that LOTR is about WWII. It is not, and has never been.
1/It was already fully in JRRT’s mind long before WWII, and most of it was actually written before WWII even started. The strange truth is, it was the other way around:
Both himself and his then best friend CS Lewis, one of the only few persons to have read the ongoing, but already existing manuscript of LOTR, were astonished to see how WWII started unfolding, as if Tolkien’s story was horribly becoming the current reality of this ‘primary’ world too.
Tolkien has written many times to point that fact out and correct the mistake in people’s minds, but still too many believe as you do because of that wrong assumption.
Same thing for the affirmation by some that the Ring was a metaphor for this, that or the other.
Tolkien hated allegories, and it was the worst thing you could tell him about LOTR, that it stood as an allegory for this or that. It is exactly the contrary: the story has a deep, eternal truth behind it, so that makes many situations we know in ‘real life’ resemble it…
2/Probably the publishing date too is misleading: 1954 for the first two volumes, and 1955 for the third volume, may give the impression that the writing too must have been done just before those dates, while in reality, due to JRRT’s endless various professional duties eating up all his time, the actual writing took him from 1938 to a few years later, with the ending having to wait till 1948 to get at last written down. And then it was such a big book, just after the impoverishing war no editor would take up such a monster, so it is only in those later years and in three volumes that Allen & Unwin finally agreed to give it a try…

To the answers copied above, I want to add the following important overall observation:

What should always be kept in mind is that  from his very childhood on, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien harboured in himself a deep inner link with the far past of the Earth (see my much earlier post on his ‘far memories’ of Atlantis) and a total fascination for mythologies and languages and the correlation he instinctively discovered between those two as the essential expressions of any given culture.

It is this innate passion (for dragons too…) burning forever in him that led him to become a philologist as an adult, and not the other way around as people may imagine: he was lucky enough to be able to convert what was his genuinely central interest into the best possible equivalent he could find as a career in the academic world: Philology.

But although his research and teaching work in that field  earned him much appreciation and renown, in truth he was not so much an academic as an artist, a poet, someone who lived in the outer world all right, but with all the time also the secret dimension and overflowing richness of his own inner world as well, the world created – or recreated – by his own imagination or actual memories, and his ardent aspiration for a better, perfected outer world.

In such an intense personality, it is not surprising to find from an early age the need to express that inner world through the  medium he was most in love with and gifted for: words, words whose very sound would be like music to him, and would evoke for him stories and deeds of entire civilizations that spoke the ancient, forgotten languages those words belonged to.

We should never forget that as a young adult, together with three other idealists who were his closest friends among the other students, JRRT made the vow of writing for their cherished country, England, the Mythology it didn’t have, or didn’t have any more after having been invaded for so long by foreign cultures from other lands.

The death of two of his friends during WWI put the hopes of the third entirely on the one who, of them all, was the most truly capable of realizing their shared dream:  Tolkien.  And indeed, right in the horrible, muddy trenches of WWI, JRRT had already started writing beautiful stories of long past high deeds by tall, strong forgotten Elvish and Human heroes in their great gemlike cities, pitted against terrible dark lords of supernatural origin and power who wanted to dominate their world, our very own planet Earth, but as it was in those very ancient times, and in the central part, ‘Middle-earth’, where the main species dwelt then, who since long are no more.

For decades Tolkien worked secretly on those stories and on his own Genesis-like tale of the beginnings of it all, starting with the creation of the physical world, with gods and goddesses similar in many ways to those of pagan mythologies, but with the major difference that in Tolkien’s myth they themselves were emanations of Eru, “The One”, all invited to participate each one in his or her own way in making the Universe and particularly the Earth, ‘Arda’, habitable for the further Children of Eru that would come later: Elves and Men, but also Ents and Dwarves… and, down the line, this most interesting subspecies of Men, the Hobbits.

For Tolkien himself, all those beloved but yet unpublished first tales constituted the indispensable overall background and were as important as those later tales that got published, first ‘The Hobbit” and then the continuation of it that became ‘The Lord of the Rings’, including now the funny and also very meaningful role played by the newly-found Hobbits, but all within the enlarged, fuller context provided by the older stories. As a whole he called those older stories ‘The Silmarillion’, for they told of the Silmarils and of the still pure divine Light they contained, in that First Age of Arda.

Tolkien tried in vain to have his dear ‘Silmarillion’ published at the same time as ‘The Lord of the Rings’, but the editors felt the public wouldn’t appreciate those more austere and epic tales with no Hobbits yet in them, so it is only after Tolkien’s death that his dream of having ‘The Silmarillion’ published was at last realized, by his youngest son Christopher, ever the closest to him regarding his writings.

It is only when, after many years, I read ‘The Silmarillion’, that I fully measured the incredible vastness and depth underlying  also ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in the total vision their author had had of them while writing them: a most beautiful Mythology not only for England, but actually for the Earth.

Then I read also the biography of Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter, and finally JRRT’s own ‘Letters’ as well, and the more I read the more grew my respect and admiration for Tolkien the human being, who intuitively reached such an extraordinary understanding of Evolution, its divine Purpose and the divine Result it will achieve, that seemed an utter impossibility…

The Berber Cravings in Me

For a long time, whenever I observed from which cultural, linguistic and racial background I had chosen to be born this time around, I could see easily the inner reasons for most of the various factors involved in the specific mixture that’s my current ‘me’, but not for why I had chosen to go be born, of all possible places, especially in Algiers, Algeria (then still part of France) My parents were sent there only for a short while – but that was nevertheless during that short while that I decided to make my new entrance back on Earth.
I never could identify inwardly any far roots of mine that would have justified such a choice of a North African country as my birth place.
Until I looked a little backwards in my life and realized I always absolutely craved couscous; and every time I have gone back to France since 1972 when I started living in India, the first thing I have done was to eat a good couscous. I am the only member of the family like that. The others like couscous, yes, but they don’t crave it as I do; they find me a bit queer for that, but they shrug their shoulders with an indulgent smile, and that’s it.
Another tell tale sign found in my memories is the complete fascination with which I read as a teenager a book by well-known French explorer and writer, Roger Frison-Roche, about a tribe of Touareg in the Sahara desert. I don’t know anymore the title or what the story was, but I went in a kind of trance reading that book, so deeply I identified with the young Targuia woman and her tribe in that book.

But it is only recently – more or less since the ‘Arab Spring’ started – that this aspect of my larger Me has been stirring my adult present life. For one thing, I was wondering if that other lifetime knew me as an Arab or a Berber. Suddenly, although all the Arab people who were out there claiming a freer, more normal life, without tyrants, had all my sympathy and support, still I felt clearly that Arab wasn’t the same thing as Berber, and that as far as I was concerned I was a Berber.
This brought back to my consciousness the research I have already done some time ago, that I put up on this very blog as one of my very first posts, where the Berbers were mentioned as apparently among the remnants of the Atlantis population, survivors of the final catastrophe or the previous smaller ones, who had emigrated to the various coastal regions all around the Atlantic Ocean where their big island/continent of origin had finally sunk. I remembered the salient points in the articles I had found in my research:
- Berber is not at all the same thing as Arab
- Origins different, language different, all very ancient, rare blood-type and genes
- ‘Atlas’ Mountains, a name reminiscent  of Atlantis, just like the ‘Altai’ Mountains of Siberia.

Moved by a renewed impulse, I again did just a few days ago another bit of research about the Berbers, and I found the following article:

DNA EVIDENCE FOR ATLANTIS (by Will Hart, 2006.05.21) http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/05may/atlantisDNA.html

In recent years, genetic research has produced unexpected results that have opened the doors to many historical mysteries. The surprising outcomes have also provoked unintended controversy. The reasons that these DNA investigations have sparked intense debates in the fields of anthropology, history and even cultural evolution will become clear as our story unfolds.

The genetic probes began innocently enough with geneticists wanting to see what secrets human genes might reveal about our complex, mysterious and often disputed history. Anthropologists and historians had long thought that the America’s had been populated by Asians crossing a land bridge that connected Asia and North America during the last Ice Age. This was referred to as the ‘Bering Strait Crossing’ theory and was believed to have occurred about 12,000 years ago.

Genetic analysis on Native American DNA samples began in the 1980s. However, the research effort greatly accelerated in the 1990s due to rapid technological progress in the field. In fact, the early results confirmed the generally accepted theory showing a clear link between Native Americans and DNA samples collected from native peoples in Siberian-Asia. Nevertheless, as the studies both deepened and broadened to include Asians across the continent, the increasing data revealed that the migration pattern had been more complex than anthropologist’s had envisioned.

The early results showed that Native American tribes were comprised of four distinct mtDNA haplogroups, A, B, C, and D. The haplogroup designations represent four different (maternal) lineages. These four lineages are found throughout North, Central and South America. However, only three of them A, C, and D were discovered in the Siberian-Asian populations. The B haplogroup was traced to aboriginal population groups in Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Melanesia, and Polynesia.

Before proceeding we should briefly clarify what mtDNA is. There are two types of genetic material used for analysis, cellular and mtDNA, the latter is found in human mitochondria outside the nucleus of cells and is only transferred down generations through females, hence mtDNA stands for maternal DNA. This type is simpler than the cellular DNA and it evolves faster,so it is used to distinguish human groups that evolved in separate geographic areas.

In historical terms, what the genetic evidence obtained from mtDNA samples translated into was a much more diverse and complex migration pattern that included people arriving to the America’s in boats. Thor Heyerdahl had hypothesized that this was the case by showing that it was possible during his Kon Tiki expeditions across the Pacific Ocean to Peru.

While orthodox anthropologists embraced the results of the earliest DNA findings, the later results caused consternation and controversy. They not only showed that the Americas were settled by many different racial groups coming from many different parts of Asia, the genetic findings also demonstrated that the migration events took place much earlier than previously thought.

Anthropologists, archaeologists and historians had postulated that the migrations had taken place less than 20,000 years ago. DNA analysis placed the initial wave of migration at between 38-50,000 years before present. This finding too raised eyebrows in the orthodox community. However, in recent years radiocarbon dated materials from South America, California and the Southwestern United States has come to light and the dates agree with the conclusions of the DNA research.

Clearly, the genetic investigations had produced a mixed bag of outcomes for orthodox anthropologists and historians. In general, their long held theories about a north Asian origin for Native American populations were proven correct. Nevertheless, their narrow focus on Siberia, the single land-bridge migration route and their chronology had been in error. Some of the Asian immigrants did come from Siberia along that route but other groups came from Japan, Polynesia, etc., in boats and their journeys began in remote antiquity.

Genetic researchers determined that 96% of Native Americans fell into one of the four A-D haplogroups and while these mtDNA types were also found in Asia they are not present in Europe or Africa. This too indicates that Asia was the ancestral region of most Native American tribes. Then in 1997 another lineage was discovered, which geneticists dubbed X. This discovery ignited a storm of controversy that has not died down to this day. The X haplogroup needs careful,thoughtful, and deep historical analysis because this group may well hold one of the most important keys to unlocking the secrets of our collective past.

Obviously about 4 percent of Native Americans, from Alaska to the tip of South America, do not fall into one of the four major haplogroups. Scientists assumed that these minority lineages came from interactions with European and African groups since the time of Columbus. This proved to be true for about 1.5% of Native Americans however 2.5% were found to belong to the X lineage. Once this small mtDNA group was identified as a distinct genetic type, the race was on to ascertain their place of origin.

This is where the mystery really gets complicated and interesting. In spite of the fact that the previous genetic data was forcing the orthodoxy to make some alterations in their migration scheme and chronology, as we saw their basic paradigm had been confirmed. But the discovery of the X haplogroup changed that situation dramatically. It was known to exist in Europe in about 5% of the population and unknown in Asia and Africa at the time. The X lineage was ascertained to have arrived in the Americas from about 38,000 to 10,000 years ago. What could this mean?

At first anthropologists argued that since Europeans had not traveled across the Atlantic at such a remote point in time the X group had to be the outcome of post Columbus contact and intermarriage. However when researchers analyzed ancient DNA samples, found in the Great Lakes (Mound Builder) region, which dated back long before Columbus they identified some of the samples as belonging to the X group. This proved they were not the outcome of any post-Columbus contact and were not of recent origin.

When investigators compiled the genetic data on the distribution of the X haplogroup in the America’s what they discovered sent shock waves through the conventional and alternative history camps. The X lineage was only found in a handful of tribes scattered across the country, the Yakima and Sioux in the northwest and the Navajo in the southwest, in about 5% of their populations. However, the greatest concentrations by far occurred in the Ojibway, Oneota and Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribes where almost 25% of the tribal members fell into the X lineage.

Moreover, the vast majority of tribes contained no X members. In fact, it was not found in any native tribes in Central or South America. Again, what did these patterns mean? Independent researchers associated with the Edgar Cayce Association (A.R.E.) quickly pointed out that the data supported some of the material found in the Atlantis readings that the ‘sleeping prophet’ had given in the 1930s. Cayce noted that some Atlantis refugees had immigrated to the northeastern region of the United States and later formed the Iroquois nation. It was in those tribes that the highest concentration of the X haplogroup was found.

The Cayce readings also claimed that some of these refugees went to the American southwest and others migrated to the Mound Builder region and formed that civilization. Odd that his psychic information would so closely parallel the distribution pattern of the X lineage. Cayce had also given the dates that these migrations had occurred and they too agreed with the DNA findings. The plot was surely thickening in a most fascinating way. If the story stopped here it would be enough to hold interest and provoke thought however it goes farther, much farther.

The apparent widespread presence of the X lineage across what is now known as the United States appears to show a wide initial dispersal. One could postulate a west-east migration of this haplogroup from Siberian Asia. But that scenario poses two serious obstacles:1) the greatest concentration of this group is found in the northeastern region of the United States and 2) X is virtually absent in Asia.

Like a good detective novel, all of the clues had not been uncovered in the late 1990s when the X group had been identified and was being hotly debated. Geneticists pressed forward and launched a probe into the Altai tribe located in the Gobi desert and found the X lineage in small numbers. This is the only population in Asia that exhibits this haplogroup and as such they comprise a tiny, isolated genetic island. Orthodox anthropologists were elated when the news reached their ears. They seized on this finding as smoking gun proof that the X group in North America had its ancestral roots in Siberian Asia, end of story.

To say that this was an unscientific rush to a final conclusion that just happened to agree with their long held beliefs is an understatement. Let us pause and use logic and commonsense and try to walk through what we are being asked to accept. The Gobi Desert is about 8,000 miles from the northeastern section of the United States. We are being told that this tribe trekked that distance and transferred their genes from their ancestral homeland to the Great Lakes without depositing the X group genes in any other part of Asia, Alaska, Canada, and the region between Washington and the Northeast America.

Everyone agrees that any such migration would have taken place during the harshest of conditions since the Ice Age still held this entire region in its frigid grip. Furthermore, we are being asked to suspend our disbelief raised by the notion that a tiny tribe trekked these vast distances across a frozen landscape for unknown reasons. Why would any small tribe risk everything and wander half way around the globe during an ice age when they did not know what lay beyond the next horizon? In fact, anthropologists and historians know that this is not the way human tribes have operated since the dawn of time.

On February 16, 1932 Cayce related some information during a reading that is extraordinarily cogent to this unfolding genetic mystery story. When asked about the position of the continent of Atlantis he replied:

“The position the continent Atlantis occupied, is that as between the Gulf of Mexico on the one hand – and the Mediterranean upon the other. Evidences of this lost civilization are to be found in the Pyrenees and Morocco on the one hand, British Honduras, Yucatan and America upon the other.”

Now, we must pick up the trail of clues on the other side of the Atlantic. Let us keep in mind that when Cayce gave this reading DNA had not yet been discovered and there was no such thing as mtDNA analysis. Nevertheless, he mentioned “evidences” in two specific locales, the Pyrenees, a mountain range sandwiched in between France and Spain where the Basques live, and Morocco where another ancient group, the Berbers resides. Astonishingly, these two populations contain the highest frequencies of the X lineage found in Europe and North Africa.

The Basques have long puzzled anthropologists, linguists and historians because, although they are Caucasian they do not fit in with the rest of the European populations. Their language is not related to any other tongue in the world. Prior to the advent of genetic research tools investigators used the ABO blood groups to study the relationships between human populations as well as their migration patterns. The Basques turned out to be unique in terms of blood types as well. As a population they contain the highest levels of Rh- ‘O’ negative blood in the world and among the lowest type B.

Now, what Cayce was suggesting is that some of the people that fled the sinking continent went west and settled and became the Iroquois. Others went east to the Iberian Peninsula then the Pyrenees (Basques), and the West Coast of North Africa then the Atlas Mountains (Berbers). Turning to the Berbers we find yet another group that contains the highest frequency of haplogroup X in the world. Is it a coincidence that these disparate peoples share a very rare mtDNA lineage?

It is unfortunate that the Berbers have never received much attention from science over the years. Here we have a Caucasian race living in North Africa of all places. Anthropologists dismissed them because they did not fit well into the ‘Out of Africa’ scenario and it was assumed that they had back immigrated southward from somewhere in Europe. However, that theory has been abandoned and scientists now accept the fact that they are an indigenous people, which they believe go back to the Stone Age. But how can this be we must ask since the rest of the continent below the Sahara is black African?

The research work is done by my mind with great interest; but, still stronger and urgent and real in me at the moment is that craving for couscous… about which then I couldn’t help but do some research as well in the last few days.

My findings?… Gloriously confirming my intuitive feelings:

Yes, although it has spread now to most other populations of the Maghreb too, and although nowadays most people think couscous is a dish from the Arabs, actually it is not: it is in fact originally a Berber dish. I was so happy when I found that out!… My so specific, strange cravings were vindicated!!! They indeed linked me back to this Berber person in my larger Me who was starting to make herself so vividly felt in my present life.

So, as I am not these days traveling at all any more, I have decided to honor that Berber in me right here where my present personality lives, and to find some place right here, in nearby Pondy perhaps, where I can eat something like couscous.

As soon as I took that decision I discovered there was such a place in Auroville itself: every Tuesday for lunch in that little restaurant they are serving couscous!… It happened to be precisely a Tuesday when I phoned them to inquire, so I went there the very same day, and had at last my first couscous in years. Aaaaah!… It was not fully satisfying, as the real couscous semolina is expensive here, so they put ordinary semolina instead, and they do it vegetarian, and if the chick peas are there the raisins are missing, but still, it was very close to real couscous, and I rejoiced greatly eating it. It felt somehow like coming back to life!… Unbelievable.

Now is Monday night; all this was happening last week; I am eagerly waiting for tomorrow lunch again, for it will be Tuesday again and I can go there again and have couscous again!… I’ll bring the raisins.

I’m so grateful to the Divine Grace that even such a trivial need is being somewhat fulfilled right where I am; and I think some even better solutions are going to appear out of the blue to enable me to eat a better and better couscous as time passes…

Wimbledon, Tolkien, & Strawberries with Cream

The yearly Wimbledon Tennis Championship has ended yesterday, on the apotheosis that materialized the long-dreamed-for victory of now grown little Serb boy Novak Djokovic,  freshly announced Number One player in the world just before the match (good timing!…). Not only his family and friends but a whole nation and culture stood in ovation and proud celebration, represented by the about thirty Serbs that were there, clapping their hands and dancing in small groups with tears of joy on their cheeks. The Spanish Camp had been strongly present too, to encourage the defending Champion and ex-Number One, ‘their’ champion: Rafael Nadal.

Like everybody who loves Tennis and couldn’t be there, I have been glued to my TV every evening for the last fifteen days, and I have watched with emotion shared with millions of others the ascension day after day of the future two finalists, the Spaniard and the Serb, each with his whole background and people behind him, on the stands and beyond.

But when I now look back at the fifteen-day event, I see that what will remain my most vivid and significant memory of that 2011 Wimbledon Tournament is… England.

Yes, England, as symbolized by Wimbledon itself, its lawns, its spells of rain in mid-games (except now on Central Court!), its tradition of white tennis clothes still observed by all participants, its ‘Postcards from London’, every day a different usually old and famous place or monument… and this year, even its strawberries with cream!…

Perhaps they are there to be eaten actually every year, but this year for the first time they were shown right on screen again and again along with everything more ‘serious’ also included in their Introduction clip by the Wimbledon Organizing Committee.

When those strawberries with cream suddenly appeared, there in that clip, my eyes nearly went out of their sockets and my heart missed a beat: not only did they look so appetizing you really wished you could be there (especially when, like I do, you live in South India), but they also instantly brought up in me the memory of the certainly most moving strawberries with cream I know of: those in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ and in the last of the three films made from it by Peter Jackson.
Strawberries with cream are mentioned indeed in the most unlikely place and at the most unlikely moment by this dear Hobbit, Sam, on the hell-like slopes of Mount Doom, at the very heart of Sauron’s kingdom, Mordor, when Sam’s beloved master and friend, Frodo, slowly annihilated by Sauron’s evil Ring he has accepted to wear in order to destroy it there, finally falls and just lies on the hard and arid ground, half-dead, incapable of getting up again, although they are only a few hundred more meters from their goal.

In sheer desperation, not knowing what to do to shake off the exhaustion and deadly prostration of Frodo, Sam sits beside him and takes him in his arms like he would an ailing child. Speaking to him softly he tries to bring him back to life through whatever words and images come to him, that evoke normal and happy life as all Hobbits know it in normal circumstances; and of course it has to do with good food, fresh grown good food like Hobbits know how to grow it: with their innate love for growing things, be it plants or children. Hobbits are specialists in one art only: the art of enjoying life and the simple pleasures it can give you, like home-brewed ale in big mugs, smoking-weed in long pipes, and all other good-tasting produce of their nicely tended fields and gardens.

Frodo is more the ‘intellectual’ Hobbit somehow, refined, learned, reading books etc; while Sam, his gardener, although he too loves the Elves, Gandalf, and beautiful stories, is truly a gardener, perhaps the finest gardener in the whole Shire. He has probably brought many times to Frodo (and good old Bilbo when he was still there) the most utterly delicious strawberries with cream one can imagine, and it is most probably for himself too one of the utmost delights one can exist for. So when trying to conjure up the most tantalizing and revitalizing evocations for Frodo to get again some grip on life, it is strawberries with cream that come up in Sam’s consciousness. In the dreadful, nightmarish context they actually are in, seen all around them, and in the terrible inner and outer condition, rather nightmarish too, that Frodo obviously is in as well, those words of simple and sweet life become so poignant, tears come to one’s eyes. So great is the contrast between their present reality and that other reality, almost forgotten by now, that Sam is valiantly trying to bring back in themselves, one is really hit hard with their present misery. And one realizes how fragile human life is, and tears well up from our heart when we see how precious and essential for our lives can be simple dear things like strawberries with cream.

Alas, even that isn’t enough to reconnect poor Frodo with his own life-energy, and finally Sam will have to carry him over his shoulder to cover the last distance still separating them from the crater’s entrance.

By then, Frodo has no inner power left to reject the Ring and instead gives in to it, so all seems to be utterly lost. But these two have truly done their utmost against impossible odds, so the Divine Grace intervenes and they see the malefic Ring unexpectedly destroyed at the last moment, then themselves saved from the erupting volcano, and against all hope find themselves finally riding back to the Shire… just in time to cleanse it, together with Merry and Pippin, from the ‘shirriffs’ now in place, at the service of Saruman, alias Sharkey. Peace and normal life are reestablished in their country.

Then only is it time for Sam to use the precious, wonderful gifts received from Lady Galadriel, for repairing as much as possible the horrible destruction of trees etc (including the Party Tree!) done by the ruffians in their absence.

The results of his work I will be able to reveal to you in all their splendor thanks to the amused and pleased description that Tolkien (himself an avowed Hobbit by temperament) has fun giving us, of the Year 1420, which will make of Sam, the future Mayor, a most illustrious Hobbit as per the Annals of the Shire:

“Spring surpassed his wildest hopes. His trees began to sprout and grow, as if time was in a hurry and wished to make one year do for twenty. In the Party Field a beautiful young sapling leaped up: it had silver bark and long leaves and burst into golden flowers in April. It was indeed a mallorn, and it was the wonder of the neighborhood. In after years, as it grew in grace and beauty, it was known far and wide and people would come long journeys to see it: the only mallorn west of the Mountains and east of the Sea, and one of the finest in the world.

Altogether 1420 in the Shire was a marvellous year. Not only was there wonderful sunshine and delicious rain, in due times and perfect measure, but there seemed something more: an air of richness and growth, and a gleam of a beauty beyond that of mortal summers that flicker and pass upon this Middle-earth. All the children born or begotten in that year, and there were many, were fair to see and strong, and most of them had a rich golden hair that had before been rare among hobbits. The fruit was so plentiful that young hobbits were nearly bathed in strawberries with cream; and later they sat on the lawns under the plum-trees and ate, until they had made piles of stones like small  pyramids or the heaped skulls of a conqueror, and then they moved on. And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass.

In the Southfarthing the vines were laden, and the yield of ‘leaf’ was astonishing; and everywhere there was so much corn that at Harvest every barn was stuffed. The Northfarthing barley was so fine that the beer of 1420 malt was long remembered and became a byword. Indeed a generation later one might hear an old gaffer in an inn, after a good pint of well-earned ale, put down his mug with a sigh: ‘Ah! that was proper fourteen-twenty, that was!’”

Right in the middle of the above description were mentioned, if you have noticed, our strawberries with cream – which made this very special quote a must in this post dedicated to this specific food item as a true English tradition: an essential part and symbol of the sweetness and pleasantness of summertime in England.

It is because of Tolkien’s passionate love for his country, England, that were gradually born the vast ensemble of stories, among which ‘The Silmarillion’, ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’, that took place in ‘Middle-earth’ during a remote and forgotten past of our Earth, in a different evolutive era preceding ours. Let’s thank the dear Professor for these wonderful and inspiring Tales where his genius has put together, just like now they do at Wimbledon too, not only the high and impressive and heroic deeds, but also the strawberries with cream…

Hobbits would definitely put more cream here!

To Greece… and my other Far Roots

New Journey! In addition to my current Yoga Journeys in Costa Rica, here is the preview of my new Journey to…. GREECE!

Combine a discovery of Athens, Epidaurus, Delphi and the Greek Islands with a journey of discovery within yourself!

So goes the announcement sent to me recently by the friend of mine who is organizing this ‘Journey’… This was my reply to her:

‘Thank you for this very nice and cheerful announcement message! My very best wishes to all those who will participate, and particularly to you of course, dear Janine!

Bhaga

PS: Something in me would like very much to go physically to Greece and all those beautiful places there where I lived in at least one other lifetime, and about which I taught in this lifetime as a young teacher in the Classics (Greek, Latin and French literature), without ever a chance to physically go there again. But it is not a real need, I’ll just be as happy if I can see some pictures of all the beauty there when you all come back…  Thank you in advance!‘

Yes, the temptation is there to go back and experience the places again…  in Greece, in Egypt, in Palestine, in the high stones of Macchu Picchu, in the Siberian Altai Mountains, among the nomad Berbers in the Atlas Mountains, under Native America teepees, and in ‘Douce France’ too, where I had several lifetimes, be it in a castle or in a poor peasant home… Some nostalgia is definitely there sometimes of the countries in themselves: their atmosphere,  their cherished landscapes, their familiar animals and plants, the very land one has walked, the air one has breathed, the bright or cloudy sky one has looked at, the rivers or the sea one enjoyed swimming in…

But in our modern times it is anyway not the same any more, the pilgrimages are most often disappointing…

And after all, is not the present lifetime the most important one to live now as fully and consciously as possible?…

This is why spiritual masters in general, like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, didn’t speak much to their disciples about other lifetimes they themselves had had, or the disciples – unless for some special reason it was important for someone to be told or to remember about a specific lifetime, or a precise moment in it, in relation to the present lifetime.

Does one gain anything actually, for one’s overall individual evolution, from knowing about one’s other lifetimes?…

In my own experience at least, there is a big difference between being told about having lived here or there at this or that time, and actually living moments or entire scenes of a certain lifetime, or of several of them. What was just told to me by some clairvoyant, I remember only because I took notes I have later on read again and again; what I found myself directly living, I remember just as much as the memories of this lifetime: those memories are indelibly part of me, part of the total that I am.

In a few cases this has proven so true that it is because of some special, intense and troublesome recurring tendency in this lifetime that I have been able to recover the memory of the lifetime when the root cause of that problem originated; in those cases the difficulty started to fade away after the memory came back to my consciousness and the healing of the original trauma started taking place within me. An extremely interesting process to watch happening within oneself when one had been afflicted with some obsessional, compulsive tendency for decades before that.

The very real spiritual development that has happened in this present lifetime was, I realized later on, what enabled my stronger Inner Being to gradually help those wounded parts of me in other personalities to find a better and truer way of reacting to a certain type of situation than it had since that other lifetime when the trauma had occurred and the wrong kind of reaction had become the habitual, repetitive one, in spite of the pain it every time created in the being.

In another case it has been on the contrary the sudden vision of a very important but beautiful moment in another lifetime, that led me then to  live intensely the expanded time sequence around that moment, while becoming aware again of the gist of that other forgotten lifetime when I had been blessed like in this one with a surging forward of my soul to greet the special embodiment of the Divine that I was given to meet, and that transformed my life then.

The still totally alive memory of that moment most definitely reinforces powerfully in my being the still totally alive memory I also have of the moment when the same thing happened again in this lifetime, with another special embodiment of the Divine my soul again instantly recognised and kneeled to, in a surge of love and adoration from within.

This is why more conscious embodiments of the Divine are born among us from time to time, in various parts of the world; every time something of the evolutive work to get done at that time gets done, and also many souls get to see the Divine in those special embodiments, and this hastens the individual process of awakening for those souls who respond to that special contact. Whether or not some form of religion and church gets formed around each special embodiment is another matter, and not always beneficial, for in that collective  outer process a lot may be lost or twisted beyond recognition, of the actual teachings the ‘special being’ had tried to leave behind for humanity.

As for the soul who in different lifetimes gets to meet with different such ‘special beings’, through each of them that soul gets to come into contact with yet another aspect of the Divine, and that contact enlarges the capacity of that soul to recognize the Divine Presence in this dimension and everywhere else, through the characteristic vibratory frequency emanated by each, all of them variations of the same essential blissful divine way of being.  When the memory of that inner contact with another ‘special being’ in another lifetime surfaces again, it becomes impossible for that individual to get caught at the mental level by the tendency to fanaticism and exclusivism that is such a common and terrible problem in most human beings: the need is felt from within to accommodate in one’s consciousness more than one aspect of the Divine, and it is impossible to feel them as antagonistic in the way the mind, in its divisive natural mode of functioning,  automatically would see them, creating inner tensions and doubts in the person, that have in the spiritual reality no ground at all.

The remarks above are all from my own experience, although they could probably be confirmed by some authoritative quotes by a spiritual master or another if I looked for such a confirmation. On this blog I usually prefer to speak directly in my own words and from what I have gathered through my own experience, which might be of use for other people too. It is important for them to be able to see and feel that what I am saying is indeed the fruit of a personal process of Conscious Evolution, and not the mere repetition of some guru’s words. My example then will be encouraging for them to also trust their own Inner Being and start on their own Conscious Evolution Adventure – with the inner help, if they want, of any spiritual master towards whom they may feel an affinity to start with, as long as they keep themselves open to vaster beliefs than those that specific master may have taught. 

Another benefit from remembering at least some of one’s other lifetimes is that one recovers faster one’s sense of Universality:

A vastness of being, a capacity to recognize and sense as oneself any form, appearance, skin color or way of dressing a human being can take on outwardly, and any religious belief  or cultural habit a human being can take on inwardly. All that just doesn’t matter anymore, it’s simply all part of the diversification process that is a central purpose of our endeavor here, given the essential Identity that  gives us anyway our Unity in spite of that utter Diversity. 

The only reason many people are still racists, etc, is because of the narrowness, the smallness of their mind, and the lingering in it of all the so limiting prejudices an unevolved mind builds up since childhood from its need for only one truth, one skin color, one culture to be acceptable, recognized as the correct one. It is the only way they know yet of keeping their own identity safely on the imagined ‘correct side’ of what they call the Truth, or as close to it as they can. In a more diverse world where all variations are welcome and valid, they feel lost like kids in a place too big for them, where they can’t find anymore the outer marks that before delimited clearly and safely for them the accepted, ‘correct’ way of being they would have simply to copy, instead of growing to be truly themselves in a wonderful uniqueness they would have to discover, honor and enjoy step after step, the way a flower quietly blooms. There is an even more total safety in that inner process, but in our present societies it is not yet always safe to follow it, and that’s the real problem.

So, to Greece and my many other ‘Far Roots’, I smilingly raise my glass (of Greek wine of course…!) and I say a big thank you for all the inner vastness, flexibility and richness you bring from within into my present life, making me in truth a Citizen of the World.

While writing this, I realize that I probably should learn to draw more from the latent capacities and talents those other personalities make available to me as my larger background… Hmmm.  Oh my. A whole new avenue of inner development opening up for me!…

Kon-Tiki News…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8582150/Kon-Tiki-explorer-was-partly-right-Polynesians-had-South-American-roots.html

Monday 20 June 2011

Science News

Kon-Tiki explorer was partly right – Polynesians had South American roots

It is probably the most epic journey ever undertaken just to prove a point.

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent

2:31PM BST 17 Jun 2011

113 Comments

Thor Heyerdahl clung to Kon-Tiki, his balsa wood raft, for 4,300 miles to show that Polynesia could have been colonised from South America rather than Asia as commonly thought.

But despite achieving his goal – sustaining his 101 day voyage with sharks caught with his bare hands – the Norwegian failed to sway the scientific community.

Now – 64 years later- new research has finally proved the adventurer was at least partly right after all.

A team of scientists have tested the genetic make up of descendants of the original islanders and found it includes DNA that could have only come from native Americans.

That means that some time before the remote islands – including Easter Island – were colonised by Europeans the locals had interbred with people from South America.

The Polynesian islands are some of the most remote in the world – lying thousands of miles west of South America and thousands of miles east of Asia.

The established theory has always been that Polynesia was colonised via Asia around 5,500 years ago.

This has been backed up by archaeology, linguistics and some genetic studies.

But in 1947, Heyerdahl controversially claimed that Easter Island’s famous statues were similar to those at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, and sailed a raft from Peru to French Polynesia to prove it could have been colonised from America.

Now Professor Erik Thorsby of the University of Oslo in Norway has found clear evidence to support elements of Heyerdahl’s hypothesis.

In 1971 and 2008 he collected blood samples from Easter Islanders whose ancestors had not interbred with Europeans and other visitors to the island.

Prof Thorsby looked at the genes, which vary greatly from person to person.

Most of the islanders’ genes were Polynesian, but a few of them also carried genes only previously found in indigenous American populations.

Prof Thorsby found that in some cases the Polynesian and American genes were shuffled together, the result of a process known “recombination”.

This means the American genes would need to be around for a certain amount of time for it to happen.

Prof Thorsby can’t put a precise date on it, but says it is likely that Americans reached Easter Island before it was “discovered” by Europeans in 1722.

Prof Thorsby believes there may have been a Kon-Tiki-style voyage from South America to Polynesia.

Alternatively, Polynesians may have travelled east to South America, and then returned.

However, Prof Thorsby said that his new evidence does not confirm Heyerdahl’s theory that the islanders were originally all from South America.

The first settlers to Polynesia came from Asia, and they made the biggest contribution to the population, he said.

“Heyerdahl was wrong but not completely,” he said.

The work was presented at a Royal Society talk in London and reported in the New Scientist.

—————————————

I remember when I was still a child how intrigued and fascinated my own father was by the journey of the Kon-Tiki and the whole theory that led intrepid Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl to put his own life in the balance to prove his point – but his point was much more than what the above scientific reporter makes it out to be.  Well, my father’s deep interest for all this became my deep interest too, it turned out, and here I am, decades later, still resonating just the same to the mere name of  ‘Kon-Tiki’.

The thought-provoking thing is that in the meantime I happen to have learned a lot more on all these questions of the far origins of some peoples of the world, and about what importance it may have on our understanding of actually much older, fabled times as well.

As you may have noticed if you read which ‘Categories’ this post is listed under, they are special and revealing indeed: ‘ATLANTIS IN OUR LIVES’, and ‘LIFETIMES & BETWEEN’. What I am going to say has no ‘scientific’ basis whatsoever, but I am going to say it nevertheless: to me, it has been obvious since long that Thor Heyerdahl had been a Viking, and, way before a Viking, precisely one of those who even much longer ago journeyed like he did again in our times, on the kind of raft he so easily found again the technique to build and the way to navigate with.

Just yesterday night, on TV5 Monde, the great magazine ‘Thalassa’ was presenting a gripping filmed reportage on what?… The intense yearly celebrations through which what is left of the Rapa Nui, the ancient inhabitants of Easter Island, are keeping alive and active in themselves the half-forgotten traditions and sacred legends of their people. In recent years, those celebrations have attracted an immense, ever-growing number of outsiders, from all parts of the world, who during at least that period of time, under the red natural colour of the island, painted all over their face and body, want to identify themselves with that people and its culture. How moving – and telling.

Exactly how old are all those very ancient cultures that subsist as odd mysteries on the tiny isolated islands of today, which are in fact all that is still emerging of the mountains that long ago were not yet under water? Nobody really knows; the dates officially given for a while often suddenly need to be pushed back much further in time, as some unexpected discovery shows beyond doubt that the previous datings were too conservative.

Today I read only 25 out of the 113 comments that this ‘science news’ item elicited from the readers of the Daily Telegraph. Many of those who put in a comment seemed to know a lot about the whole Kon-Tiki story. Many of us, whatever Official Science may say, have our own feelings and inner connections with those times past, strangely holding a part of our present consciousness tied up with those remote civilizations we are usually told never actually existed. Something deep in ourselves knows better, and doesn’t allow us to cut off those inner links with other parts of ourselves beyond time and space as we know them.

Serious research exists (see my very first posts on this blog, in ‘Previous, older entries’, two or three scrolls down from here…) that connects many identified places around the present Atlantic Ocean with refugees from the time of Atlantis’ disappearance. Many of us may have apparently many old roots, but actually a still older common origin – like perhaps the very peoples from Peru as well as from those far away islands, that Thor could feel had a strong connection between them, and shared a common more ancient culture, expressed for example in those strange statues…

As Seth (among others), speaking through Jane Roberts, once said, announcing the new evolutive step we are in: when our enlarged consciousness will be vast enough, we will be able to hold safely and harmoniously together our various personalities of all those lifetimes, and our present lifetime will be all the more rich and stable for it (you will find that quote, if you are interested, in one of my earlier posts: ‘Seth & the New Step in Terrestrial Evolution’).

This shows us the general direction things will take, and how today’s vague memories or strange predilections for some precise times and/or places may one day become the numerous and colourful living petals of our full-bloomed deeper Self’s lotus… (just an image that came up that way as I was writing…).

Tolkien and his Far Memories of Atlantis

JRRT in 1911

Tolkien himself was essentially a Catholic, but many of his actual beliefs were quite ‘far out’ as compared to the beliefs of the ‘regular’ Catholic person, and all his life he kept pondering very deeply over questions most people from any religion hardly ever think about – for example Reincarnation. But it was part of his life even as young ‘JRRT’ (the nickname adopted by his friends for John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, pronounced Tolkeen…) while he slept:
His recurrent vivid nightmares, since early childhood, of the destruction of Atlantis, were for him a most fascinating and important aspect of his experience in this lifetime, that quite obviously pointed at another lifetime of his in that remote past of the Earth, but of course it would have been a public outcry if he had called them openly what they were: memories.
On the other hand, in spite of having met again with death and the grief of separation quite soon in this lifetime (he lost his father when he was only three, and his mother when he was twelve), he never lost his total faith in God – a God in his eyes not negated at all by Darwin’s and Lamarck’s discovery of Evolution, but on the contrary revealed as the Consciousness and Wisdom and Power and Love that oversees and guides Evolution itself, and within it the personal evolution of each and every being, human or other.
It is so beautiful how towards the end of his life he was imagining what could have been Eru’s purpose in creating both mortal Men (including the smaller ones he called ‘Hobbits’) and immortal Elves. And I’m not mentioning the Dwarves, or the Ents!… How in the final stage of Arda, Arda itself could and would be renewed, freed and cleansed of that ‘Morgoth’s Ring’ that had affected her negatively in her very substance, something that Sauron’s later Ring had never been able to do… And all this of course was, transposed in his own ‘subcreation’, his inner certitude for  the future of this creation as well…

Here are the two main quotes from Tolkien’s Letters, that mention his recurring nightmares:

Quote
I say this about the ‘heart’, for I have what some might call an Atlantis complex. Possibly inherited, though my parents died too young for me to know such things about them, and too young to transfer such things by words. Inherited from me (I suppose) by only one of my children, though I did not know that about my son until recently, and he did not know it about me. I mean the terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave, towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields. (I bequeathed it to Faramir.) I don’t think I have had it since I wrote ‘The Downfall of Númenor’ as the last of the legends of the First and Second Age.

That’s from Letter #163 to W.H. Auden, 7 June 1955.

And in Letter #180 (a draft) to Mr. Thompson, 14 January 1956, Tolkien writes:

Quote
For when Faramir speaks of his private vision of the Great Wave, he speaks

for me. That vision and dream has been ever with me — and has been inherited (as I only discovered recently) by one of my children.

It is most interesting to see that in the first quote JRRT himself adds in a parenthesis that the terrible recurring dream was ‘beginning with memory’; and the fact, mentioned too in that same first quote, that after he wrote about this whole destruction of Atlantis in the equivalent story that he called ‘The Downfall of Numenor’, the nightmares stopped happening, points indeed to an actual far memory of his, that before had no way to express itself but through those nightmares but when allowed to come out totally through writing it out, stopped bothering him as a nightmare: it was integrated in his present lifetime in a constructive way, also by Faramir telling the same story towards the end of ‘The Lord of the Rings’.

Those two quotes are the only ones where JRRT reveals also this other remarkable fact that  one of his four children too had been having the same nightmares – which seems to indicate that the son in question had also lived the fall of Atlantis, long, very long ago, and was still affected by it as well.

It is frequent that beings who have already lived together in a different time period come again together, some of them, in the same family, although usually in a different relationship (if they had been mother and child for example, another time they might be brothers, and so on) So, what may have been the possible personal link before, between that being now born as a child of Tolkien, and Tolkien himself as whatever person he had been at the time of the fall of Atlantis, we have no way to know.

It would have been interesting perhaps to interview that one child who also had those Atlantis dreams, to find out if he had any more precise memories of that time, or of an old relationship with his present father in previous lifetimes. But unless his father himself asked him – and although that is quite possible, I am not aware of any letter or other document about that having ever been published – it is probable that no one ever thought of doing such a thing, so on these family ties from Atlantean times this is the end result that my research has reached!…

The dear Professor and his son perhaps have shared their secret and kept it for themselves… 

‘Entering the Circle’, by Olga Kharitidi

Entering the Circle: The Secrets of Ancient Siberian Wisdom Discovered by a Russian Psychiatrist, Kharitidi, Olga

Various reviews and comments:

From Publishers Weekly
“The term “shaman” is Russian and, until recently, was applied only to members of the indigenous tribes of Siberia and Central Asia by such scholars as Mircea Eliade. This exciting autobiography cum spiritual adventure by a Soviet psychiatrist is the first popular account of initiation into those tribes’ ancient and mysterious traditions. Kharitidi writes (with no translator) in the slightly stilted English of a native Russian-speaker, an effect that highlights the fantastic nature of her encounters. From the grim state hospital where patients are fed only gruel to the isolated Altai Mountains, Kharitidi is inexorably led to Umai, a female shaman who passes her power to Kharitidi on her death and who continues to instruct her from the spirit world. The author’s involvement with shamanism is fraught with danger, for in the Soviet Union, interest in the occult can lead to psychiatric commitment. But Kharitidi manages secretly to incorporate her new powers into her practice at the hospital. During her trance voyages, she visits Belovodia, more commonly known in the West by its Tibetan name of Shambhala, where a parallel human race with advanced spiritual knowledge hints at a radical new future for humanity. Others are also discovering Belovodia, Kharitidi learns, particularly a Soviet physicist researching the nature of time.
(Whether one swallows this whole, with salt or not at all, there’s no doubt that with its classic New Age elements?the skeptical protagonist turned believer, exotic locales and esoteric knowledge, suspense and synchronicity?this is a great read that should sell briskly. Drawings, not seen by PW. $75,000 ad/promo; BOMC, QPB and One Spirit selections; film rights to North Tower Films; translation rights sold in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland; author tour. Copyright 1996)”

Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description:
“When the young Russian psychiatrist Olga Kharitidi set out on an impetuous journey into the snowbound Altai Mountains of Siberia, she never dreamed that her experience there would shatter and rebuild her view of reality. Among the wintry villages and pine forests of Siberia, guided by mysterious native sages, Kharitidi unearthed the wellspring of the worlds mystical traditions, discovered deep secrets of healing and magic, and encountered revolutionary teachings about the true nature of the human soul. Entering the Circle shares her thrilling adventure–and her stunning discoveries–with the world. As a dedicated young psychiatrist at an austere state hospital in the former Soviet Union, Olga Kharitidi battled the difficulties of Soviet life and the constraints of medical science in her fight to save her suffering patients. Joining an ailing friend on a spur-of-the-moment trip into Siberia’s Altai Mountains, Kharitidi was launched on an unexpected journey of revelation when she was taken into apprenticeship by an enigmatic native shaman. The wild adventure that followed would forever change Kharitidi’s view of healing, science, consciousness–and the potential of the human soul itself. Entering the Circle shares Kharitidi’s remarkable true story and the revelatory teachings she received during her sojourn with mysterious sages of Siberia. Guided through bizarre, magical, and often terrifying experiences by her shaman-teacher Umai–and by a radical Soviet physicist whose studies challenged the very nature of reality–Kharitidi unlocked a storehouse of spiritual learning that had lain hidden in inaccessible Siberia for centuries. Deep in Siberia, Kharitidi’s path of knowledge led her ever closer to unlocking the secrets of Belovodia, also known as Shambala, a fabled civilization of highly evolved humans who have for eons spread their sacred knowledge through the world’s great faiths, including Buddhism, Christian mysticism, Sufism, and Vedic Hinduism. She learned, through firsthand experience, that waking reality–the fabric of our daily lives–is only the near shore of our Spirit Lake, the sea of…..(?)”

By: Isle
Postings: 200
Regular Topic Posted: Apr 05, 2004 – 11:25 PM

A MUST READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* * *
Entering the Circle : Ancient Secrets of Siberian Wisdom Discovered by a Russian Psychiatrist
by Olga Kharitidi (Author)
* * *
Allright, I shall admit, the real reason I even opened this book was because I am Russian, and in love with my far away homeland (I live in NY, but don’t get me wrong, I LUV NY).
But by the Lady, the moment you start reading this book, there is no putting it down.
CHOCK FULL OF WISDOM PEOPLE!!!!!
A MUST READ!!! I REPEAT, A MUST READ!!!!!!!!!
And there is also a VERY lovely bonus.
This book will be found in your public library. (Trust me, if my tiny library has it, yours does too.)
That’s right, no dishing out the green for Wisdom, Adventure and Knowledge.
And trust me, by the time you finish this book, not only will you want to write to Olga and tell her she’s the woman! and want to catch the next plane to Russia, then down to Siberia to visit the Altai Mointains, but you will also begin to search for your own Belovodia. If you have not already begun.
FIND THIS BOOK! YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT!!!!!
And I will be willing to stake all I have on that.
Merrys,
Nina
P.S.
My only regret is that she did not write a published copy in Russian so I could get the full sensation…ahh…one cannot have everything. *wink*
By: Isle
Postings: 200
Regular Topic Posted: Apr 05, 2004 – 11:35 PM

Spelling Error:
***Mointains, allright, I wanted to write MOUNTAINS.
Mointains…I’m sorry, but does anyone else find it a bit funny………………..right.

Ohh and here’s the Amazon.com Summary:

Book Description
“Olga Kharitidi’s debut book is a remarkable account of her spiritual adventure in snowbound Siberia.Joining an ailing friend on a spontaneous trip to the Atai Mountains, Dr. Kharitidi is taken into apprenticeship by a native Shaman who guides her through bizarre, magical, and often terrifying experiences that open her eyes to a wellspring of deeper learning. On the road to Belovedia, a fabled civilization of highly evolved beings, she encounters revolutionary mystical teachings while discovering ancient secrets of magic and healing. At once a modern odyssey and a timeless dreamscape, Entering the Circle is an inspiring story of personal growth and an insightful work about the limitless potential of human spirit.”

From Library Journal
“A sort of autobiographical adventure, this book describes Kharitidi’s mystical experiences in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. When a friend asked her to come along and observe a healing ceremony there, the perceptions of the Soviet-trained psychiatrist suddenly and drastically changed. Kharitidi’s whole belief system was shaken with the help of Umai the shaman/teacher, whose wisdom is imparted through dreams. The author set out to broaden the base of this knowledge and met a prestigious physicist who also experiments with time/space studies and filled in some of the gaps in Kharitidi’s knowledge. Now committed to sharing her new-found understanding, Kharitidi has moved to New Mexico and lectures all over the world.”

Los Angeles Times
“[This Book] may prove as revelatory to readers at the end of the millennium as anthropologist Carlos Castaneda’s… in the late `60s.”

Variety
“This exciting autobiography cum spiritual adventure by a soviet psychiatrist is the first popular account of initiation into…”

Michael Harner, Ph.D., author of The Way of the Shaman
“Castaneda a la Russe-a psychiatrist’s account of transformation through encounters with a Siberian shaman.”

—————–
OMG, I cannot express how much this book is just…there are no words. Read it…for yourself.
—————————————————————————–
From http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4076/gbarchives/qt_2_2000.html

Fransje Bik – 06/01/00 12:59:56
My Email:fransjebik@zonnet.nl
How you found us: http://weten.shamanismweb.org/index.htm

Comments:
Thank you so much for all your work and beautiful sites. i am many times on your pages. I want you to return something. I have made on my trip to Altai in Siberia, Russia, a beautiful picture of the holy Mountain Belucha, the natural Shaman of Siberia. Yo can use this and the other photoos in your articels when you want, I do not use copyright, because it has a healing power and transformation powe in it and that power is not mine!!! I speak about the healing power in the photo of Belucha. In the old Mongolian-sanskriet language it is called: Utsch Sumer, The Three in One. (Holy Trinity)How do you find this fotoos of Altai: you go to the http as I give you in: how did you find us. Thi is the Dutch Sjamanic circle. Than you go to homepage or guestbook. In guestbook you will find Fransje Bik and my e-mail adres. Klik op Fransje Bik and than the front page is coming. When you klik on the foto of belucha, it will be a bigger one. In the frontpage you will see some items: Klik Altai and there is two pages with fotoos. Go to Altai frame again, and klik on info: There you will find the spiritual mountain Yarlu in the vallei from Belucha. Panorama of the smaal Altai village Tyungur, what means: Tambourin of the Shaman. And a foto from the Baba stone, with face. Baba means wise old woman or man and the were the Sha ans of the area. This place is also called: the initiation place of the Shaman. Wonder happens there, there are power-stones too. The Baba stones give anwers on all your questions, coming from your hart. Go up in this tekst again and next to Yarlo foto you see in the text: de zeven chacra meren. Klik there and you will find one of the seven coulored lakes, called too: the seven chacra lakes. Too in the vally of Belucha. And the white horse took met the fi st trip (1994) to Belucha!!! And if you ore someone else are interested to go to Belucha in Altai Siberia, i will give you the e-mail adres of the Russian organisation, who organise those trkkings from Tyungur to belucha. They make a combination of trekking, adventure and spiritualit and they are very trustfull people. When you make contact, say hi from Fransje Bik!!! Just for fun. So, this was my message to you. Thank you again for your beautiful site. My power animal for the past is a ground squirrel and for now and the future a polarbear. I found the meanings on your page. Myself, I give the workshop that Olga Kharitidi gave here in Amsterdam last year: my workshop is called: Dream Healer – war healer and based on healing trauma spirits in us and in the meanwhile for all who is connected with us in the past (seven generations) and for them who will come to earth (seven generations). it is trauma therapy with miracoulus results. Olgha Kharitidi is an psychiater from Novosibirsk. She wrote the book: Entering the circle and now she works in America. Bye bye, Fransje Bik