Home › Commons › Conversations-Forums › Archived conversations, 2005-2007 › Evolutionary Nexus Community › Evolutionary Perspectives ›

Story niches in the socio-ecosystem

Submitted by Jennifer Atlee on January 22, 2006 - 02:12.
Core Questions:
  • What is the role of different stories/cultural myths & morals?
  • What stories work for you, how & why?
  • <!--[if !supportLists]--> How does variety and/or unity of story impact us?

Why I posted this topic:
<!--[endif]-->

I’ve got my own spiritual practice that works for me, with its own 'night-language' (myth-language) and story, metaphors which interconnect me and the rest of us with the natural world very directly as brothers and sisters in creation. I don’t feel a need for humans to hold the kind of special role described by the Great Story -- and I get grumpy when I feel like we are ignoring the value of non-human consciousness. I am finding, however, that the evolutionary perspective allows for greater leaps of the imagination about where we can go and what right action is – and think it has great potential.

I also acknowledge the power of the universe story for many people in providing them a framework that explains their role as a human.  I also see how encompassing that story is.  However, I think there are story niches – there needs to be a variety of cultures, stories, languages, species, in different places – it is that diversity that facilitates our evolution and robustness.  So I wonder how the ‘great story’ can be a means of understanding this, without becoming an invasive species that wipes out the other ones – but rather is a way of framing that acknowledges the value of other stories in the socio-ecosystem?

For me, one niche.

Submitted by Jon Host on January 23, 2006 - 23:48.

 

Hi Jennifer (and all)-

 

       Speaking of that, all throughout the conference I intended to ask  you about those practices  you mentioned in your bio.  As someone with Native American ancestry, I too have some practices from Native American traditions, and a Medicine Wheel/Stone Circle for my rituals. 

           The Great Story provides for me a large number of stories that work in my spirituality.  Here is a very short sketch of some of them: 

    Links of Love:   We all know of the love between a parent and a child.  Remember that the Great Story shows how I am connected, through direct parent/child relationships, to the concestor that, say, myself and Drew Derringer share.  Of course, similar Links of Love descend from that concestor down to Drew.  Thus, Drew and I are connected by Links of Love.  This same method links us not just with all other people, but with all of life on earth, down to the prokaryotes that surround us. 

Another one:

  Deep time eyes care about the future:

        Around 30 million Americans are direct descendants of the handful of people who came over on the Mayflower.  Each year, that number goes up, and in just a short century, most Americans will be direct Mayfower descendants (my calculation).  This will spread to every continent through emigration, since as soon as one mayflower descendant settles in a new continent, the whole process repeats.  In a few thousand years, it is inevitable that nearly every single human on earth, from the Zulu of Africa to the Aborigines of Australia will be a direct mayflower descendant. 

    So what?  So why did I tell you that?  Because the same thing can be applied to nearly any group of people.  Ancient Roman Senators?  You are almost certainly their Great-great (...) grandchild if you are caucasian.  Builders of the pyramids?  Almost for sure.  King David?  Yes, for most of us.  Mitochondrial Eve?  Of course.  Now look at that going forward.  We, your friends, and your siblings and relatives, are going to soon (withing a few thousand years, which is an eyeblink in geologic time), be the ancestors of every human on earth.  Of course we care that our children have a good life.  Of course we care that their environment is clean, that they have freedom and science, and that they don't enslave or kill each other.  Deep time gives me motivation to care about our earth, our interdependant web of all life.

 

    Those are two.  I have others, but that gives a snapshot. 

Now, to address more of Jennifer's thoughts - I think just developing and exploring the niche filled by the Great Story is enough for me.  I have only about 15,000 days left to live (since I don't believe in an afterlife), and so each dayis a precious gift.  Spending four of them with all  you was no trivial action - it was an act of love and caring.  Hmmm.  It seems that life is a sexually transmitted, terminal disease.  So I will spend many of them living into the Great Story as a spiritual metaphor.  I'll leave the other stories to others.  Let a thousand flowers bloom - remember that evolution works by selection.  I'm content working on this one niche, the Great Story.  If these memes become common and influential, fine.  If not, fine.  I'll leave that to the collective intelligence of the world.

 

   Enjoy this day-

 

             -Jon