Letters From An Old Magician

The pristine recognition which belongs to
a state of pure as good as sum presence,
Manifesting as a clergyman in a form of the
elements earth, water, fire, as good as wind,
Does not sense by means of words as good as letters.
The a single who teaches a own inlet
Cannot be conceived of in conditions of self or alternative
And teaches a state of oneness as good as non-conceptuality.
All a beings of a 3 realms,
Realizing this, turn next to to all a buddhas.
Sought after truth is found by not looking it.
--Longchenpa

You hear opposite answers to a subject of when tellurian beings initial inhabited a place where you reside.

If you collate these answers, you will come to hold which a initial inhabitants arrived sometime during a late Ice Age -- somewhere in between 13,000 to 11,000 years ago.

There is a cavern about twenty minutes divided from where you am essay this, where tellurian artifacts have been reliably antiquated to 12,000 years ago. Of course, 12,000 years is reduction than a blink in geological terms, though still, during this duration a weather has changed, a flora, as good as a terrain have been opposite -- things have altered rsther than dramatically.

If you instruct to time travel, you have to sense how to navigate which very aged landscape.

Of course, when you cruise about navigation, a initial thing you competence cruise of have been maps.

The area where you spend many of my time contains a single of a largest concentrations of petroglyphs in a world. you am surrounded by them, as good as can see them upon a daily basement if you wish. As as example, in a single ninety block mile area nearby here, inventories have determined over 100,000 examples. In an additional direction, there is an entire valley full of them -- so many, which nobody has! bothere d to count.
Nobody unequivocally knows a age of these petroglyphs, though a many appropriate estimates have been 1,000 to 2,000 years old. It is probably safe to pretence which there were older petroglyphs, though 12,000 years of breeze as good as precipitation have erased all traces.

Still, this is a singular place, as good as you suspect anything is probable -- a oldest living mammal upon earth is just a integrate of miles from here: King Clone, a creosote ring, antiquated at 11,700 years old. If it has survived, who knows what else has survived, might be in a small realistic cavern or reclusive canyon.

So, then...
The people for whom these petroglyphs had contemporary definition have been prolonged gone. For a ultimate Native Americans, who came in their arise -- possibly around 500 to 300 years ago -- these stone drawings had a fabulous quality, though even they did not utterly understand their meaning. Either that, or a drawings took upon opposite meanings.
While you was essay this, you took a break to revisit a annual Pow Wow around here, as good as you ran into a Navajo, from Albuquerque. you asked her if she had ever been over to a Petroglyph National Monument, as good as she said, "For a people, which place is something similar to a graveyard, so you try not to ever go there."

She meant to contend which such places have been haunted.

Even A.L. Kroeber, in his endless Handbook of a Indians of California (1925) admits defeat, devoting only a final 3 of a book's scarcely 1,000 pages to a subject:
"Two questions have been regularly asked about pictographs: What do they mean? as good as How aged have been they? Neither can be answered. The modern Indians have been regularly informed with them as landmarks, though can give as small information as a visitor, solely to contend which they have regularly been there. No continuous story can be deciphered from any of a groups of symbols, as good as many have been so obviously nonrepresentative as to leave even a specu! lative i magination confused for a clew. Many of a pictures might have been made by shamans; though again there is no specific justification pointing in this direction, as good as it is utterly probable which medicine men were not continuous with a making of any."Thus, whilst people have been speculating about a petroglyphs for centuries, nobody unequivocally knows for sure what they meant or because they were created in such profusion. All you unequivocally have have been isolated instances of seeming recognition, from which you can extrapolate a incomparable palette of possibility.

If you suffer state-of-the-art speculation, you could do no improved than to review Dr. Alan Garfinkel's "Paradigm Shifts, Rock Art Studies, as good as a 'Coso Sheep Cult' of Eastern California," (North American Archaeologist, Spring 2007).
Dr. Garfinkel explains which there have been two competing models in a field. The initial is to interpret petroglyphs as an "expression of particular shamanistic endeavor." The second is a single he characterizes as a "hunting magic" hypothesis.
What you can infer, taking a latter approach, is which once upon a time, bighorn sheep were as numerous in a region as bovine animal were upon a plains. Just as you had what could arguably be called "buffalo culture" in a single partial of North America, so did you have what could arguably be called "sheep culture" in another.
What Dr. Garfinkel rsther than persuasively sets forth, is which all of these petroglyphs were drawn for a role of engaging in sport magic, as good as he bases this upon a positioning of a petroglyphs first, as good as a calm second. He refers to a study, finished forty years ago, which discloses a petro! glyph si tes have been distributed along game migration trails. Nevertheless, he tells us:"Any concept which purports to account for all, or even many stone art of a given style or motif, you would argue, is innately suspect. One would expect to find which opposite sets of environmental, cosmological, religious, artistic, as good as social factors shabby a origination of stone art at assorted times as good as places."Which makes undiluted sense. you do commend Dr. Garfinkel's paper to your attention, even if you could care reduction about petroglyphs, bighorn sheep, or any hypotheses arising therefrom. The paper is utterly simply good written, as good as many enjoyable to read.

But, you have to keep something in mind...
Whether you take a shamanic expression approach, or, as Dr, Garfinkel does, select to examine a "spiritual as good as cognitive dimension" of antiquated North Americans killing bighorn sheep, you have been grafting a own ideas onto an additional time, a place rsther than opposite than it appears now, as good as a people with concerns which seem somehow opposite from a own.

I do not cruise which works very well. What did Patrul Rinpoche say? "Discrimination -- holding upon to characteristics -- is delusional mind."
In a universe of interdependence, phenomena similar to antiquated petroglyphs have been maps -- independence maps. As seen above, even a earth itself gives us independence maps. Interdependence is itself a kind of glue.

What else did Patrul Rinpoche say? "Feeling is a lasso which ties thoughts as good as object together."

I spent a day currently out in a desert, at a shaman's cavern which University of California experts hold was initial inhabited 11,000 years ago. They hold it was used by shamans invariably thereafter, up until around 1,000 years ago! . There have been a small 900 to 1,000 petroglyphs in as good as around a cave, as good as a small of them have been utterly interesting.

Take this a single for example. When you saw a petroglyph above, you rught divided suspicion what you have been probably thinking. Looks similar to a dorje, right? When a University of California experts visited a site, they came divided with an wholly opposite impression. They saw a settlement of a rattlesnake, so they claimed this was a rattlesnake shaman's place. If all you do is try to assign definition to petroglyphs, afterwards all you have been starting to receive is a mirror picture of a discrimination... of a feeling.

Throw it divided --- chuck it all away. Just this once -- come time transport with me.

Men write upon a earth, though so does a sky. The light as good as shadow have been display a way. The clouds have drawn a scorpion upon a towering at a right. That towering is a father mountain. The towering upon a left is a mother mountain. In a center, is a red child mountain.

Crossing a expanse, you come upon sentinels -- small facilities which echo large facilities -- a signposts of a elements, replicating themselves.

So easy to see -- here was their temple, here was their altar. The tree which right divided grows in a center of a tabernacle has been reborn as many times as you have.

Smaller sentinels enter into with a incomparable sentinels, as good as those sentinels enter into with a mountains. These alignments, in turn, form their own alignment with a object as good as moon.

Following a track to illustrate far, you receive a minute from an aged magician, revelation us which regulating a single time to infer an additional is unsure business. It is so much improved to leave a present to itself, without carrying as good many ideas.

When a total in a sky begin to match a total upon a stone faces, a aged magician's minute dissolves into itself as good as disappears.
Sounding a echo of ideology is something which you all do.

Three or 4 years ago, you wrote a small book called High Desert, in which you offered a following comment. you am sharing this criticism with you currently because you have been nearing at a tangible subject of this post -- not petroglyphs, as you might have suspected -- though instead, a subject of experiential investigation leading to a small understanding of a inlet of one's own mind.
"There comes a point -- customarily after you cruise you leave your clergyman -- when all becomes a manifestation of your teacher's mind. you do not instruct to collect upon this, you just instruct to tell you this happens, or remind you as a case might be."So, here have been two inscrutables to ponder. We have drawings scratched upon rocks, which might or might not be what you cruise overtly "spiritual" in character, as good as afterwards you have a point when all becomes a manifestation of your teacher's mind.

If, as Longchenpa has stated, pristine recognition manifests as a clergyman in a form of a elements -- well, afterwards -- what have you her! e?
"Numerous worlds might burn up
In a many improbable way,
Yet space cannot be burned.
So it is, also, with self-existing wisdom. ..."
-The Gandhavyuha Sutra




May it be auspicious.




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