The One and the Many

Jim Mullin-Norgaard

When I am still, I am content.  When I yearn, it is to go home to where I came from, to where I belong.  I came from just one people, from an island world of maybe 100 tribes, on a globe with perhaps 100,000 different tribes of people long ago.  Who my people were back then I am not certain.  Perhaps they were the Belgae - “The Bright Ones.” That name fits the land where my mother’s ancestors are buried in Britain.  We had a language then that I don’t remember save for a few remnant words.  We had creation stories too, of Henwen the sow goddess birthing her litters of bees, wheat, barley, and abundance all across Britain.  And my people had many rituals also of which I’ve learned just a few:  “touch wood” my parents said when you want to make your claim certain; offer a coin to the waterfall when you make a wish.  These are beautiful rituals of wood and water and this sacred earth that survive now merely as superstitions.  So much else has been lost.

I live in a world now that races towards oneness; some call it “globalization.”  There are many forces intentional and unknown that are moving us in this direction.  Each of us has thoughts and feelings about this trend, conscious and submerged sentiments for and against this oneness.  Is it good to lose the different world visions carried in the Gaelic and Pomo tongues?  To watch as the mysteries of Yacqui and Quechua fade into “Spanglish?”  Do we care that 100,000 different cuisines are watered down now by the universal appeal of McDonalds?  On the other hand, is it beneficial to our species to cling to our differences, when the divergences between Sunni and Shia, Catholic and Protestant, Arab, Christian and Jew have brought us so much pain?

What we have here is a paradox.  On the one hand, there seems to be an organic momentum pushing life towards divergence, diversity and increasing complexity.

Thomas Berry, the progressive Catholic theologian calls this life unfolding “the Universe Story.”  From a single source, from “the big bang” our universe and life expands with ever increasing complexity and diversity.  In Nature, diversity is strength woven into an intricate garment of beauty.  We find more beauty and resilience in the complex, old- growth forest that once was our home than we do in a tree plantation, or in many of the other radically-simplified environments we humans make.

Still the hands of humankind can fashion beauty in the simplicity of its works, too.  As I write, I’m looking down on the magnificent vineyards of the Valley of the Moon in the Napa and Sonoma counties of Northern California.  Once the Pomo tribe collected obsidian here, crafting scrapers, spearpoints and adornments, hunting and gathering without radically altering this environment.  The Pomo people themselves were brutally extirpated from this valley by disease and indentured servitude to the Europeans, their language and cultural gifts largely lost to us now, as is the wilder landscape they once knew.

We are now the other hand of life; the hand of humankind shaping the spearpoint with some singular purpose.  We have become that spearpoint ourselves, racing through time and space with ever increasing homogeneity.  We accelerate towards some universal target, some hidden bullseye that we don’t clearly understand.  And there is violence in our wake.  And there are flashes of brilliance and creativity too.

Our minds struggle with these contradictions.  We find both conflict and harmony in nature; trauma and healing in life.  “The Universe Story” is Thomas Berry’s attempt to resolve some of this with one comprehensible story; one graceful unifying myth to replace the 100,000 competing creation tales that once graced this earth.  Still we struggle to think - what has been lost to us?  What lies ahead?  Only our souls can hold and embrace the paradox of life.  Only our souls can learn to love the question.  There will ever be great mystery and magic at the heart of the One and the Many.

Jim Mullin-Norgaard is a peacemaker, life coach, and carrier of the Celtic Spirit.  He welcomes guests to Tara’s Meadow Retreat Center on Beaver Island, where he teaches "Celtic Body Prayers" movement meditation arts for peace, healing, and wisdom. (231) 347-7957.  www.CelticBodyPrayers.com