Page 63 - GIC Manifesto.m

Whether we carry the DNA of a tribe or tribes from one or multiple hemispheres, among all
the ties that bind in the universal knowledge of Earth and the original dreams is, at the center,
a compact with the sacred. That commitment, in many ways a longing, first inspired a woman
or a man, a priestess or pauper, a shaman or hunter in their respective orders to enter upon a
journey into the unknown, but one they were compelled to take, for others would surely seek
to follow where knowledge inspired. Their search was in the highest realm of
spirit, so a portal to the firmament was essential; a passage into the stars, if that
was to be their destination. Upon their return, or in their vow to pray longer for
the transition, these first travelers found their way by flame or trick of light into
the deepest recesses of the womb of Earth. There, in caves, they added their
handprints to paw prints, a formative rite in the quest for transference of a
sacred being’s power to their hearts and minds.
Abraded in rock or later painted on rawhide or quilled or beaded on buckskin,
the prints of hand and paw offered entry to the spirit world. To commit to the
process and create was to alert others of this or a world wondered that we are,
we were, and we shall be here. The awe in which the sacred now given form in
image was regarded on rock walls commanded a reverence out of which chapters
of the human story were first written. There, in each, is found the most ancient
of scripts. At such places and in such moments was the dawn of literature, the
articulation of the human spirit, the need, no matter how perilous, to become
not only part of that journey, but to be at one with it, to reveal purpose and
understand its meaning. In the four hemispheres, this language was spoken.
It remains, that poetry and prayer in symbolic conception upon rock. It remains
in the blood, the rhythm our pulse, the song our communicative pattern.
We are. We were. And we shall be here.

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