Once Upon a Time to be: Ancient Secrets

by Jay R Snyder

1. Ancient Secrets

Recent discoveries uncovered evidence of lost Homo Sapiens-Sapiens civilizations that have been kept secret for centuries. Thousands of archeological finds have been pieced together revealing the use of intricate geometry and advanced sciences by people previously described as merely hunter-gatherers. Ice-age languages pre-dating Sumerian cuneiforms by thousands of years trace a steady progress of astronomical knowledge and applications. Ancient scientific symbols exhibit understanding of physics, geology, chemistry, geography, mathematics and geometry pre-dating the Greek masters, and prove we have been highly-developed, introspective problem solvers for longer than we imagined. A vast network of public utilities for surviving the ice-ages were improved by later cultures thriving in warmer climates; all indicate a never-ending worldwide human interest in, and constant evaluation of, the heavens. Navigational cartography and symbol migrations indicate world ocean voyages in distant ages past. Cyclopean masonry and building skills existing tens of thousands of years ago (at places such as Baalbek, Lebanon) cannot be replicated by today’s engineers or machinery. The world wonders at how ancient surveyors measured their architecture and observatories, calculated longitudes of the Earth (time), and mapped the celestial sphere. Yet, as by example, the very same sun, moon, planets and stars remain a consistent benchmark.

2. Building Upon the Foundations

Sufficient are the worries of the day, but our understanding of today relies upon our understanding what has come before. Symbols and languages in use today are built on ancient common ancestry. The more we learn from our own history, the more we avoid repeating disasters from our past, and the better we are able to build our future upon past discoveries. As men and women like us prepare the world for the next generation, realize we have been improving our utilities over the course of a Great Year (one complete procession of equinoxes, or 26,000 solar years). For these very reasons, we recorded the migrations of tetra-fauna onto cave walls, medicines for healing onto stone, bone, and ivory, and seasons of life into the ecliptic. Great surveyors and masons of history used the stars and planets to measure time and place. Their discoveries are the foundation for the unlimited frontiers of human development.

3. Heritage of Providence

If necessity is the mother of invention, providence must therefore be its father. The ethics of ‘women and children first’ have been our companion all the way; there is no doubt that love has also. Childbirth and childcare remain constants as we continue around the Sun. Industries such as textiles, healthcare, education, architecture, and trade have always been necessary. Daily food, shelter, and clothing perpetually charge us with temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice. The needs of newborns motivate vast improvements in utilities for life on Earth, and these acts of charity require hard labor. Earliest records tell the stories of survival: how women provide language and textiles for their charges as men battle the elements for their clan’s survival. Our human race survives ice ages, comet strikes, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and droughts, in any climate nature dishes out. These are the foundations of existence that give meaning and purpose to the craft of building our world.

4. Constructive Achievement

However, in addition to the rages of natural disasters, wars kill millions of our human race. New technologies have created machines of mutually-assured destruction, and our fear of their power deters us from repeating their use. The last World War ended when we shocked ourselves by using atomic power as a weapon. Japan has equated the power and fear of their latest natural disaster with that of what they remember from August 9, 1945. Have we finally ensured our demise after a Great Year of scientific achievement, or do we care enough to hope for an alternative ending? Atomic power should be feared as a weapon of mass destruction, but like a stone hammer, its power can be channeled and used for constructive achievement. Electricity and fossil fuel powered our engines last century, but what will power us further in this next procession of the equinoxes?

5. Human Advantage

We stand in awesome wonder on the shore, and stare into the greatest ocean we have ever seen. Ancient symbols illustrate our history of it, we have built our temples as allegories to it, we have measured our time and world by it, and we have planned our survival around it. We have the maps and the formulas to explore its heights, its widths, and its depths. We have an inherent ability to choose a direction, chart our course, and accomplish our goal. Yes, we now have the engineering and technology to build the ultimate machine, to build and operate the ultimate engine, powered by an unlimited fuel supply, to survey this ocean. Acceleration and deceleration is all we need to traverse any light-years distance we want, and that formula was provided to us several generations ago (if V=C, then t=0, Lorentz). Pioneers are watching their lives pass before seeing the advantage they have provided realized. Therefore, our generations stand at the threshold of the next “small step for Man” enabled for our next “giant leap for Mankind”- the ultimate human endeavor. So here is my question, will we take the advantage? With knowledge of our past comes the responsibility for our future, to build on that which we have been given, to follow the example of our heritage of providence for constructive achievement, and to strive to perfect our own once-upon-a-time-to-be.