However, Spring is here as the geese tell us and the Cotton Willow buds show and even my slow Elm companion, that I watch from my living room chair, has one branch with its buds swelling, while the other ones hold back! This one branch catches the sun’s rays from early morning until the evening of the light.

Saturday I vacuumed and dusted through out my apartment, which took about two hours, while in the aft I washed my car. These are major events in my life, but I won’t say that it is in my daily life, quarterly would be closer! I also spent some time on internet news and read the Globe and Mail weekend edition.

Internet news is o.k., but reading my paper or book on the couch remains a more comfortable activity. The computer screen refresh rates are too slow, to not be detectable by the eye’s peripheral sensing. That rate would have to be 120 Hertz, which would make them too expensive.

These are major events in my life, but I won’t say that it is in my daily life, quarterly would be closer!

Saturday evening Michelle and I went for our ethnic dinner, which was of Persian flavour this time. She choose a Pomegranate dish, while I chose ‘Ghieme’ (with lam). Both dishes came with the related sauces, rice and lentels. It was all very tasty, but the smoke of the many Turkish water pipes became too much for us to linger. The word lounge in the ‘Arch Lounge’ name was more appropriate then I was told upon my phone inquiry.

I was able to park right in front of the establishment, which is worth mentioning since we were in Inglewood along 9th ave! Also worth noting was the 40$ bottle of wine they tried to slip in on the bill in the place of the single glass I did have! Buyer beware in this smokers den!

Michelle came over to my place yet for a chat as we related about our some of our daily activities. And, since she has travelled in South America, Michelle was interested in my talk about the Maya civilization and traditions. Earlier in the day she had brought me a container with soup from the market, which became a tasty change for my Sunday lunch and supper. Thanks Michelle.

The topic of the Maya was never far from my mind this weekend. This has surprised me, because my interests usually move on after the talk has been delivered. This time is different, as last week’s writings show and there is more to come below.

The Maya and Mexica (Aztec formerly) high civilizations constitute a unique instance in our human development in that they reached a state of maturity in a process that was free from outside influences until about 1500. This cannot be said about any other civilization or tradition on our planet, except possibly for the Niger civilization on the African continent. Regardless, the Mesoamerican High Civilization do represent self contained development up until 1500. This makes them interesting to study because the times of outside influence and its impact can be clearly separated from the time of autochthonous development.

These two aspects hold lessons for our present day situation in which mutual influences and interactions have not only become unavoidable, but also detrimental in many cases.

So far my motivation for this continued interest of mine in the Mesoamerican civilizations and the Mayan particularly. I will now endeavour to spell out the aspects of what exactly constitutes this interest of mine.
This will take us far a field at times, because I see all this in a planet wide perspective one that includes the start of our homo sapience journey 60kya.

Recently I came across the observation in the book “Consciousness and the Brain” by S. Dehaene, Penguin 2014, that human consciousness has a limited capacity. The author adds that we filter our information flow to prevent overloading this limited capacity. Not hat I did not know this, but references to these facts are sparse, so I gladly add this scientific underpinning to my argument here.

This is, that we need to order our daily experience, such that some of it becomes predictable, like a solar eclipse the other day. Such predictability allows our consciousness to accept some new information units, facts, events or what have you. This ordering process is framed in a larger complex, formed by what I call a belief frame work combined with the human experience framework. The former gives value, motivation and meaning for action, while the latter structures the past informing daily action based on past experience.

What we today designate as religions of the ancient civilizations, such as the Egyptian or Babylonian, I prefer to look at as frame works of reference that ordered those civilisations in question. This notion I also apply to Mesoamerican civilisation and the Mayan in my case.

… we note that these civilization reference frame works were the result of this necessity for humans to order their world of experience.

Based on the preceding notion that humans need to order their experience world, we note that these civilization reference frame works were the result of this necessity for humans to order their world of experience.

How this ordering took place is of secondary importance. We know from the handed down traditions that some of that ordering was experienced as revealed through new insights, dreams, oracles and visions. What matters here for our purpose is that ’awareness of order’ was achieved and implemented.

In the case of the Maya then, we have a record preserved in stone up to the point of outside influence at about 1520, while for after that point in time we have the historical record of adaptation by this High Civilization’s reference frame work to its changed reality and survival for the past 500 years.

It is these two aspects of before and after that we need to study and use what we learn from this, applying it to humanity’s advantage in our present global situations. At this time we are dealing with formed identities, traditions, value and belief systems that are internally consistent and cannot be changed too quickly lest we overload our human personal and societal capacities. This would result in confusion, which will be resisted at all cost and the Maya did plenty of that and still do.

Do we want a five hundred year long battle with all its losses or do we want to work on a new global framework of reference that includes all human cultural achievement and not just a few. Cultural diversity will enhance our survival, just like we value bio-diversity does for the same reason. Spreading the risks - i.e. diversity - lowers the insurance rates, as we all know and practice!
<9:28am~