Earth Changes

Being in the Southwestern United States is always a good reminder of the fragility of cultures and how what might seem like cultural advances, intended to keep the people safe from earth changes, don't always work out. The above petroglyph was probably created by the Hohokam peoples. Does the spiral tell us something about their spiritual beliefs?

This slide was taken in 1974 of Casa Grande, south of Phoenix and north of Tucson. They believe this building was one of several Hohokam religious structures (Pueblo Grande is in Phoenix area) while the people lived in small villages around it and also farther off like in Phoenix and Tucson. A system of canals diverted water from the rivers to their crops.

Hohokam villages and writings on rocks are everywhere. They are all that is left to tell the story as the people disappeared and pretty abruptly or so it appears from all evidence left behind.

A mystery remains today why they left and where they went. The assumption is they became overpopulated for what the region could support. Along with cliff dwellers farther north, during a severe and extended drought, the people were forced to move or change their lifestyle severely.

All evidence to date indicates that change is a constant where it comes to earth. Mankind, as well as all other creatures, adapt or die. How much real impact do humans have on the global climate? Humans can turn what once was a jungle into a desert or what was a desert into a parking lot. We can make air such that you cannot breathe it, water that you cannot drink, but is man's imprint the major factor where it comes to climate change? Carbon dating tells scientists that climate change has been here all along-- sometimes catastrophic changes. The why is harder to determine.

Volcanoes, man-made air pollution, forest fires, ozone layers, and how about throwing in the sun as another variable? Did you think the sun sits up there the same year after year, only varying its impact as the earth rotates? If so, not so. The sun also has cycles. These have been measured for the last 250 years to evaluate their impact on the earth. There are many interesting articles on this but here's one from Russian News and Information Agency, NOVOSTI: "New Cycle of Solar Activity." or this one from Wikipedia called "Solar Variations."

Metaphysicians and some followers have talked for a long time about polar shifts. If you do a search on the subject, you will find many articles that blame them for things like Atlantis's destruction. They predict it coming again to radically change earth's environment. It might sound like woo-woo talk until you read that NASA is also looking into polar shifts of the sun-- but it is known it has happened on earth also in the past. What impact would such an earthly shift have upon human life assuming it happens again? "NASA Claims Polar Shift [for Sun] Due in 2012."

Watching a program on volcanoes was informative also because science can figure out how a given volcano, like say Mount Rainier east of Seattle, has erupted in the past, just as they knew how Mount St. Helens had, but St. Helens surprised everybody in how it erupted in 1980. Volcanologists cannot predict when one will erupt-- just if it will again.

And don't even get started on supervolcanos. like Yellowstone. If something like its caldera erupts (unlikely in the next few thousand years but probably inevitable eventually), not only does it wreak destruction all around it (in the case of Yellowstone most of the western United States) but would so catastrophically impact climate that it might leave only a few thousand people alive to start the process of repopulating the earth all over again. It's happened before.

Earth is full of so many mysteries that it's no wonder people turned to religion or spiritual rituals to try to appease the gods or find some form of control. Even today, for some, who believe in science in every other aspect of their life, they expect God will intervene and protect them-- unless they think he's punishing them for what somebody else did. New Age religions teach that concentrated, human directed energy can change anything.

My own theory on it is-- I don't know. I present the above links for those who think things like climate change can be solved with a hybrid car or a different light bulb. Science can't even agree whether things are warming up or cooling off-- despite Al Gore's frequent use of the term global warming.

There are things we can and should do as global communities, but I think all of us should have back-up plans on a personal level. Be flexible. Be alert. Watch for real changes, not just natural variables. Don't get panicked by every news report as tomorrow a new one will come along. Basically-- Think globally! Act locally!

At one time, in what is called today the Pacific Ring of Fire, volcanoes would erupt without any warning beyond it happening. The people who lived in these regions had no more choice than to run as far and fast as they could go, taking only what they could carry, or stay and die. When the ash blocked out the sky, superstition was their only recourse.

Some today have turned to science as their protective religion, but where science can observe, note what happened before, suggest possible reasons, predict variables, it has not yet found a way, if it ever will, to control earth's natural cycles.

Even today, sometimes in a catastrophic situation, the best solution could still be the one the Hohokam appear to have decided upon. Leave or change the entire way they lived. Big impressive ruins like Casa Grande or small ones up at Romero, petroglyphs scratched into rocks, all serve to remind humans that change is a basic in life. This isn't about fear. It's about flexibility, learning to trust instincts -- developing instincts if someone has gotten too removed from them, using commonsense, and sometimes being willing to run for it.

In looking for a slide of Casa Grande that I could scan, I came across some of me with my kids back in 1974 and couldn't resist including one as it shows the scale of Casa Grande, but earth change also-- mine. Like wow, where did those 34 years go?