Everyone used to be Pagan. No one traveled very far and groups were isolated. We needed some explanation for our existence so we created Gods from what was at hand--the land and the sky.

As we became more sophisticated and civilized and started living in larger groups, the Gods became more like us, people Gods, and the archetypes evolved and diversified.

Travel got easier, too, and as we were young and restless, hungry and curious and growing, we began to wander and invade and we lost connection with our localized deities and had only ourselves with us when we traveled so we made one God, like us. Well, like men, that is, who with advent of weapons had begun to dominate. Originally, of course, we had a normal two-parent God system but in their seeking men began to experiment with their relationships with women and tried this and that, eventually more or less completely disowning many feminine characteristics in themselves and hence in their God, too. So what we have now is a very narrow masculine God who originated in a foreign land, far away, in the country of one of our ancient conquerors.

Not much we can connect to there. So who needs him? Is God dead? It sure seems like it.

It's easy to see why people began to doubt and question. The farther from his place of origin a God was taken, the dryer he became, the less connected with the land and the people who created him from their own personal need and experience.

One way in which we have tried to deal with our lack of connection has been to try to recapture the land of origin of our God--the Middle East. The crusades and countless wars since then, including the current ones, are attempts to regain our religion's fatherland.

Because our God is from a foreign, far-away land, we are continually looking, restlessly seeking for him (and her), for our real grounded connection to the Divine.

So we build faster and more exotic vehicles to travel in and roads and tracks to ride them on. We're covering our land and ruining our air, our entire life support system, running around like lost children seeking Mummy and Daddy.

When people stayed in one place their Gods and traditions were handed down to them from the family and clan, usually the same, and from the land. You were taught that this land feature is this God, that feature, that God, and it provided enormous stability and comfort, connectedness and safety.

We have none of that. We are lost in never-never land. We have no connection to the Earth, our primordial Mother, we leave even our human families to wander all over the globe, would go to the stars if we were capable, always looking for Mother and Father.

But are the Gods really in the land? Is that the answer, to just park somewhere and connect with a plot of ground, a patch of trees, a river, a pond, a hill or mountain? That's insultingly simplistic. No. We are not children anymore. It's time to grow up and take responsibility for ourselves.

And how do we do that? How do functioning adults live?

By not expecting the outside world to take care of them, not leaning on Mom and Dad to always come and rescue them, but by standing on their own two feet, by doing or seeking to learn how to do what needs to be done. A mature person looks within for the necessary strength, courage, experience and capabilities, for perseverance, honesty and trust to live a complete, well-rounded life. A whole person looks for the Divine that is inside each one of us, miraculous creatures that we are, for guidance in all matters, great and small.

Does this answer the questions of who we are, how we got here, how all this was created? No, it doesn't. But looking outside, wandering round and round the earth hasn't answered those questions either, and inside is the only place we have left to look. We'd better do it fast because we're destroying our planet right under our own feet.

The few who control the bulk of the money and power, and the technological strength, are destroying the planet for everyone. They have taken it upon themselves to say what is right and wrong for everyone, what is the correct way to live, that different, new and improved are better, that our God is the one and only God.

But it's not working anymore. The world is falling apart, literally, and fewer and fewer people are being fooled by the man behind the curtain. We need a better way and we need it fast.

Many prophets say the answer lies within but we in our fear have refused to hear, refused to look into that dark and terrifying, unexplored region known as the Self. On some level we know that all the demons and devils and monsters in the world are our own creations and that they really lurk within. It will take some really strong courageous individuals to lead this way, to be the first to go within, our truly final frontier, and our only salvation.

© copyright Maggie Wilson, 2/12/2005