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Episode details

Radio 4,3 mins

Rev Marie-Elsa Bragg - 12/09/2020

Thought for the Day

Available for over a year

Good Morning. Rieli Franciscato dedicated his life to protecting indigenous tribes, especially uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. He fought against illegal invasions by loggers, ranchers and miners who threatened to wipe out their land. This week, on the edge of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reservation, in the western Brazilian state of Rondônia, he was shot by an arrow possibly from a tribe that in the past would have been open to his communication, but now under extreme invasion had lost their trust in anyone. Not only do we lose a respected person who fought for human rights, but we are losing the chance to learn from people who have worked out how to respectfully live with nature. It brings to mind another story in the news this week of a 46,000 years old cave in the Juukan Gorge in Australia. The only inland site to show signs of continual human occupation – even through the last Ice Age. In 2013 the Rio Tinto mining company made an application to detonate the caves for iron ore. Archaeologists were sent in and found the cave was older than they thought and it was rich in artifacts, including sacred objects and wall drawings, perhaps dream paintings. They even found a 4,000 year old plait woven together from several different people’s hair, which DNA testing revealed were the direct ancestors of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people who still reside on that land today. But despite local protests, this ancient cave was blasted and destroyed. The company have this week apologised unreservedly and the chief executive will step down. There is more here than the outdated Aboriginal Heritage Act. More even than the issue of sacred land and severing a people from their ancestors. What we are failing to see is that the mythological, dreaming, intuitive mind is part of our design and we lose it at our peril. Owen Barfield, who was a member of the Inklings with C.S Lewis and J.R.Tolkien looked into ancient language and found that rather than primitive and basic attempts to name material objects, it was the expression of a mythological mind that experienced a kind of unity with the objects. Iain McGilchrist would describe that as the right brain. This week I encountered youth who have no positive vision of the future to build towards, only the attempt to lessen destruction and in a talk for Buckingham University the questions after were ‘what is heaven?’ and ‘how can I find what God is?’ Let the cry of the indigenous in the rain forest, the call of ancestors from our ancient caves and the desperate need of hope from our children inspire us to begin the imaginative, creative positive debate of what a real vision of life on earth could be.

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