I went to an organizational learning workshop a few years back led by John Dicus. At onepoint, John asked us to contemplate the question: “What do I need to steward my own future?"
John passed around a little crystal ball so we could “gaze into it” and see what came to us. Doubting (as I often do) the efficacy of these sorts of exercises, I sat there waiting for the ball to come my way. When I felt the cool weight of it in my left palm, I dutifully repeated the question to myself, and looked down. All I could see was my left hand. Then it hit me. Of course! My future depends on how I use my hands!
Since that exercise, I've left corporate publishing and have spent a great deal of time at the keyboard writing and helping others write--a "handy exercise." Two books will publish late this year/early next and over the past couple of days I've been handling the page proofs for both, thinking about the various hands I hope will soon hold a bound copy. One of the books, The Green Devotional, leads me ask: "What will we hand off to our children and grandchildren?" The book carries many messages of planetary plight as well as global hope.
And what did our ancestors hand off to us? I mean the ones way, way, way back.
For one thing our ancestors loved animals and art and marked their paintings with hands... hands across time and geography.
An ancient Maya artist left this one in Belize.
And these were found in Patagonia, Argentina.
Cave artists all around the world left their hand imprints by blowing red ochre,vegetable dyes or charcoal powder over their hands, thus stenciling their "signature" for us to see twenty to thirty thousand years later. Or in the case of some Tanzanian rock art, maybe up to 50,000 years later!
These images are from Mesa Verde in Colorado.
(For many more intriguing photos by Wally MacGalliard, check out the Bradshaw Foundation site.)
Dale Guthrie, a paleobiologist from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, analyzed the dimensions of the hands in European cave art, and by comparing them to 1,000 photocopies of modern hands of men and women of different ages, he determined men, women and boys and girls of all ages left their handprints on the paintings, but he thinks teenage males likely did a lot of the painting. His book, The Nature of Paleolithic Art has more then 3,000 images.
A recent National Geographic (June, 2009) has an interesting article called "Hand Stencils Through Time" and in it, archaeologist Dean Snow claims the hands pictured here are women's.
"The very long ring finger on the left is a dead giveaway for male hands," he said. "The one on the right has a long index finger and a short pinky--thus very feminine," Snow said.
His findings, National Geographic says, suggest women's role in prehistoric culture may have been greater than previously thought. Previously thought by whom? Oh yes, by male writers.
Certainly the carvers of this limestone relief statue from around 20,000 B.C.E. in Laussel (Dordogne) France didn't question the importance of women. This image was redrawn for Hunab Ku and can be found on page 48. The raised bison horn (like a crescent moon perhaps) has 13 marks on it. Notice her left hand pointing to her belly. Conception readily can take place on the 14th day after a woman begins menstruating. Is that what this fertility figure might be saying?
As you have gathered, I’ve been thinking about hands a lot lately. The chemo I’m currently taking attacks hands and feet with a vengeance. Why? Nobody knows but the pharma that put this stuff together gives out lots of hand lotion and little gel packs you can freeze to alleviate the pain. Obviously they know hands are extremely vulnerable while taking this chemical.
But hands are always vulnerable. And without them, how could we steward the future?
This is such a nice blogpost Karen! I really liked it!
Ria
Posted by: Ria Baeck | September 03, 2009 at 12:14 PM