'The key question remains — why did we go to war?' asks Norman Mailer in this morning's London Times.'It is not yet answered. In the end, it is likely that a host of responses will produce a cognitive stew, which does, at least, open the way to offering one’s own notion.'

The answer to the question is that the forces that were thrust with such ferocity against our civilization's cradle were unconscious -- nobody knew why we were going to war...it just had to be done because the symbol had to be accomplished. But it's good to see how these commentators are now coming out of the woodwork, carrying the Question on their backs. Mailer, of course, says, the answer is obvious, obvious: to boost the white male ego (and who should know that better than he!). I predict that the Question will be a kind of inkblot test for pundits. Look for Andrew Sullivan to proclaim that the war was waged to vindicate Catholic conservative homosexuals.

Still another argument for getting guns out of the hands of policemen, this from Takoma, where the Police Chief wasted his wife, then himself over marital disagreements. Really, we should be looking at the institution of marriage: what's it for, anyway? One in two fails. That should be enough for us to be questioning its purpose.

From a most unlikely source, an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, and slapped onto AOL. This is the final paragraph of the piece, which harps, rather obviously, on the fact that Americans are terrified.

'Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of risk now is that humans are actually manufacturing it -- with nuclear power plants, the ozone hole, toxic waste, global warming, nuclear weapons, even terrorism. Most of these systems are so huge, complex and relatively new, that the possible consequences of them are wholly unknown. "We don't know how big or small our risk is," says Baruch Fischhoff, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University specializing in the study of how decisions are made. "It's possible that the world is in transition, and there are poorly understood factors that raise questions about the validity of historical statistics."'

Yes, indeed, it is possible the world is in transition. Good morning, Mr. Fischhoff.

In the 'Till Death Do Us Part' Department -- this just in: Man Kills Wife, Self, Hours After Wedding The Associated Press, Saturday, April 26, 2003; 11:38 PM

MILL HALL, Pa. - A man shot and killed his new wife Saturday shortly after their wedding reception, then turned the gun on himself, police said.

Police said Frank W. Shope II, 34, married Lori Ann Spangler, 35, on Friday afternoon, but they began to argue during a small reception in a bar. The dispute escalated after they returned home. About 12:30 a.m. Saturday, Shope shot his new wife, police said. He then shot himself in the head.

State troopers arrived minutes later. Shope and Spangler were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.The two started dating about five weeks ago after he ended a 16-year relationship with another woman, according to friends and neighbors.

Spangler had two children who were with relatives at the time of the shooting, friends said.

I am beginning to think that what is coming down around our ears is more than just the usual change-of-ages. This seems bigger even than the great astrological shifts, with their 2200-year (or so) changing of the zodiacal guard. We seem to be moving as a species out of a place where evolution was directing our development, into a place where we are directing it. It's the difference between unconscious and conscious evolution. The dividing line may just be, as Barbara Marx Hubbard says, 1945, the detonation of the Atomic Bomb -- and the subsequent shock of realization that we had the ability to abort the human mission by erasing the race. Certainly many of the prophesies seem to be converging at a point in the very near future, and seem to be saying the same things: ascend...or die.

Someone posted this piece I wrote about the female and male principle for the original manuscript that became Live Better Longer -- through the voice of Dr. Parcells.

Today is Earth Day. Maybe we should also have Oxygen Day and Lead Day. I've always thought it was silly beyond words, putting our dear mother planet Terra in the same category with Secretaries, Valentines, Grandparents, and Groundhogs. God save us.

My dear friend and former student Autumn Golden passed away this morning. I am trying to sort out my emotions. She was a highly spiritual person who often said, when something really good happened, 'That was God.' She is back home at last, after what seemed to me a mostly bumpy ride. Autumn, I'm sorry I gave you a B for that class -- my head did the grades that day, but my heart should have prevailed. Good work.

'We are now at the epicenter of a shift in the history of the world,' begins Ben Okri in an essay in The Guardian. 'The war against Iraq has unleashed unsuspected forces.' Yes, of course, but then he doesn't really tell us anything new...a commentary that doesn't deliver the goods. Still, it is certainly of note that an author who isn't known for paradigm shift philosophizing, has entered the 'as seen from Mars' crowd. We are shifting, Ben, more than you have imagined.

This remarkable quote from Chomsky in a Frontline interview (about the Iraq war and the ulterior motives of the rulers of the Empire): 'If somebody were watching this from Mars, they would not know whether to laugh or to cry.' I read the interview this afternoon, but Chomsky gave it on 02 April.

On 05 April, I wrote here: 'I am beginning to imagine myself on Mars, where I have been living a lifetime as an anthropoligist for several thousand Earth years.'

Something peculiar is getting into consciousness around Mars and observing the big picture on Terra.

More, from Reuters: 'The Iraqi National Museum held rare artifacts documenting the development of mankind in ancient Mesopotamia, one of the world's earliest civilizations. Among the museum collection were more than 80,000 cuneiform tablets, some of which had yet to be translated.

'Professional art thieves may have been behind some of the looting, said leading archeologists gathered in Paris on Thursday to seek ways to rescue Iraq's cultural heritage. Among the priceless treasures missing are the 5,000-year-old Vase of Uruk and the Harp of Ur. The bronze Statue of Basitki from the Akkadian kingdom is also gone, somehow hauled out of the museum despite its huge weight.'

The key phrase for me is documenting the development of mankind -- convincing me further of the unconscious destruction of the cradle. We are tearing up all evidence of our birth to make room for a new birth and a new creation myth.

The handwringing continues in a BBC report this morning about trying to save the artifacts of our species, some of them dating back 10,000 years. Here on Mars we have no such antropological sentimentality. We are watching the slum-clearing efforts of the Empire in that region, paving the dirt road that is both Islam and species history. It will be interesting to see what goes up on those dusty lots.

I am not concerned about the destruction of artifacts and libraries of precious documents that Robert Fisk writes about again today in The Independent. To me, all of the stuff that is being destroyed over there seems like the compost of a dead and dying civilization. I say, go ahead and smash it all to pieces. We are being lifted into a whole new realm. Why would we want to ever look back at who we were? Does a well person want to hold onto hospital records? I wish these people would stop the handwringing and begin to see the bigger picture.

Barbara Ehrenreich in The Progressive: 'Only three types of creatures engage in warfare -- humans, chimpanzees, and ants. Among humans, warfare is so ubiquitous and historically commonplace that we are often tempted to attribute it to some innate predisposition for slaughter--a gene, perhaps, manifested as a murderous hormone. The earliest archeological evidence of war is from 12,000 years ago, well before such innovations as capitalism and cities and at the very beginning of settled, agricultural life. Sweeping through recorded history, you can find a predilection for warfare among hunter-gatherers, herding and farming peoples, industrial and even post-industrial societies, democracies, and dictatorships.'

I agree with David Hare, writing in The Guardian, that 'all the explanations for this war are bogus,' but I do not believe that 'Bush only invaded Iraq to prove that he could.' In fact, Bush and the rest are being driven by the same evolutionary forces that are pushing the species upward at this time. The reason why all the explanations appear to be 'bogus' is because we have not entertained the notion that there is a law operating under all these seeingly baffling adventures. We are advancing into new territory as a species...a birthing with the most unlikely midwives, those who comprise the leadership of The Empire.

The Garden of Eden is a wasteland. From Sifi of India -- 'Al-Qurna, April 12: It is believed to be the Garden of Eden, the mythic place where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join, the cradle of mankind where Adam came to pray to God. Today it is a desolate wasteland of excrement, cracked paving stones and bullet holes. The eucalyptus known as Adam's tree, a place of holy pilgrimage for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, stands bleached and dead.'

The metaphor: the Cradle of Civilization that nurtured our human species is destroyed. A new civilization must emerge...with a new creation myth.

And just now, Robert Fisk, in The Independent/UK, reports on the destruction of artifacts at Baghdad's most important museum: 'They lie across the floor in tens of thousands of pieces, the priceless antiquities of Iraq's history. The looters had gone from shelf to shelf, systematically pulling down the statues and pots and amphorae of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks and hurling them on to the concrete.

'Our feet crunched on the wreckage of 5,000-year-old marble plinths and stone statuary and pots that had endured every siege of Baghdad, every invasion of Iraq throughout history,­ only to be destroyed when America came to "liberate" the city. The Iraqis did it. They did it to their own history, physically destroying the evidence of their own nation's thousands of years of civilization.'

Well, and not just the evidence of their own nation's history -- Iraq is a modern invention: what happened in the Valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers is about the history of the human species itself. It was there that we became truly human for the first time.

The metaphor: all of the evidence of the birth of our species is being erased. I believe it is because we are about to ascend to a higher form of ourselves. This is unfolding before our eyes, and it is happening very fast. Welcome to Earth, Homo Universalis.

We are in transitional times. It is becoming more clear to me every day that a new evolutional age is dawning. I also have the distinct feeling that the Old is moving out kicking and screaming...we are in for a bloodbath, I just know it. The Old structures are brittle and weighty and overextended: the crash from the fall will be deafening. We had thought that the recent war was frightening, but the real Shock and Awe is yet to come.

However, the promise of the New structures coming into place around a softer center gives us comfort. Caught in the darkness, we see a little light.

I have returned to San Miguel. My entire three weeks in the States was circumscribed by the war in Iraq (or the War On Iraq, as AOL and some of the cable news shows are calling it). I arrived in Dallas on 19 March, three or four hours before the first bombs fell, and left there on Wednesday for Austin as the statue of Saddam was being pulled off its pedestal in the middle of Baghdad. During that time I experienced by own internalized war -- a hellish combat with inner demons.

Back in Mexico, at home, I am feeling exhausted from it all, but, oddly, energized at the same time. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the start of Semana Santa. I have decided to give myself to the continuing process of my own mental and emotional crucifixion, if only to try to experience a resurrection. These rituals are powerful. I trust them.

Since 19 March, when the first bombs were dropped on Baghdad, we all have been wondering whether Saddam Hussein was alive or dead. But yesterday I began wondering about the whereabouts of an important figure on the Empire side: where is Dick Cheney? While I was musing about that this morning, I received a note from Mathe to the effect that she thinks Cheney may be dead. I'm starting to believe it. If he does not show himself in another day or two, I'm going to start a rumor.

Beverly and I spent the day, most of it, with Barbara Marx Hubbard. She is a fascinating presence, an evolutionary force herself. Over lunch we talking about the symbolism of bombing in the Garden of Eden, and the need for a new Creation Myth. She agreed. Lots of talk about going up the next step in human evolution. I am sitting here sorting out the day.

Because what is happening on the planet is getting more and more intense, it may be better to observe this Cosmic Transition from the outside. I am beginning to imagine myself on Mars, where I have been living a lifetime as an anthropoligist for several thousand Earth years. What I am seeing is quite marvelous -- certainly a shake-up for the human consciousness units there, but a shift into a bright and excellent future. Old Time for that species, dear to us, after all, is coming to an end. An arrow went out from their Cradle of Civilization, hit the symbols of (the misuse of ) money and power (what Civilization had become) -- their own Towers of Babel -- and the egg was cracked. Now the arrow has flown back to hit the source. And the rest, as they say, is the end of history.

The old is passing away; the new is emerging. I am finding that I am internalizing the images of the destruction of Babylon I am seeing on television. The old and corrupt is passing away, being bombed away; the new and dazzling is emerging. Conflict will soon be over...the seed is buried in the fertile valley. The center could not hold. The Garden is planted and is already in bloom.

I saw 'The Quiet American' the other night. What is it with Brendan Fraser? He looks like he's made of mashed potatoes: perfect to play Orson Welles...and, in fact, he seems to be living out the Welles propensity to fleshy inflation.

Brendan, try a no-fat eating plan. For breakfast, eggs with many vegetables; mid-day, fruit with a little granola and non-fat yoghurt; fruit for an afternoon break; for supper, steamed vegetables, a bit of fish, a green salad with lemon, and a baked apple. Watch those pounds slip away!

I love watching Graham Greene movies...so moody and, in their own way, unpredictable. He wrote 500 words a day, no more, no less, every day. When the two pages were finished, he went out and had his day. In that way he wrote all those novels.

Bush at Camp Lejeune today, told the family of a solider killed in action in Iraq, 'He is in heaven.' This, of course, is also the definition of sainthood, something that only the Holy See can confer. Has Bush become a religious leader? Yes, I think so. And none too soon, either, since we will be needing a new Pope before long.

But what is interesting is this: families in Iraq (and Palestine, et al) are also being told that their children are in heaven for having suffered martyrdom at the hands of the followers of Bushism.

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden, and from there it divided. It had four headstreams. The name of the first is the Pishon. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Genesis 2:8-14

The area of the world where tanks are trudging through sand and bombs are exploding in the night sky is no ordinary location. Our human species was nurtured in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. As early as 9000 BC, humans were cultivating wild wheat and barley in ancient Mesopotamia (‘between the rivers’), and domesticating dogs and sheep, evolving from food hunters to food producers.

Historians have always referred to the place as the Cradle of Civilization. Seven thousand years ago, people were building homes and temples there, trading with others, irrigating fields, and experimenting with government. Five thousand years ago, they were developing the skills of writing and mathematics, and making art.

A momentous turning point in human evolution happened there: we became truly human. Biblical legend places the Garden of Eden at that spot, a location symbolizing the birth of our species as thinking, feeling, self-reflecting beings apart from the animal kingdom.

Images coming to us on our television screens are showing vast destruction in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. Thousands of warriors are converged there with their tanks, bombs, planes, and missiles. If what we are watching were a dream, instead of real, waking life events, how might we interpret these images? If we are destroying our own cradle of civilization, what could that mean?

Taking a long view, beyond the tangled morality of this war and its grisly statistics, beyond the politics and personalities of the moment, in symbolic terms we seem to be returning to the cradle to eradicate it. We humans are destroying our nest. Could we be doing it in order to mark the end of our species childhood and the beginning of our adulthood? We may be going up to the next step in human evolution -- and erasing all evidence of our childhood as a sign that we are ready to make the climb.

Seen this way, the war we are engaged in has a meaning quite apart from the various possible motivations that have been put forth, officially and unofficially. We had thought this war might have been about ending a corrupt regime, about exterminating terrorists, about gaining another US military foothold in the Middle East, about macho posturing, or even, drawing upon mythology, about completing a father’s great task. Taking a higher road, we had also entertained the idea that the meaning of the war was to bring about a new world order built on new national, ethnic, and religious alliances.

But the cloudy motivations for this war and the driving inexorability of it make us wonder if another, larger force is at play. What we are seeing in the Cradle of Civilization may be the unstoppable movement of human evolution expressing itself forward in a mighty leap. New planetary consciousness may be ready to emerge, with the egg hatching on the spot where it first did thousands of years ago when it brought forth the present human world.

While this perspective can bring little comfort to the people engaged in the present conflict, it may lend some meaning in terms of human evolution to a situation that, no matter how it is argued, seems oddly lacking in both logic and judgment. If we are ascending as a species into higher realms of planetary peace and cooperation, the drama we are witnessing unfold between the Tigris and the Euphrates — again — is momentous. It carries with it the promise that our human future may be to dwell in the Garden of Eden that we never had, but always aspired to.