History .. the thoughts are broken..

At what level to humans is history important? Does the knowledge of history give us a sense of direction that is of value? In our age of information have we become more ignorant of our history?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

In Robert Hunter's lyrics to 'Ripple' the classic song by the Grateful Dead .. written about 1970, the band is contemplating their own role in transmitting a knowledge. In this mystical exploration of their expanding role as emissaries to this consciousness that was breaking down walls and firing up the imagination of a new generation. If life is a oneness, if Life is a Unified field, if all of us ride on this River, if power is in knowing complete vulnerability.... as I try to gather the words that if I poured into some container, some flask, the alembic …..then. Then what ….? We partake this knowledge and like some great solvent it cannot but spread itself out in a uniform manner throughout the great biological field of Life on Earth.

 I get hung up on history and I revel in it. My love of a million ancestors (yours and mine) and all their work and struggle and the passing on. In Washington DC, there is a beautiful building adjacent to the Supreme
Court building and more or less across from the Federal Capitol .. … It is the Library of Congress and in it there is every book that has ever been published in the USA (rumor has it) … It's faux marble interior, beautifully designed with artwork, as you look up to the ceiling, set in panels, some American Artist has depicted the whole story of  'passing the message'. Handing the baton from the older generation to the newest, what is there to venerate? What is the aspiration of the founding fathers? these sons of immigrants from England what was the nature of the Lightning in the Bottle that they brought into being. Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. How radical, how powerful, how to this day this notion reverberates in so many across the globe. Passing the baton, the hand-me-down, Hunter sings .. 'Let their be songs to fill the air'... He doesn't say let their be books to fill the air. Let their be histories to fill the air. He is speaking to the role of the bard and singer, the soul communicator.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Am I hung up on illusion as the newspapers go through the daily work of telling us what is going down. All this happened today.. I mean yesterday.. last week.. a million keys are being pounded on keyboards around the globe and then a million more to interpret and we all should have some sense, you would think by now that it is all pretty clear cut.

  I read myself to bed, I stumble on new revelations of the human experience, and somehow I can't stop and it seems fresh and I believe that it is all about, the spiritual quest. I read now the first book of the 6 volumes called the Tales of Genji written by Lady Murasaki, back in 1000 AD ... some say the first novel, but what about the Library of Alexandria … https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria....
 
   Meanwhile here in 2018 does any young person know about JFK. The answer is yes, but a resounding yes? Not quite. Martin Luther King stands stronger in our history but has his deep Christian ethic lost its way... or at least it's voice.