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Reconnecting With Our Ancestors
I’ve been thinking about our ancestors of 13,000 years ago, the people who painted and carved on the caves in Spain and France. They lived in a cold period known as the Older Dryas, and they hunted and gathered, followed the wild herds, and made stunning art.
The paintings of Altamira, Chauvet, Lascaux, Les Trois Freres, Niaux, etc. are generally far back in the caves, in some cases only accessible by hidden passages or down dangerous holes that can only accommodate one person. The paintings are so vibrant, so full of motion, so overpowering, that Picasso is said to have left Lascaux downcast, saying ““Since Lascaux we have invented nothing.”
We don’t know whether the painters were women, or men, or children, or any of these at different times and places over the centuries. They may have been doing the sorcerers’ work for the community, connecting the people with the Sentient Earth, asking through the caves for what the people wanted. They may have been individuals whose right brains were more dominant than their left brains; they may have been very stoned, or given to trances, or they may have been regular people with undeniable urges to go deep into the wombs of Mother Earth and feel what creatures She was creating for Us, the Hungry, the Dependent.
So into the deep backs of the caves they went, with ground pigments, animal fats, stone…
