Excerpted from the book,
"A Song, A Dance & 23 Tricks With A Banana"
by Neil Pike

It's a little acknowledged fact of life that up until the Industrial Revolution the vast majority of humans on this planet never traveled more than twenty or so miles from the place they were born in. Oh sure there were reckless, crazed individuals that went a'wandering (musicians, entertainers, merchants, pirates, pilgrims, soldiers, explorers, adventurers and such), but for most of us neophobic, talking monkeys the horizon we could see was the limit of our aspirations and the village where we grew up was the total extent of our knowledge. Once in a lifetime we might make a 3 day journey to the nearest big town or even (for the horticulturally inclined) once a season, but until the invention of the steam engine a 3 day journey wouldn't take you any real distance away from the valley, hill or coastline where you'd spent most of your life.

Whilst this may have led to a relatively narrow cultural viewpoint, the effect of these geographical limitations on our sense of identity was almost certainly a benign one. Humans you see (like most of the other creatures we share this globe with) are made up of at least 80 percent unconscious drives and evolutionarily determined conditioned reflexes. Of the remaining 20 percent (and I'm probably being generous when I allow us THAT much free will), not much is anything more than a calculated response to these subliminal urges.

Put simply, we're struggling to function with a software/hardware package that was written when we still lived in caves, died at 30 and spent most of our time and energy trying not to starve to death. A really significant part of our early evolution was spent wandering across Africa, Asia, Gondwanaland and Europe, dodging sabre-toothed tigers and desperately hoping that the next, big hunting score would tide us through the next, big patch of snow, drought, flood, ice or fire.

How relieved we must have felt when we finally figured out how to grow a few crops and herd a few animals. How happy our ancestors must have been when (after lifetimes of terrified, hungry wandering) they finally staked out a turf, planted a few seeds (of both the plant and human kind), looked around 'em and proudly proclaimed "This is MY home!" To our ancient agrarian forebears this subsistence-level existence must have seemed like the ultimate luxurious security blanket and as the generations passed, our sense of identity became more and more intrinsically tied to our sense of place.

"This hill overlooking my mud-daubed hovel is the very same hill that all my ancestors have been overlooked by. It's ALWAYS been here and it ALWAYS will."

"This ancient oak (or jasmine or eucalypt) tree that I rest my weary back against is the very same tree that my father (and all my fathers before me) rested against. It's ALWAYS been here and it ALWAYS will."

"This river that winds past my door (that my children play in and my whole tribe drinks and fishes from) has ALWAYS been here and it ALWAYS will."

In a transitory, ever-changing world wracked by the unceasing tragedies of life, death and natural disaster, our ancestors learnt to take considerable solace and a huge part of their personal (and tribal) identity from the geography of the surrounding land. The lesson was simple... WHERE you are is WHO you are... and over the millennia this lesson became deeply engraved on our collective (and individual) consciousness.

This basic identification with our natural environment was also the essence of many tribal religious practices and beliefs worldwide... and a very necessary one. If the food and water you consume comes from a river at your front door, it makes no sense to shit in that river. If you're eating grain that's grown in a field next to where you live, why on Earth would any sane, rational human want to cover that field with concrete or bricks?

Obvious as this is, it seems that most humans need regular reminding of this basic fact of life. Particularly when our water comes out of a tap and our food comes from a supermarket. Let's face it, it's kinda hard to form any deep spiritual identification or a sense of oneness with our environment when that environment is an ugly, polluted construction of concrete and steel.

And so, as the years ticked by since the Industrial revolution and the great human diaspora became more and more complete, our sense of cultural and individual identity became less tied in with our local natural landmarks and more and more dependant on illusionary, arbitrary notions such as personal wealth, career achievements and what football team we rooted for. Along with this detachment from the Earth came a corresponding ability (almost desire) to destroy this once-green globe we inhabit and any other life on it that isn't immediately identifiable as "us". The end result of this madness is the environmental and social chaos we find ourselves in at the beginning of the 21st Century. The real tragedy is that the lifestyle that most of us pursue (suspended in mid-air in a brick'n'glass cubicle above a teeming mass of concrete, chaos and human greed) almost automatically disqualifies us from having the vaguest notion of just how fucked-up things really are.

My friend John Seed (an internationally acclaimed environmental activist and deep ecologist) has a wonderfully succinct way of explaining this to people.

"If ya don't think you're a part of or affected by the environment you're in" he says with a wry smile, "try holding your breath for ten minutes".

Where you are is who you are.