By Cathy Eck

The Eurocentric Story of Columbus

I really disliked history class when I was in school.  I didn’t understand why back then, but now it is obvious.  History is always one-side.  Usually the people who won, or at least perceived that they won, wrote history (or as I like to call it, his story).

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue….. (I don’t remember the rest)

I remember when my teacher told me about Columbus and how brave he was that he was willing to risk his life to see if he’d sail off the end of the world.  I was impressed because I wouldn’t do something so risky or perhaps so stupid.  And the truth is neither would Columbus.  Turns out he wasn’t the first person to come this way.  Pretty substantial proof now exists that a group of Jews came at least a couple hundred years earlier and some Scottish Knights Templar also beat Columbus to America.  Of course, renderings of Columbus’ own ships often show the Templar Cross on the sails.  Templars were known for being highly trained navigators due to their friend, Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator.

My favorite story about the nameless people who discovered America first was told by the Hopi.  They said that when the first people came, they were really nice and kind.  They taught them things and found they shared many spiritual ideas in common.  These nice men taught them a secret handshake (which makes us think it was the Templars).

So when the Spaniards later came to America, the Hopi thought they were the same nice men since they had similar costumes.  The Hopi chiefs held out their hands waiting for the cool secret handshake, and the Spaniards put trinkets in their hands instead.  The Hopi knew these were not the same men, and they were in very big trouble.

You Can’t Discover Something You Never Saw

But of course, those Spaniards weren’t Columbus’ men.  Truth is that most people don’t realize that Columbus didn’t even put his big toe on the US of A.  He went to the Caribbean.  There he was greeted by some sweet kind, innocent people who thought that their God had returned.  We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

But Columbus wasn’t their God.  If you read Columbus’s journal it says something like:  “Boy these are some handsome, strong, youthful people.  They will make nice slaves.”  What a dick!  And he proceeded to make these beautiful innocent people into slaves killing millions of them and a whole bunch of imported African slaves while he was at it.

To ask the Caribbean people to celebrate Columbus Day is equivalent to asking the Jews to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.  And yet, American’s think there is something wrong with their attitude.

What Can We Learn from Columbus?

There are some things we can learn from the Columbus fiasco.  First, Columbus did this for his own benefit.  He got kudos from the queen, and he got to do what he wanted to do, which was explore the world on her bank account.  I can’t fault him for that.  But he wasn’t a brave little hero that proved the world was round.  Thousands of years earlier that issue had already been settled, and it is found in ancient writings.

Second, you can’t discover something that other people know exists.  The native Americans and Caribbean natives clearly knew this part of the world existed.  They were…um… living here.  You can say, I didn’t know these people existed and then I found them so I guess I was wrong, but you can’t say they didn’t exist.

But the real food for thought when it comes to Columbus is that all over the world, we hear of nasty ass people discovering innocent natives, and the natives thought that it was the return of their God.  This was the cause of the demise of the Aztecs.  Aborigines and native Hawaiians all fell to the same horrible fate; and of course, our native Americans tell the same story.  It seems the return of God idea is not an original Christian notion.

There are many who believe this widely told story is proof that aliens existed and left like the Terminator saying, “I’ll be back.”  Of course, Christians see their God as ascending into heaven with a promise to return.  But what if it is much simpler, and the return of God theme is metaphorical?  What if we are waiting for our own True Self to drop out of heaven?

Long ago, someone convinced us that God lives up in the clouds sitting on a golden throne.  We basically projected our True Self up and outside of us.  Jesus, in the role of Son of God said, “God ain’t up in them there clouds, guys.  He is inside of you.  The father is within.”   But people said, “Oh, Jesus is special because he’s got God in him.”  Even when Jesus said that we could do everything he could do, people still ignored him and kept looking up in the clouds.  So of course, they are waiting for something to drop down.  The only logical, sane conclusion is that their own True Self is what needs to drop down.

The reason we innocently fall for the antics of people with bad intentions is that we were convinced to project our own God up into the clouds.  Without our True Self (God within) to help us discriminate and keep us safe on our path, we will believe anything we are told, including brave little Columbus discovered America and was trying to prove the world wasn’t flat.

Here is another cute little shout out to my Caribbean friends from my cruising days.