Stewart Brand hosts the weekly “Seminars About Long-term Thinking” in San Francisco. Last week it was Wade Davis, who wrote The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. Here are a few excerpts from Stewart’s write-up:
“He began with Polynesians, the wayfinders who mastered the Pacific ocean in the world’s largest diaspora. Without writing or chronometers they learned 220 stars by name, learned to read the subtle influence of distant islands on wave patterns and clouds, and navigated the open sea by a sheer act of integrative memory. For the duration of an ocean passage “navigators do not sleep….”
“In the Andes the Incas built 8,500 miles of roads over impossibly vertical country in a hundred years, and their descendents still run the mountains on intense ritual pilgrimages, grounding their culture in every detail of the landscape….”
For more, go to this link and click on “Hide Stewart’s introduction,” and you’ll get Stewart’s synopsis of Wade’s (sold-out) talk: https://longnow.org/seminars/02010/jan/13/wayfinders-why-ancient-wisdom-matters-modern-world/
