ORANG ASLI call the Earth Tanah Tujuh - literally, the Seventh Land… or Planet.
Anoora's uncle Seri Pagi and his younger brother Utat have tried many times to explain exactly what this means by showing me a stack of plates. “There are seven worlds one on top of the other, you see, and we are here, right in the middle.”
Were they talking about Dimensions? There was no way I could find out. The word “dimension” translates into Malay as dimensa or dimensi - generally defined as ukuran or spatial measurements.
I can't help visualizing the Jewish menorah - the holy candelabrum with seven candlesticks which Kabbalists say is a symbol for the different levels of consciousness - mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic/demonic, archangelic, and deific. These seven levels are interrelated with the seven notes of our musical octave, the seven colors of the rainbow, and with the seven major chakras (pranic or etheric energy spirals) that define and regulate our body-mind-soul equilibrium.
But there's yet another explanation that makes perfect sense. Zecharia Sitchin, author of The Earth Chronicles and an authority on ancient languages and artifacts, albeit a controversial one, puts it succinctly:
“The Sumerians counted the planets not as we do, from the Sun outward, but from the outside in. Thus, Pluto was the first planet, Neptune the second, Uranus the third, Saturn the fourth, Jupiter the fifth. Mars accordingly was the sixth, Earth the seventh, and Venus the eighth.” [Italics added.]
Their precise cosmological knowledge, the Sumerians asserted, was given them by the Anunnaki (“The Ones Who From Heaven To Earth Came”) - known to the Hebrews as the Nefilim or Nephilim, who first arrived on Earth from their planet, Nibiru, about 440,000 years ago. Anu, God-King of Nibiru, had sent his eldest son Ea to establish a base on Earth - the Seventh Planet - from which to mine gold. The Nibiruans, according to esoteric lore, needed vast quantities of gold dust to create an artificial radiation shield around their planet, because their industrial activities were destroying Nibiru's atmosphere. Ea established his first “Earth Station” in southern Mesopotamia and called it Eridu (“House Remotely Constructed”). The erudite Mr Sitchin writes in The 12th Planet:
“To this very day, the Persian term ordu means 'encampment.' It is a word whose meaning has taken root in all languages: The settled Earth is called Erde in German. Erda in Old High German, Jördh in Icelandic, Jord in Danish, Airtha in Gothic, Erthe in Middle English; and, going back geographically and in time, 'Earth' was Aratha or Ereds in Aramaic, Erd or Ertz in Kurdish, and Eretz in Hebrew.”
But the task of digging and tunneling for gold proved so arduous that the Anunnaki miners went on strike after 144,000 years. To meet the serious labor shortage, Ea, who was now called Enki (“Lord of the Firm Ground”), decided to create an experimental hominid slave species called the Adama with the help of Ninti - the Sumerian goddess of birth (whose name means “Lady of Life” or “Lady of the Rib”) - and an unlimited supply of DNA. Does this sound familiar? At least it explains why humans continue to be obsessed with gold - the metal of the gods.*
THE SUMERIAN CUNEIFORM TABLETS record that their Sky Gods called this planet Ki (“firm ground”) and found it to be an ideal genetic laboratory because the elements of fire, air, water, and earth were in perfect dynamic balance. That it was the seventh planet was especially significant, for in all metaphysical traditions the number 7 embodies the mystery - and hence the sacredness - of life.
Over millennia, the name Ki evolved into Ge, and then Gaia (worshiped by the Romans as the Great Mother Goddess). Even hardnosed scientists today are beginning to call the Earth “Gaia” again, in recognition of and respect for her astonishing and unique fecundity as a matrix of morphogenetic fields.
Alas, the same reverence is rarely expressed by land speculators and realtors.
A case in point: if you travel from Serendah to Rawang, you’re bound to pass a scene of ghastly devastation on your left, where an entire range of hills has been scraped raw and then left to erode like a festering wound before yet another concrete scab passing for a shophouse project is erected. The spot is marked by an unassuming signboard that says: EARTH FOR SALE.
Which brings to mind the singular characteristic that distinguishes Orang Asli – in fact, all indigenous folk – from urbanites: they would never say the land belongs to them, but that they belong to the land. Now, that is true wisdom indeed.
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| Earth for sale - including her inhabitants? |
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* "In September 1988, a team of international physicists came to South Africa to verify the age of human habitats in Swaziland and Zululand. The most modern techniques indicated an age of 80,000 to 115,000 years.
"Regarding the most ancient gold mines of Monotapa in southern Zimbabwe, Zulu legends hold that they were worked by 'artificially produced flesh and blood slaves created by the First People.' These slaves, the Zulu legends recount, 'went into battle with the Ape-Man' when 'the great war star appeared in the sky.' (see Indaba My Children, by the Zulu medicine man Credo Vusamazulu Mutwa)."
- Zecharia Sitchin, Genesis Revisited (Avon Books, 1990)
When he arrived on Tanah Tujuh to establish the first Earth colony, Enki was called Ea ("House on Water"), a name associated with Poseidon and Neptune, and his emblem was the Serpent or Dragon. As the Nefilim (Hebrew for "Those Who Descended From the Sky") began to settle in Eridu, Ea became known as Enki ("Lord of Earth"). However, it was Enlil ("Lord of Space") - Anu's son by his half-sister - who was appointed "Lord of the Heavenly Command." Enlil's emblem was the Eagle, and he is hailed in Mesopotamian legends as the bringer of Agriculture and the Heavenly Laws of Kingship to Humanity. Enki was assigned to research and engineering duties as Overseer of Abzu (southeast Africa), where the first Anunnaki gold mines were located. The difference in temperament between the divine brothers Enki and Enlil - and the sibling rivalry that it engendered - sowed the seeds of potential discord that subsequently erupted as '"the Wars of the Gods.'"