We are all indigenous people and we all have the yearning for Sacred Expression. The oldest known temple has recently been located in Turkey. It is Called Gobelki Tepe and it was built around eleven thousand years ago. It predates Stonehenge and the Pyramids by several thousand years. So what were our ancestors and the indigenous people of Asia and Europe doing at the time?

This is North of the Fertile Crescent. This was before people were farming. They were still hunter-gatherers. They were still Neolithic People. And yet they managed to build an extensive series of structures in what appear to be temple complexes.

With no draught animals to help pull the stones from the quarry and very primitive hand tools to carve with, these people built impressive structures. Some of the standing stones are as tall as 18 feet and weigh up to 16 tons. They are carved and standing on end like at Stonehenge yet are several millennia older. They are covered with animal carvings and some look like large stylized humans.

Why and who did this? Who were these people? Where did they get this idea? What prompted them to organize themselves and their limited resources to build a religious center? What in our collective DNA as humans prompts this reach for spiritual expression?

All of us come from ancestors who were indigenous people at one time or another. Most of the time when people read or talk about indigenous people, the assumption is they are talking about the original group of people living in a country colonized hundreds of years ago by Europeans.

But who were the first people of Europe? And what in their DNA made them start looking for the divine in their lives? These are the people who traveled up and out of Africa and started to settle in the Fertile Crescent. What prompted the indigenous people of the world to start building temples? Did a spiritual calling within us prompt this step in our advancement? We seem to be programmed to seek out some expression of what we find sacred as a species. I believe that is what shows our connection to each other and this is why we are all indigenous people.

Many ancient cultures can be traced by their religious relics: the notes they left us, like time capsules. Right now the world is very focused on the Mayan long count calendar. It is a religious artifact that an indigenous culture left behind in a temple.

What prompted us to start organizing ourselves enough to build a temple? Was it realizing that we needed to have some sort of order and organization as our population grew? Was it the domestication of animals and the ability to grow crops? Is that what prompted us to start building permanent buildings, or was it a desire to come together to build religious temples? What Gods were we trying to impress?

What compels us as humans to erect temples with clear religious intent? What compels us to draw and leave our handprints on cave walls? All through our history as a species we have been leaving clues to ourselves. From ancient times we have been trying to express our higher yearning for what most of us call God/Goddess.

Are we trying to express outwardly what is in that little spot in our brain and heart that connects with the higher self and the universe? They say that what set us apart from the Neanderthals was our ability for creative thought and the decorative items we placed on ourselves, our clothing and our structures.

Are we set apart by a conscious awareness of a higher spiritual aspect of ourselves that we are trying to express to others? Every indigenous people around the world have left behind an example of their beliefs... the great Pyramids of Egypt that line up with the stars, or Stonehenge that lines up with the equinoxes.

Are the Nazca lines of South America another attempt to tell us what the people who created them believed in, or were they trying to send a message thousands of years into the future or into outer space? Or were they talking to some Gods we can no longer see? Were these indigenous people trying to tell us about themselves or just talking to God/Goddess and trying to leave a permanent message?

Religion seems to be a fundamental part of the human experience. Some way of finding the sacred and expressing it seems to be built into our DNA as a species.

Trisha Howe is a born intuitive who started psychic training at age 15. She has over 30 years’ experience in Intuitive Counseling, Crystal Healing, Tarot, Mediumship, and Clairvoyance. Contact her at Mystictrish@cox.net or at (949) 493-0705.