by Janet Lessin, CEO, Aquarian Media AN OLD ARCHETYPE RETURNS Every so often, a political figure steps onto the stage, and the atmosphere around them thickens. The usual categories—left and right, conservative and liberal, hawk and dove—start to feel inadequate. Something older and deeper stirs beneath the day-to-day noise, and people experience that person less …
By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) England tore itself apart again. James II—Catholic, stubborn, authoritarian—had frightened Protestant elites into imagining he might create a French-style absolutist monarchy on English soil. When his Catholic son was born in 1688, they panicked. Whispers swept elite salons and military camps alike: A Stuart dynasty raised as Catholics—never. …
1688–1689: JAMES II RAN WHEN WILLIAM OF ORANGE INVADED England tore itself apart again. James II—Catholic, stubborn, authoritarian—had frightened Protestant elites into imagining he might create a French-style absolutist monarchy on English soil. When his Catholic son was born in 1688, they panicked. Whispers swept elite salons and military camps alike: A Stuart dynasty raised …
1641-1649: IRISH CONFEDERATE WARS: DOMINATION, PARTNERSHIP & THE SHADOW OF THE GODS By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) 1641: IRELAND IGNITED Ireland in 1641 trembled like a harp string stretched too tight—land seizures, sectarian humiliation, and centuries of English domination pressed the Gaelic and Old English Catholic population into desperation. When the Catholic gentry …
By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) 1600–1640: ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM England in the early 1600s seemed stable, but the land itself whispered discontent. Wealthy landlords enclosed common fields; peasant families were pushed into hunger. Docks roared with commerce while the poor saw none of its promise. Women in markets murmured that God’s order felt …
By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) Shays’ Rebellion (August 1786–February 1787) was never just a footnote between the Revolution and the Constitution. It was the first significant test of whether the new American republic would choose partnership—care, cooperative survival, basic human dignity—or domination, where the powerful use state violence, courts, sheriffs, and debt to …
1607: ENGLISH DESPERADOS SOUGHT QUICK RICHES IN VIRGINIA SWAMPS JAMESTOWN rose in the spring of 1607, when the ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery pressed up the James River and anchored near a malarial swamp. One hundred and four settlers disembarked—gentlemen, soldiers, laborers, a few artisans, and several boys indentured for service. They hacked logs, …
Domination Consciousness, Partnership Possibilities, and the Birth of America’s Racial-Class System By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D., Anthropology (UCLA) New England’s bloodiest colonial war was more than a conflict of muskets and villages: it was a spiritual confrontation between domination consciousness and partnership consciousness, between fear-based hierarchy and relational balance. Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett nations fought …
by Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) At the opening of the seventeenth century, southern New England thrived with Native towns, councils, and regional confederations. These were the People of the First Light, living in the homeland they called Dawn Land. Their societies were complex, agricultural, diplomatic, and centuries deep. For generations, they traded with …
ASHOKA’S BEHAVIOR BELIES HIS PROPOGANDA By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA) (Based on data from Decoding Ashoka’s Legacy by Odd Compass); ASHOKA SAID HIS LOW-CASTE MOM WAS THE DAUGHTER OF A BRAHMAN Ashoka was born in 304 BCE, in a Mauryan palace already thick with palace intrigue and class anxiety. Later chroniclers said his …
