Traditional indigenous cultures in many parts of the world have displayed a profound appreciation of the relationship between human and ecosystem health, something global culture is trying to rediscover under the label of sustainability. Since the beginning of time, human beings have told the story of their own beginning, and of the origins of the four directions, the heavens, the God-People, the earth, and all its creatures. The Mayan creation story is a wild and wooly epic showing the repeated errors of the gods in attempting to perfect a human creature. The story is here interpreted as an epic-length poem: They did not remember their Creator, They did not offer praise to their Maker; They forgot the Heart of Heaven And therefore fell from favor again. So this was a trial, an attempt at man. These creatures spoke, but their faces had no expression...