This photo of our planet from outer-space is not just a picture. It is a symbol of wholeness – the wholeness of life on Earth.

In the `70’s scientists investigating criteria for life in the universe compiled a list of around 20 of the Earth’s vital functions, such as the maintenance of a steady body temperature and the level of sea salinity.

They chose the name Gaia for this aspect of the planet as a living organism, the name the Ancient Greeks had for the Earth-Mother Goddess.

There is a common belief that living functions are a complex of seemingly positive and negative activities. Chaos-theory denies this. It explores how order and purpose are at work through chaos.

Early Earth-Mother cultures recognised and accepted the chaotic nature of life, where more organised civilisations (Egyptian, Babylonian, Mayan, et. al) structured themselves, ordering society and directing life as if that would make it possible to avoid chaos.

In the multitude of faces of God that abound are some, such as that of the Hindu goddess Kali, that recognise the gore and violence of life – faces of the brutal, the cruel, the ugly and all that is unpleasant and frightening,.

These images depict the Divine Mother, assuring their devotees that, behind life’s shadows, there are gods who smilingly beckon us to pass through darkness and disorder to the love and protection they offer.

This dark face is a significant feature of Gaia’s

character, for chaos is an integral part of life on Earth.

Palaentologist’s recognition of at least 5 great cataclysms during the course of the planet’s existence, is an example – catastrophes that have, upon occasion, destroyed as much as 90% of life.

Here is how the last event, 65 million years ago, probably was!

A huge species loss synchronously and on a global scale extinguished 70% of life, in addition to the extinction of dinosaurs.

An asteroid buried in the Gulf of Mexico,

with its tail in the atmosphere, that…

…stirred up a hell-fire that boiled the oceans, causing super-broiler temperatures in the atmosphere that killed any organisms exposed and incinerated forests globally.

It is with regard to such cataclysms that Life is reckoned to have evolved by leaps and bounds following successive calamities. In other words, they say that evolution has not been a steady process, but rather one of opportunity following on the heels of such catastrophes.

There was a lesser event more recently, about 9,500 BC

A comprehensive inter-disciplinary approach drawing on archeo-astronomy, archaeology, climatology, geology, paleonthology, cultural studies, and so forth, in addition to the study of human behaviour, suggests the following scenario at the end of the last ice age .

Fragments of a super-nova in the Vela star system tore its way through the solar-system, tilting Earth’s axis.

Bombarded from the skies, there were horrific electro-magnetic storms in the Earth’s atmosphere. An immense body of water in the Great Lakes region of N. America was suddenly released, chilling the Gulf Stream and causing extensive innundations. The last Ice-Age arrived.

Some kind of global maritime culture seems to have preceed this event. The inundated remains of certain ancient sites bear witness to the different water levels that prevailed earlier, whilst contents at other sites actually come from this culture.

A haphazard smattering of this pre-diluvial culture’s knowledge and skills became embedded within the more rigid, hierarchically structured later civilisations as unexplainable paradoxes. Other features have come down through myth and legend.

Though this event had a lesser impact, in terms of actual species loss, its suddeness and severity were traumatic, scarring the human psyche. This shock is considered to be responsible for a widespread cultural amnesia to have wiped the event from the human race’s memory, leaving a fear that drives our obsessive/compulsive behaviours as individuals and in society. In its turn this prevents us from ever coming to grips with - the cold-bloodedness of contemporary humanity´s attempting to live ordinary lives in the face of incredible human suffering and environmental loss – our conformance to set ways of doing things that make us slaves of legal, social, cultural and religious precedent – the predominantly aggressive nature of personal, social and national transactions that lock us up in domineering ways, territorial imperative and the over-weaning desire to control.Humankind needs to recover the originating memories of the terror it lived through then, in order to move beyond the fear of those times, so that it can focus on sharing instead of aquiring and hoarding, on creativity instead of violence and respond to life with courage rather than fear.

It is with regard to catastrophes that have devasted planet Earth, that scientists see the stage as being set for the next event now, with humanity as its agent.

Already on the way to the elimination of 30-50% of life, deforestation, pollution, water and bio-diversity loss, polar and glacial melt, ozone holes, ocean dead zones, and other sea change, have morphed into INTOLERABLE GLOBAL UPHEAVAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE …

…that are escalating the fragmentation and degradation of the natural habitats of many populations, species and eco-systems, breeding mass extinction and displacing human populations.

NOWHERE IS UNTOUCHED!

ALL SPECIES LIVE IN TIGHTLY-NETWORKED ECO-SYSTEMS. For instance, consider how 30% of global food production depends upon insect pollination.

Devastated eco-systems increasingly suffer the depradations of opportunistic invader species that environments and their species are not equiped to resist.

THE FABRIC OF THE LIFE ON EARTH THAT SUSTAINS US IS UNRAVELLING.

We do know that we are but one species on one branch of the tree of life here on planet Earth.

Gaia’s consciousness is everywhere as a field of energy and activity as well as within the biological form of life itself. Held in the botanical realm, as if to a standing note, plants are in touch with everything, all the time. A cabbage leaf’s scream at being dropped in boiling water is ‘heard’ by all. By way of their affect within the field of life, plants also ´read` our thoughts, disposition, deeds, behaviour, intentions and auras and interact thereon amongst themselves.

It is the norm for plants to live in community and work in concert, establishing complex and wonderful milieus that host life for all and sundry – something that certainly does not happen amongst humans, for all of our conviction about the elevated state of our consciousness!

Obviously we should note how seeing ourselves as the pinnacle of creation blinds us to a lot – how that blindness puts us outside the pale of life – how our attitudes and behaviour make us a floundering species due to our ignorance of the connection with our matrix.

The more standard reactions to this state of affairs are confused, even negative. So, what are other points of view? Are there any?

Well, the consciousness we carry may not make us superior. Nevertheless, there is something distinctive about it. It is diferent from the harmonic resonance with the fields of life and consciousness that plants have. We belong to another line of development Gaia opted for, in which biological forms of life have their own sensory system and awareness.

Generally speaking Consciousness inspires Life. It always has, right from single-celled organisms’ responses to the conditions of their existence on. In this, Consciousness pushes at Life for whatever will provide the awareness It seeks to bring to fuller expression.If one looks more specifically at evolution on the branch of the tree of life that we are on, one can see a movement of Life towrds forms with more evolved abilities, greater mobility, more sophisticated nervous systems, greater sensory ability, more complex brains, and so on.

The matter can be plotted on a graph, where the vertical axis is Consciousness and the horizontal one is Life. With the simplest expression of Life where the 2 axes divurge, the key stages of Life can be positioned in a continuum. Charted this way these evolutionary features mirror the promptings of Consciousness.

It is really not valid to think in terms of the evolution of Life. We should not demean Life with opinions of It as brutal, harsh, competitive, haphazard, etc. We should rather be paying attention to what Consciousness is upto - how, for instance, more sophisticated life forms seamlessly incorporate the biological and behavioural mechanismsof less complex forms of lifeis yet another manifestation of Consciousness.

Evolution is not the linear process the previous graph makes of it. For instance, evolutionary time is cyclical. It has no beginning or end. Evolution is happening on every hand, all the time.Take the riot of mutation on a single oak tree. It is far from being the uniform entity we assume. Each limb is unique as it indulges in change that has that tree expressing a greater degree of mutational variation than has existed since the first oak tree.

As a journey evolution is taking place through the passage from conception to birth in each individual of every species, through how each individual’s progress in life advances it and through how the accumulation of all that is happening gives it expression.

On one hand, we think of the human species as a recent evolutionary development. On the other hand, Life says that humans are the oldest of all species. For the whole evollutionary journey is made from the egg at conception, through the early stages of life, to fish, reptile, mammal and the complete human foetus at birth. This journey is the same in each case. However, each species stops at its own particular point. Only the human goes the whole way.

There are so many different ways to look at things. Each involves particular configuations of activity in our brains that are identifiable by their wave length and location .

IT IS ALL CONSCIOUSNESS – AND THERE IS MORE BESIDES!

The idea of the evolution of the human brain is yet another thing that is framed in linear terms. There are considered to be 4 phases to this.

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It is good to be careful about what we explain and how, for the nature of the mind/brain connection as the interface between consciousness and life, spirit-essence-energy and matter involve other levels of perception than the purely conventional temporal and spatial ones.

For instance, take the rudimentary left/right formulation of brain activity. Where surgery has left only one hemisphere fuctional, it proves possible to train it to take on the functions of the missing hemisphere. So, if a person with ½ a brain can be normal, what is wrong with those who have a normal brain! How would you account for this?

The frontier of mind/brain research is ever advancing. Quantum theory, for instance, has more recently provided insight into the workings of the mind where physical science better explains the biology of form and function. In this context, the brain is the amazing organ Life has evolved, on Consciousnes´s behalf, by which consciousness in form communes with itself in the universal field.

Well then, what does Consciousness in us actually amount to? What does it feel like? How does one recognise it?

Imagine being beside a river, so that just as your senses give sights, sounds, smells and a feel of the world around you, the water ´tells` you of life in itself and beside it, upstream and downstream. If you stepped back on land, the earth beneath your feet would do the same. Any change in any of these mediums, something new, some other presence, the precursors of a thunderstorm, earthquake, or flood, would be known instantaneously. This is no longer a question of your own sensory awareness. It is another kind of perception – something extra-sensory!

Now imagine that you are going to stay there beside that river. That is where everything about life is going on for you. Everything you sense, all you think and do, is there. It is where life’s meaning is, as far as you are concerned. Your leafy branches breathe the air, giving and receiving every moment. It is the same with your roots in the soil below. All sorts of creatures live and are sheltered within the ambit of your activity. You are aware of all this. You are at one with it.

It does not matter if a storm breaks the tree´s boughs, or an earthquake topples it over, or it s chopped down. The awareness that was in it is still there in the field that and others still pick up on just as the tree did. Life and Consciousness go on being one, seeded by the tree, just as they had been seeded in it. How else does a tree better express itself and find fulfilment?

Well, there is nothing untoward about this sort of super-awareness. You could be this way right now! The thing is that you are not! DOESN´T IT MAKE YOUR HEART ACHE?

You see, however we try to grasp at any of this through material science and technology, it escapes the gropings of logic. That endeavour destroys forms and substance. Meanwhile, its essence continues to pervade the field of life, impregnating other entities and forms of life, anyway, separated from us by the very machinations by which we try to lay hold of it.

In terms of Gaia and our biological existence, there is a question – why are we? To what end?

Consciousnes, both out there and within each of us, challenges us to wake up to who we really are, to what life is actually about. It challenges us to break through to the truth of living fully, together, at every level of self – to grow up.

So, what are the sort of distinctively human activities that qualify us to meet this challenge?

Feeding the Flame of Human Destiny.

Are you committed to actualising human potential within you? Does compassion for what is happening everywhere motivate you towards fufilment? Do you appreciate living with the stress of your own circumstances in life?

Reading the Signs of the Times. Consider the significance of all that is afoot. What does any of it have to say to you? Attune yourself to the messages. Align yourself with the Love that lies behind it all.

Walking the Line Between the Visible and the Invisible. Does your attitude allow unseen presences to indulge their appetities and cravings through your conduct and behaviour? Or, do you bring salvation for your ancestors, redemption to others and the fulfilment of life through how you live?

Accomplishing the Soul’s Pilgrimage on Earth. This is a path of fire, the fire one goes through to bridge differences. One has tried everything else but still one seeks the way. So, bit by bit one finds the flame in one’s heart, the flame of both Life and of Consciousness.

Serving Life. Everything is food. Organisms consume. Living things feed one another. Life nurtures. The impetus of Consciousness is what nourishes Life to manifest itself. This is how Life serves you and how you serve Life.

Making the Sacred Journey . How quickly can your personal awareness mesh with the changes that are going on in the fields of energy and knowledge? Your journey is right there in the circumstances of your daily life. The distance is no more than that of awakening from the partial awareness of your lesser self to that of your higher self’s use of the potential within you.

Consciousness out there seeks completion within each of us. It asks for fulfilment through us. We are equipped for this. So, when is it going to happen? - for personal transformation and human metamorphosis are not hypothetical propositions.

The agents of personal transformation and of human metamorphosis are on every hand.

1. Change can be overwhelming. It can affect one’s personality drastically. For instance, in multiple-personality disorder (MPD) the other persona expresses physical change (physiognomical features, birth marks, scars, etc.); the voice and mentality are different; chronic infirmities and other symptoms disappear; body functions alter (menstruation periods and metabolism), and foreign substances disappear (presence of alcohol, drugs, medicaments, contaminants, etc.)MPD is a condition in which the different alternative identities, or alters, are not aware of one another. Etreme trauma creates a shift of alter. The shock triggers it.In some quarters use is made of this knowledge to manipulate selected individuals. A shock is induced. Some signal or key word that can later be used to bring about that particular identity change is implanted. This way an individual can be obliged to perform acts in one alter that will be unrecognised otherwise.

2. Change can be uplifting. There is an increasing number of people whose recognition of personal growth is as a process, a path of ascension, marked by advances, such as that of being nourished solely by prana (energy in the universal field), different sleep patterns, living from the heart, and so on. They experience this as a path of transformation, a journey towards limitless being.

3. Change takes place in other ways, such as during sleep. Sleep is a state in which being alert is suspended and what occurred when awake is processed. The results are stored at the cellular level in our bodies which is where the seat of memory is. This means that personal development takes place through the re-affirmation or modification of character and conduct during the sleeping state.This is powerful stuff, available for use, consciously, to effect personal transformation. The biological memory of the human species uses but 5% of its genetic structure. The sleeping state gives us direct access to the rest to this end, if we so choose.

4. Life has evolved the brain as the body’s information processing and communications centre. Furthermore, its interface with the mind connects it with the universal field from which unlimited quantities of additional information can be accessed. However, this in no way qualifies the brain as a command centre. Only the heart can really do this, through its capacities for entrainment, connectivity, thereby feeling for what is going on, therefore knowing what should be done. In this the heart is the organ in us that employs all our attributes, according to what the mind/brain connection has made us aware.

Here is the challenge. 95% of mass (dark energy) in the universe is considered to be imperceptible for us. Upto 95% of the brain’s activity is said to not relate to the waking state and physical activity. Probably more than 95% of our DNA is reckoned to have nothing to do with physical genetics. There is obviously so much more to life. Consciousness invites us to develop! Through the chaos we generate, Gaia makes her demand for us to achieve our real potential and realise our place in the scheme of things. The field of Consciousness’s and Gaia’s activity is unconditional love. The heart is the centre of this love’s activity in us. The magnitude of the sort of change that lies before us is of the order of another of evolution’s quantum leaps.

So, what are we waiting for when Consciousness is calling like this!

This material has been formulated for reflection upon the human condition, in such a way as to motivate us to grow. So, lets sum things up!

In the context of planet-wide upheaval, we are witnessing a mass-extinction event in real time, as it is taking part at our hands. Even the counter-measures we propose are of no use. They compound the trouble because they are skewed by our intention to stick to the style of life that is at the root of this collapse. What is happening is inevitable. The process

is inexorable.

Though our very existence is so provocative, in the context of the evolutionary scheme, nothing is wrong. So, how then do we handle the situation we are in? It is all right there within each of us!

RECOGNISING the play of the darkness and the light within and round about us, as well as within and the play between our knowledge and our ignorance.CONSIDERING where our fears come from, both the personal and the collective.

Each of us needs to listen to the Earth; to see Gaia’s presence at work behind the scenes, and to fulfil the purpose of our presence here, under her suzerainty.

TAMING THE RAMPANT HUMAN EGO within, as individuals and as the human race.

Each of us must respect our own reality – the choice we have made to be in the middle of things the way we are.

In the ´dreamworld` we connect with the energy at play behind the appearances of life. Here at the interface between reality and truth our lives become purposeful and are more fulfiling.

The very fact of our being in the predicament we are in, represents the choice we have to honour the reality of both Consciousness and of Life within and on every hand around about. The crux of the matter is that we are conscious entities having human experience. So that, although our biological bodies and personalities have toxic feelings and thoughts to contend with, ultimately there is no failure. This is the opportunity that lies before us. The struggle has its value. To be able to rejoice in this belongs to reaching our full stature.