"We as human beings are only one species of life on a planet who is home to billions of life-forms, known and unknown. All life forms are unique; in the most fundamental ways we are no different or important than any other living being, except that our beliefs about ourselves have set us apart in our own minds, in thought and in action, and in the ability of our technological-industrial civilization to poison and exploit the planetary biosphere. Dominant belief paradigms like Darwinism and Judaeo-Christianity have laid the foundation for the widespread separation from and destruction of the natural world which we now experience and exacerbate. Indigenous peoples who live simply and in touch with nature are systematically decimated; their lands stolen, resources extracted, and the remnants become assimilated into the modern “way of life” centered on materialism, over-consumption, and the religion of capitalism. In the words of Joseph Wood Krutch,
“Man is one of those animals which is in danger from its too successul participation in the struggle for existence…from the standpoint of nature as a whole, he is both a threat to every other living thing, and therefore, a threat to himself also…he has become the tyrant of the Earth, the waster of its resources, the creator of the most prodigious imbalance in the natural order which has ever existed…”
We as human beings require the Earth for our existence; the Earth loves us as one of her children but does not require our existence. As we poison and destroy the Earth, we literally do this to ourselves. Our “artificial realities” imposed on the Earth and each other have supplanted our relationship with the natural world to such an extent that nature is no longer a primary element of consciousness.
One in two people globally now live in cities. No city of any size can possibly be a healthful place to live. Cities are high-density concentrations of all the most destructive things that people do, and are permeated with high levels of toxins, electromagnetic radiation, noise and socio-cultural malaise. People living in cities are far more vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters than people living in more natural and de-centralized conditions in the country or forest.
The Earth is a constantly changing and dynamic being, a living planet undergoing transformations just as her life-forms do; the Earth simultaneously provides an encompassing context for life as we know it, but is also itself embedded in larger cosmic contexts, most notably, the heliocosm, or local solar system, which is itself dynamic, transformative, and influenced by energies and movements at the galactic level.
Current science tells us that life itself has survived several “mass extinction events”; 99.9% of all life-forms that ever existed are now extinct. Life is not so much a specific life-form, for example, an individual organism or species, but more of a process.
Human life has been around long enough to have witnessed cosmic catastrophes that have left imprints in our collective psyche. The Earth experiences cyclical variations that result in changes in climate and magnetic fields, with resultant effects on life-forms.
Ancient/indigenous cultures have knowledge of some of these cycles and have long predicted the accelerated “Earth changes” now upon us. The influence of the existence of our global technological-industrial civilization is a significant factor as well in how these Earth changes affect us and the planet. The choices that we make, individually and collectively, on how we live and what we do with respect to the Earth also comprise a significant factor in the overall equation.
In addition to the direct manipulative and destructive effects of our technological civilization, including man’s warfare against himself, we may also be precipitating a higher degree of negative influence from the cosmic levels due to the disruption of natural systems at a planetary level. These negative influences could be termed “karmic” as well as “energetic” and “morphogenetic.”
At the human level, our overall desensitisation to the vibrations of nature puts us in a frequency domain out of harmony with the Earth and out of harmony with the incoming energetic shifts. Our decision-making is affected and in general we are not living in ways that are compatible with the long-term health or even existence of life as we know it, human or non-human. When we are out of touch with the subtle intelligence of nature, we are not able to respond to urgent warning signals, psychic “alarm bells” which may alert us to impending danger. When the local environment is saturated with electromagnetic radiation and chemical toxins, our personal auras are distorted, our resonance with the Earth’s magnetic field is blocked and we are out of synch with the real world in which life as we know it has always lived and evolved.
The Earth is not “punishing” us for doing what we are doing; we are punishing ourselves, and the Earth. The result is that we are making it vastly more difficult for ourselves to make it through this window of time successfully, for example, by continuing to live more and more extravagantly, consuming more and more resources, instead of pulling back on our damage to the Earth like indigenous elders and true “old school” environmental leaders have been telling us to for decades. In no way are we using our best or highest knowledge; the opposite is closer to the truth, as we plunge head-long into accelerating destructive habits and the refusal to renavigate our course to oblivion.
In the aftermath of the development of atomic weapons, Albert Einstein observed that “everything has changed except our ways of thinking.” This same insight can be applied to the effects of our entire military-industrial civilization: science-fiction level technologies are being deployed of on an undreamed-of scale, yet as individuals we cling to totally out-moded beliefs and values that make no sense in today’s world. We each are affected daily by the results of the scientific “revolution” yet most people could be classed as scientifically illiterate.
The unknowns with which we as humans are now confronted are enormous. The biggest unknowns lie within each of us, the mystery of why, for example, we steadfastly refuse to wake up out of the hypnotic trance called “normality” and to examine our “ways of life” that are literally paving the road to disaster.
It’s clear that political “leadership” and mass-media are only making matters worse by reinforcing the unquestioned status quo beliefs that increased materialism, capitalism and “technology” are the solutions to the problems we now face.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We each have the ability to take charge of our own lives if we allow ourselves to disengage from the “artificial realities” which have come to dominate our existence. We each have the ability to choose to simplify our lives, to live closer to nature, to live as if the Earth and our family of life, “mitakuye oyasin”, actually matter as fellow beings, not as “resources.”
If we each get a little closer to nature and lessen the damage we participate in through our daily routines and things we take for granted, a wellspring of healing and love is there just waiting for us to be aware of it, from the heart of the Earth herself, our true mother.
If we drink from the fountains of life we become more alive, and regain our sensitivity and responsiveness to the intelligence of nature and the Earth which is constantly guiding and informing us about what is happening in the local universe."
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