206 Million Years on Earth

Welcome to conscious evolution!

This blog is evolving, along with everything else! Here are some quick links to initial posts, if you'd like to start from the blog's big bang:

The Evolution of Man on Earth   Cain and Abel in the 21st Century

Deepak Chopra: A Review of Terence Malick's Film "The Tree of Life"

Finally, a new movie I'd really like to see! Here's an excerpt from Deepak Chopra's review of it:

Among the Oscar contenders this year, The Tree of Life stands out for inspiring awe and wonder. That was the intention, I'm sure, but audiences mostly express awe about the stupendous visuals, which depict the cosmos from the scale of an amoeba to the scale of the Big Bang. What's gotten ignored is the spiritual argument that Terence Malick, the writer-director, clearly poses. It's a very old argument but one that resists acceptable answers today.

Yet the entire story is about Jack's spiritual confusion, because his Job-like father and his saintly mother stand at two poles. An Old Testament God pulls him one way, a New Testament God the other. The beauty of this dilemma, which could seem artificially schematic, is that it feels so American. Malick made an earlier film, The New World, that explicitly showed America as a land of rebirth, a new Eden. For him, as in all of his movies, the American dilemma is about that ideal beginning and where it has led us. Is it our role to find a special grace that the Old World cannot deliver? Or did the new land turn us into Mr. O'Brien, missing the glory of God because we are fixated on materialism?

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

 

 

The Yin and Yang of Time

[Here's another course assignment I am sharing: a reflection based on some of the notions of time as a dimension of the physical universe, as described at a webpage of the University of Mannitoba.]

At last! I can begin to write this assignment. Yesterday I could not have written these first words. Now it is time.

I initially took on the “What Is Time” website at the end of a long day. Frankly, I could make no sense of it, and knowing that I would be asked to write 1 to 2 pages on some idea within it bordered on terrifying!

The following day, I re-opened the file with dread but plunged into the black (w)hole of it anyway. In the space of this day, I not only made sense of it, but found I could play with the ideas inside. As the old song goes, “What a difference a day makes!”[i]

In this play space, my next challenge was to sort through the many possible themes to find where the fire was to move my work on this assignment forward. In my reading of “What Is Time”, I discovered a section of text that generated a noticeable body-mind-heart-soul tension, so I focused there. My specific point of reference here is to the author’s discussion of cyclic and linear time, and then how Einstein “changed these ideas totally” with his theories of general and special relativity. Here’s how I took it from there:

First, in receptive stillness, I sit with the tension: I sense there is a dismissal of the cycle, the circle, as the irreversible arrow of time moves the Cosmic Feminine aside. I’m thinking there is something about the interrelationship of Masculine and Feminine energy that’s being missed in this shift. I question that linear time represents a “progressive view” as the article suggests. I sense it’s time to move out of quiet reflection and into hunting mode.

On to the Google search! I play with different search strings: cyclic time and Cosmic Feminine, spacetime and Feminine Principle, cronos and kairos, and on and on, following what attracts me until my head is full of possibilities in a sea of chaotic thought. I have no starting point for writing the assignment. And how did it get to be so late in the day?

I quiet my mind, and listen. Out of the chaos, an image emerges: the Taijitu (yin yang symbol). I have to smile as I relax into cellular memories of my practice of Taijiquan. I can feel the flow of energy, yin into yang, emptying then filling my limbs like a precious liquid poured slowly back and forth between two carafes. In this quiet space of memory I move back through my process with this assignment to reflect on notions of time. Now I see the pattern of subtle flows―circles to arrows, chronos to kairos, male to female, and back again―yet something beyond that, too: an idea that links and integrates older human observations and experience with what is emerging.

 “Could this speak to a view of time that is more resonant with body-mind-heart-soul,” I wonder, “the flow between magnetic poles of yin-yang?” I am moved to try one more search: spacetime and yin-yang. In the second page of results I find a link that sparks delightful coherence to my thoughts about co-creative harmony of the Cosmic Masculine and Feminine, and what it could mean in relation to concepts of space and time.

In the preface of his book on YinYang Bipolar Relativity,[ii] author Wen-Ran Zhang outlines his intention to introduce a deeper theory that transcends spacetime. In doing so, he doesn’t focus on defining the smallest fundamental element, but instead proposes that YinYang bipolarity is the most fundamental property of the universe. Though Zhang doesn’t claim YinYang bipolar relativity is a “theory of everything” he sees its potential to unify theories: mechanistic with holistic paradigms, classical with quantum logic, quantum entanglement with microscopic and macroscopic agent interaction, and general relativity with quantum mechanics. It is a deeper theory beyond spacetime geometry with practical applications for discovery in many fields of knowledge.

Tension resolved…for the time being.

 

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[i] You can find this song also under the title: What a Difference a Day Made. I linked the Dinah Washington video because this is how I remember the song being sung when I first heard it as a child. For another take on the song, see Esther Phillips’ version. In the extended comments for the Phillips video, I noted with interest that this popular song was “originally written in Spanish by María Méndez Grever (María Grever), a Mexican composer, in 1934. Originally, the song was known as Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado.”

[ii] The Preface and excerpts from each chapter can be read and downloaded at IGI Publications’ webpage for YinYang Bipolar Relativity: A Unifying Theory of Nature, Agents and Causality with Applications in Quantum Computing, Cognitive Informatics and Life Sciences

Bringing New Forms into Expression on Earth: A Network Model

[This is another assignment for a virtual course through Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University. Specifically, the task was to build a three-dimensional model--using ordinary household items--of a network that I am a part of, and that demonstrates certain characteristics of living systems. I decided to experiment with an integration of material from Fritjov Capra's Web of Life, and the Mark-Age text, Angels and Man, a discourse on the history of our reltionship with angelic, devic and elemental forces throughout our history on Earth,  channeled by Nada-Yolanda.]

 

[Photo credit: Cathie Bird, January 22, 2012]

This is my (evolving) model of a multi-dimensional network of beings working cooperatively for the collective birth of light body form through which God Self consciousness of every individual will eventually express 24/7 on planet Earth. This network demonstrates non-linear connectedness, feedback loops, self-regulation, and the ability to learn and evolve.

The scale of this model is our solar system (basket). Earth (gold lid) is home to many individual life forms (smaller yellow bottle cap), each of which has a seed of God Self consciousness (single beech nut) within. Each individual (of which I am one) also represents a collective of beings (larger yellow bottle cap with beech burr and beechnuts still attached). We are all connected and interdependent (symbolized by the pink rubber band around the bottle caps).

All living and non-living forms of the whole of Earth are also connected to life forms in other dimensions of our our solar system (represented by the sandstone coaster and white lid). Some of us may not yet see or be aware of these other dimensions, or the different life forms (nuts and seeds) in them, but we are interconnected in a circular (non-linear) way (blue and orange rubber bands), and signal our individual and collective presence and activity to one another through these connections. Through feedback loops that develop, we process and use the information to adjust our activity (self-regulation) based on each one's function and service to the whole as an individual seed of God Self. Through these cooperative processes, every life form learns and evolves – each according to its individual and collective pattern and service.

For example, in a process that some now call sacred or subtle activism, I open myself (yellow bottle cap, beechnut) to conscious energy exchange with teachers in higher frequency dimensions (beech nuts in the white lid), and to cooperation with angelic forces (nuts and seeds on the sandstone) to bring new frequencies in for planetary transformation. Input of higher frequency energy expands my desire to move into expression of that frequency. Feedback loops circulate information about how I, as a life form in Earth frequency, am responding to and holding the higher vibrations. Such experiences stimulate growth and evolution of my light body. Through cooperation with angelic forces whose function is to maintain coherence of the new form while it is under construction, I move closer toward a time when I can step into that form and dissolve the old third-dimensional form.

Many people on Earth are doing this kind of work consciously and, in changing themselves, help stabilize new patterns or forms that will be sustainable in the new Earth.

 

Patterns in the Holler: Water, Roads and Trails (Photo Essay)

I created this photo essay as part of an assignment to reflect on the concept of patterns. The first photos are ones I took on a walk through the holler to research this assignment on January 15th, 2012. The aerial images are the ones available for the holler on Google Earth.

 

Water Networks

I love to take photos from this spot on Hudson Branch, just down the driveway from my house. It's never the same one day to the next. In the eleven years I've lived in the holler, the character of the stream at this spot has been significantly altered twice, both times by local flooding. The first flood happened when a man-made fill and culvert in a tributary to Hudson Branch failed; the second one came after intense rain punched through a huge beaver dam 50 yards or so upstream from this spot.

 

In this bend of its channel, Hudson Branch could be expected to scour a short-cut over to Terry Creek just 50-feet or so from the bend. A guy with a bulldozer put some huge rocks at strategic points to slow this process and keep the water on course to its current confluence with Terry Creek, just out of view at the edge of this photo.

 

The same guy with the bulldozer helped my neighbors direct water flowing off Sexton Mountain into a pipe that empties into Terry Creek. The lower reaches of the natural ditch used to collect much sediment which then passed into the creek. This pipe now allows water to reach the stream without large loads of sediment.

 

Networks of Roads and Trails

The main users of this unmaintained section of road at the moment are coyotes, wild turkeys, and my dogs. This section takes off from my gravel driveway, crosses Hudson Branch twice, and winds back up the Frog Pond Hollow drainage to a neighbor's orchard. I can also follow it up Hudson Branch to Braden Mountain. It networks with several old logging roads back up there.

 

This is the main track out of the holler. The black object is Shadow, my border collie.

 

Several game trails like this one cross the main holler road. I've seen deer and wild turkeys using it. This trail offers an easy stream crossing and connects its users with other trails and roads that lead up the mountains on both sides of the holler. There's also an apple tree right behind where I stood to take this photo. It doesn't look like much of a trail now, but it's quite noticeable during the growing season as it cuts through grass, brush and wildflowers that fill the holler. I am usually compelled to stop here on my holler walks. There's something magnetic and magical here.

 

I call this Beehive Road. There's an old hive not too far up. That's George poking around. He doesn't go up much further unless I do. This road connects to another one that networks with several other roads and game trails. I encountered a rattlesnake on this road one summer, and once found a very large cat track, at least bobcat-size. Deer use it as well.

 

This beaver trail is slowly disappearing since the beaver dam was wiped out a couple of years ago. The beavers used to come up the hill here from their dam, cross the holler road, and cut trees on Beehive Road. Then they'd drag the trees down this trail to the dam. I never saw them actually doing this, but the signs of their activity told the story. Once I had to stop the car on my way out of the holler to move a large limb they'd left in the middle of the road.

 

Over the past month or so, rain has washed gravel into a shallow rut made this fall by some kind of vehicle.

 

The holler road crosses Terry Creek here. Other driveways branch off of it before it meets the public road that follows Terry Creek out to the state highway...and from there: El Mundo!

 

As I came to this place on my way back up the holler, the late afternoon sun bouncing off the network of phone and electric lines caught my attention. Not only are these wires part of communication and power grids, but they serve as lookouts for peewees and flycatchers hunting insects along Hudson Branch.

 

These trees are at the foot of the last big hill on my return route to the house. The light was so beautiful here that I had to look up. I was reminded that dense canopy created by many trees growing close together also serves as an aerial highway across the holler for squirrels.

This thought inspired me to end this photo essay on holler networks with some screen shots from Google Earth. Down at ground level, I can only map these patterns in my mind. Google Earth is a great tool with which I can deepen and expand my contemplation of holler networks:

Hawk's Eye Views of the Holler

March 7, 1997 [Imagery: Google Earth]

 

March 18, 2007 [Imagery: Google Earth]

 

September 19, 2007 [Imagery: Google Earth]

 

September 4, 2008 [Imagery: Google Earth]

 

Wow! That was fun!

 

 

 

Sharing Atoms in the Fire of Light

Please check out my reflections on Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto's time lapse map of the 2,053 nuclear explosions that shook the Earth between 1945 and 1998.

via tennesseehawk.typepad.com

 

Perhaps it's not that Hashimoto's art brought my nuclear thoughts, feelings and questions more profoundly into my body, but that his interpretation put me more profoundly in touch with something that was already there. After all, the atoms in the bombs and the atoms in my body are the same, all connected, all communicating, all the time.

When the US dropped that bomb on Hiroshima, it dropped on me, though I wasn't yet born. The cells that would grow and develop as a vessel for this local self I know as "me" already held the memory of that nuclear holocaust, and have no doubt reverberated with every explosion since, though well beyond conscious awareness...until now.

Read more and see the video...

 

Christ Mass Re-Cycle

Over the past couple of months I've caught myself smiling for no particular reason, smiles that seem to come from deep within. Today, the simple act of reminding myself that it was Christmas Eve seemed to coincide with an impulse of joy generated from some place beyond conscious awareness.

In this joy that needed to be spoken, I playfully explained to my dogs and cats that it was Cristmas Eve and tomorrow was the day we were going to be reborn into our light bodies and stay in them, right here on Earth!

While doing some laundry before breakfast, I thought more about what I'd just told my pets. What arose then was not so much a smile, but a very deep appreciation for Sanada-Jesus and his re-entry into third dimensional Earth life more than 2,000 years ago -- the birth that many will celebrate tomorrow, Christmas Day.

The realization that moved this feeling was about the dangers of coming into the trap of this 3D-Earth experience that has held so many of us for so many thousands of years. As I went into meditation recently, I got this idea: “We replay the fall of man into matter a hundred times a day.” In this light I looked at a typical day for me, all those moments when I'm dealing with ordinary life, focusing on tasks necessary to maintain existence in the material world, in and out of memory of who I really am, and that I am one with all that is.

"Wow," I thought, with a renewed sense of wonder, "Sananda jumped right into the open jaws of this huge 3D trap and then got out of it via the light body! Awesome!"

Of course, there's much unfinished business for Sananda and for us: his re-descent or return to 3D Earth, and our collective birth as a Christ mass. A spiritual brother shared with me recently (and just posted it on his blog) that he'd been "guided to not only celebrate the past birth of baby Jesus some 2,000 years ago, but also to visualize and look forward to Jesus' upcoming spiritual rebirth and redescent in his light body sometime in the next few decades."

This idea has played powerfully in my meditations over the past few days, and especially since the winter solstice.

I see it's now officially Christmas Day...I have some other thoughts to share later.

Wham! Bam! Islam!: THE 99 must cooperate to magnify their superpowers

Cross-posted from Raising Cain blog: Documentary on Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, creator of THE 99, premieres tonight on PBS "Independent Lens" series.

I am really looking forward to watching this documentary. I've checked out the trailer and several other video clips, and I've read an introductory issue of The 99. This project has great heart resonance for me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have no doubt that The 99 came from the heart of Naif Al-Mutawa, the Kuwaiti psychologist who created it.

The story is grounded in principles that may be identified with specific religious teachings, but these principles also are universal ones, and ones that are especially useful today. The heroes are 99 young people from around the world, each of whom has a access to a specific superpower, but they must work together to bring the full potential of those powers to bear on problems they face. If they are to succeed, they must cooperate rather than compete.

This is a truth that is so fundamental to continuation of life that it is even embedded in nature itself: when natural systems come under stress and can no longer sustain themselves, species evolve toward cooperation with one another. There is no aspect of life on Earth right now in which this challenge isn't pretty much in our face.

If we look, listen and feel our way into the chaos of modern life, we may get a glimpse of what is trying to be born from the suffering: a new life for all based on unconditional love and cooperative, co-creative, conscious evolution.

I hope people will use heartful projects like The 99 to stimulate discussions on how we can evolve humanity in a way that allows for a planetary going-on-being.

Daniel Diaz

An image from “Wham! Bam! Islam!” to be shown on PBS's “Independent Lens” series beginning Thursday.

via www.nytimes.com

 

Related links:

Wham! Bam! Islam! on Facebook

Naif Al-Mutawa fights to bring THE 99 and its message to wide U.S. audience (Washington Post)

Wham! Bam! Islam! trailer on YouTube

Wham! Bam! Islam! Where Mississippi meets the Middle East (YouTube video)

The continuing saga of THE 99 (my recent blog post with TED Talk video of Naif Al-Mutawa)

 

Why many cells are better than one: Limited decision-making ability of individual cells is bolstered in masses

Great article at Science Daily, and what a great day for such a link to appear on my home page:

Last night I spent the evening with a bunch of agents of conscious evolution, sharing visions for Birth 2012 Convergence Day this Saturday, October 15th.

Today I linked with interdimensional partners in a co-creative project aimed at restoration of love and peace to whole continents. Tomorrow that project launches!

Thousands still occupy Wall Street and other public spaces around the world to affirm we of Earth say "No!" to greed and injustice. People are coming together across the planet to transform broken systems and birth new structures for just and peaceful societies.

And the wisdom of these movements toward conscious evolution, toward planet-wide collaboration is mirrored by the very cells of which we are made: 

The research, published Sept. 15 in the journal Science, also demonstrates why it's advantageous for cells to cooperate to overcome their meager individual decision-making abilities by forming multicellular organisms.

"Each cell interprets a signal from the environment in a different way, but if many cells join together, forming a common response, the result can eliminate the differences in the signal interpretation while emphasizing the common response features," says Andre Levchenko, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering and member of the Institute for Cell Engineering. "If a single blood vessel cell gets a signal to contract, it is meaningless since all the surrounding cells in the blood vessel need to get the message to narrow the blood vessel. Cell collaboration does wonders in terms of their ability to transfer information and convert it into decision-making."

via www.sciencedaily.com