Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 1:01am
Earth's spiritual life
Column: Our Place in the Universe
I said / though I have looked everywhere / I can find nothing lowly / in the universe: I whirled though transfigurations up and down, / transfigurations of size and shape and place: at one sudden point came still, / stood in wonder: / moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent / with being! — A.R. Ammons, "Still"
Some weekends ago I went to a conference entitled "The Gaia Theory: Model & Metaphor for the 21st Century." Dr. James Lovelock, a British scientist, developed the Gaia theory while he was working with NASA on instruments meant to uncover the possibility of life on Mars. What Lovelock realized was that most of the instruments were looking for life the way it would appear on Earth, neatly packaged to find what we were expecting or hoping to find.
Lovelock reasoned that conditions were not similar on Mars, so trying to recreate Earth conditions on another planet was pointless. Instead he decided to look for chemical reactions that said, "Life was here!" The place to look for these reactions was in the atmosphere. On Mars and Venus, atmospheric gases are in equilibrium. Any chemical reaction that was going to take place has done so long ago.
On Earth however, our atmosphere is in a far-from-equilibrium state, kept that way by life itself. The delicate balance needed to support life that exists between oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide and other gasses has been kept consistent by life itself. Since its inception, the Earth system as a whole has been self-regulating and self-generating, thus Lovelock's metaphorical term "Gaia."
What looks like a purely random set of circumstances that make up Earth's biosphere, turns out to be ordered but not determined. Life follows a set of principles, but it does so creatively. Many parts make up the whole, and they are put together in new ways with each new creation, balancing and counterbalancing each other to allow for integration with the whole. Truly, life is the creative genius that men like Da Vinci and Hokusai strove to emulate.
Hokusai, one of Japan's best-know artists, lived in the late 1700s. He wrote, "At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself." In his most famous painting, "The Great Wave," the violence of nature is counterbalanced by the bowed fishermen riding the wild wave in their sleek craft, up one side and down the other.
Da Vinci wrote, "Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous." He also said, "Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience."
If we are to truly appreciate creation and the meaning of our life, then we must experience each day in rhythm and harmony with the creative force of the universe. This is a pattern that can be felt in the core of our being. It is what responds in us in times of crises, when we not only bond together, but we also find the inspiration to create solutions to worldwide problems. Throughout history's great turning points human creativity flared forth, no more so than during the last one hundred years.
Now we're living in an age where our community can include those from the other side of the world. We recognize that it takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a community to form a society. For us to have emerged as the awareness of creation, for us to have a consciousness that we are bigger than our individual selves, puts us in a pivotal spot to espouse the meaning of our lives as reflected by the mystery and sacred presence that is all around us.
Let us grab our inheritance; let us creatively bond together — the greater the diversity, the more options we will have to solve problems and empower each other. Let us recognize the inner force in us that guides life to be self-regulating and self-generating — that has imagined this world in all its power and beauty and splendor.
Let us not throw away this gift that we recognize in the genius of our great artists, writers, scientists and philosophers. Let us take back that inner life that will create beauty around us, and harmony. Let our greatest works be life-sustaining, Earth-sustaining, creating a living culture of being.
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a freelance writer residing in Maryland. She has her masters in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
Some weekends ago I went to a conference entitled "The Gaia Theory: Model & Metaphor for the 21st Century." Dr. James Lovelock, a British scientist, developed the Gaia theory while he was working with NASA on instruments meant to uncover the possibility of life on Mars. What Lovelock realized was that most of the instruments were looking for life the way it would appear on Earth, neatly packaged to find what we were expecting or hoping to find.
Lovelock reasoned that conditions were not similar on Mars, so trying to recreate Earth conditions on another planet was pointless. Instead he decided to look for chemical reactions that said, "Life was here!" The place to look for these reactions was in the atmosphere. On Mars and Venus, atmospheric gases are in equilibrium. Any chemical reaction that was going to take place has done so long ago.
On Earth however, our atmosphere is in a far-from-equilibrium state, kept that way by life itself. The delicate balance needed to support life that exists between oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide and other gasses has been kept consistent by life itself. Since its inception, the Earth system as a whole has been self-regulating and self-generating, thus Lovelock's metaphorical term "Gaia."
What looks like a purely random set of circumstances that make up Earth's biosphere, turns out to be ordered but not determined. Life follows a set of principles, but it does so creatively. Many parts make up the whole, and they are put together in new ways with each new creation, balancing and counterbalancing each other to allow for integration with the whole. Truly, life is the creative genius that men like Da Vinci and Hokusai strove to emulate.
Hokusai, one of Japan's best-know artists, lived in the late 1700s. He wrote, "At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself." In his most famous painting, "The Great Wave," the violence of nature is counterbalanced by the bowed fishermen riding the wild wave in their sleek craft, up one side and down the other.
Da Vinci wrote, "Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the help of various machines answering the same end, it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous." He also said, "Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience."
If we are to truly appreciate creation and the meaning of our life, then we must experience each day in rhythm and harmony with the creative force of the universe. This is a pattern that can be felt in the core of our being. It is what responds in us in times of crises, when we not only bond together, but we also find the inspiration to create solutions to worldwide problems. Throughout history's great turning points human creativity flared forth, no more so than during the last one hundred years.
Now we're living in an age where our community can include those from the other side of the world. We recognize that it takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a community to form a society. For us to have emerged as the awareness of creation, for us to have a consciousness that we are bigger than our individual selves, puts us in a pivotal spot to espouse the meaning of our lives as reflected by the mystery and sacred presence that is all around us.
Let us grab our inheritance; let us creatively bond together — the greater the diversity, the more options we will have to solve problems and empower each other. Let us recognize the inner force in us that guides life to be self-regulating and self-generating — that has imagined this world in all its power and beauty and splendor.
Let us not throw away this gift that we recognize in the genius of our great artists, writers, scientists and philosophers. Let us take back that inner life that will create beauty around us, and harmony. Let our greatest works be life-sustaining, Earth-sustaining, creating a living culture of being.
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a freelance writer residing in Maryland. She has her masters in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad