Where To Now? - Quareness Series (28th "Lecture").
My Fellow Voyagers,
Cosmology tells us that we travel more than 1,665,000 miles every hour - a truly remarkable thing sorta like being on a "Babushka Doll like" spacecraft i.e. a spacecraft within a spacecraft within another spacecraft (at least). The first spacecraft is our planet orbitting our star (the sun) at a speed of 65,000 miles an hour. Our solar system is the second spacecraft orbitting our galaxy (the Milky Way) at 600,000 miles per hour. And the Milky Way (our third spacecraft) on which we are passengers is whizzing along among other galaxies in excess of 1,000,000 miles per hour. Thus we can safely assume that we're travelling in excess of 1,665,000 miles every hour of our lives. Some might even say that our universe is a fourth spacecraft on which we are all passengers as it travels among other universes in a “multiverse”. And perhaps the most remarkable thing of all is that in our "normal" daily lives we're not conscious of all this high speeding at all at all.
Mother Earth herself is small stuff (relatively speaking)....only 7,926 miles in diameter and 24,000 miles in circumference. Volumewise it's just 3 millionths the size of our sun. We exist in a solar system comprised of the sun, 9 planets, 84 moons (Earth 1, Mars 2, Jupiter 17, Saturn 31, Uranus 21, Neptune 11, Pluto 1) with more being "unearthed" all the time, more than 30,000 asteroids, and countless comets, meteoroids, and newly discovered planetoids (beyond Pluto). We have four inner "terrestrial" planets - Mercury (3,029 miles diameter), Venus (7,519 miles diameter), Earth, Mars (4,223 miles diameter) and 5 outer ones representing 99% of the mass of all the planets - Jupiter (89,000 miles diameter), Saturn (75,000 miles diameter), Uranus (32,000 miles diameter), Neptune (31,000 miles diameter), and tiny Pluto (1,423 miles diameter) which is smaller than our moon. By way of comparison our sun is huge (865,000 miles diameter) and comprises 99.85% of the total mass of our solar system.
As we orbit the sun at a breakneck 65,000 mph, our home planet simultaneously rotates on its own axis at 1,000 miles an hour. And one full such rotation takes what we call a day. At the same time (so to speak) as we orbit our sun, our moon (238,857 miles away) orbits us every 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes. Planet Earth is about 93,000,000 miles from the sun. The size of "the spread" of our solar system can be grasped when we consider that the closest planet (Mercury) is about 36,000,000 miles from the sun and the most distant planet (Pluto) is 3,666,000,000 miles out. The circuit that we earthlings orbit around the sun is 600 million miles and "once around the block" takes us what we call a year.
Of course while all this is going on, our solar system (with all its bits) orbits the Milky Way galaxy at an even more breakneck 600,000 mph.....like some huge self-contained space station more than seven billion miles in diameter. And even at that speed it takes 225 million of our years to orbit the Milky Way galaxy one time.
Now this Milky Way galaxy is really huge, containing about 300 billion stars. The nearest to us is a "twinkle" be the name of Proxima Centauri. This is one of a three-star system that also includes Alpha and Beta Centauri, which kinda tumble over each other while Proxima Centauri orbits them. It would take us 4 years and 3 months to reach Proxima Centauri from our solar system if we was hurtlin' at a steady 186,000 miles per second (speed of light) - at that speed we could fly around Earth seven times in one second!
The Milky Way is 100,000 light-years wide i.e. 100,000 times 5,880 billion miles - if we started at one end of our galaxy and travelled across it at a constant 186,000 miles per second for 100,000 years, we'd arrive at the other end. That’s surely one big "mudder". But as big as it is, we know it's only one of 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Because our "gaff" is located on one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, our line of sight to much of the universe is blocked by an enormous amount of gas, dust, etc. but it's currently estimated that there's about a trillion galaxies in the known universe. The nearest large galaxy to us is Andromeda, which contains about 400 billion stars, and to reach it from the Milky Way we'd have to travel at the speed of light for 2,200,000 years.
Galaxies themselves are organized into clusters and super clusters e.g. our "neighbourhood" consisting of the Milky Way, Andromeda, and more than 30 other galaxies exist in a cluster known as the Local Group. And this Local Group is ten million light-years wide and sits on the edge of a super cluster (Virgo) which contains thousands of galaxies and is hundreds of millions of light-years wide. To cross it would require hundreds of millions of years of travel at 186,000 miles per second. This Virgo super cluster (itself a relative small fry "out there" among an estimated trillion galaxies) is being drawn at a speed in excess of 1,000,000 mph toward some unfathomable mass that some cosmologists refer to as The Great Attractor
Generally then, our universe consists of clusters and super clusters of galaxies which contain billions of stars like our sun. Planets orbit some of these stars and moons orbit some of these planets (like for us). Our planet and its moon orbits a star (the sun) at 65,000 mph. Our solar system orbits the Milky Way galaxy at 600,000 mph which in turn travels among other galaxies at speeds in excess of 1,000,000 mph. This is the mindboggling system in which we exist and of which our tiny planet is an infinitesimally small part.
Because the rate of radioactive decay is constant over time, we know from radiometric dating that Earth has been here for about 4.56 billion years, in a universe that is 13.7 billion years old. The fossil record tells us that life began here about 800 million years later, or 3.8 billion years ago. This early life was in the form of primitive single-cell micro organisms and it took more than 3 billion years for the first multi-cellular plants and animals to appear. That was about 670 million years ago.
Around 520 million years ago the age of invertebrates and vertebrates began. Toward the end of this period which lasted for about 320 million years, insects and the beginning of fish and reptiles appeared. They took us to 200 million years ago, at which time the age of reptiles began and lasted for about 130 million years. And then (70 million years ago) the first mammals appeared, which is the age we are in now with around 4,400 species of mammals. A large brain in relation to body size along with the cerebral cortex provide mammals with highly developed intelligence and senses that increase their ability to learn and perform detailed tasks. The beginning of the shift from the reptilian brain to the more advanced brain occurred some 70 million earth years ago.
It's thought that from a common ancestor the succession of species that gave rise to man separated from the succession that led to the apes some 5-6 million years ago. The first genus of the hominids may have been Ardipithecus followed by Australopithicus and finally Homo, which showed up between 1.5 and 2 million years ago. The earliest known members of our genus were what we call Homo rudolfensis, not what we consider to be modern humans. The "blood line" ran through Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo antecessor, and Homo neanderthalensis before Homo sapiens (sensible humans) emerged in Africa, between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago and spread from there to the rest of our wonderful world. We remained hunter-gatherers until about 12,000 years ago, at which time our agrarian age began with the domestication of plants and animals. We remained in that age until the late 1700s, when the Industrial Revolution began. By the middle of the 1900s we transitioned into a post-industrial high-technology age, which has since led on directly to the current information age. And through all of these ages/periods, our population continued to rise.
It took from the very beginning of the evolution of our species to the year 1900 for us to reach 1.6 billion strong. Then something remarkable happened, From 1900 to 1960 our population jumped to 3 billion. Over the next 39 years we added another 3 billion "to hit" 6 billion of us by 1999. In the hundred years from 1900 to 2000 we quadrupled our numbers, an astonishing acceleration of our "spreading". It's now estimated that in 2050 there will be our about 9.2 billion of us on the mother ship. We are presently adding approximately 80 million people a year. This massively exponential fecundity is indeed something extraordinary.
Because we are so many and are a young species hitherto probably largely ignorant of the physical reality and the behavioral demands of the reality in which we exist (and which enables us to exist), we appear to have created an interrelated web of life-threatening environmental problems depleting much of our resources - our forests, fisheries, range lands, croplands, plant and animal species. We may in fact have become a kind of virus helping to destroy the biological diversity on which evolution thrives.
I'm telling all this in order to provide some sort of perspective on humanity's "objective" place in the greater scheme of things. When it comes to our "subjective" position perhaps examination of the real and potential impact of our psychology and religion(s) may shed some more light.
To explain life to ourselves, we tend to turn to two almost diametrically opposed disciplines, science and religion. In determining its principles and theories, science is pretty formal - any scientific theory must survive rigid testing and re-testing by many observers in many situations and must produce identical results (real evidence) time after time before it is accepted as fact. Essentially its methodology of testing consists of attempts to get its theories to break. And whatever about some socalled scientists, science itself strives to be a very open process welcoming and celebrating change when new discoveries are made. Religion, on the other hand, generally tends to consist of an untested collection of dogmatic principles. It is derived typically from supernatural sources e.g. “divine revelation”, It tends to originate with “priests” and “priestesses” who invent(ed) themselves and it very much leans towards a strong dislike of challenges or changes to its dogma. Altering a few words of “revealed” dogma can trigger unravelling and splintering e.g. Christianity today has about 33,000 sects and denominations.
There's a lot of evidence to show that religion has been part of the human condition for a very long time. Over the past 30-40,000 years there have been an estimated 100,000 religions of which there exists about 10,000 today (with 150 of these currently having 1,000,000 or more adherents). Some of the better known include Hinduism which originated 6,000 years ago, Judaism 4,000 years ago, Buddhism 2,600 years ago, Christianity 2,000 years ago and Islam 1,400 years ago.
Throughout our history we’ve had many Gods of numerous polytheistic religions. Then about 4,000 years ago someone in the Middle East came up with the notion that there is just one God and this idea (originally formalised in Judaism) marked the beginning of our Western concept of what we refer to as monotheism. About 1,400 years later belief systems with no Gods emerged as powerful religious movements in the East, in the main formalised in Buddhism (in India) and Confucianism and Taoism (both in China). Then sometime from 60-100 AD (no one knows for sure) but long after the events that were claimed to have occurred, the New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were created decades apart. And no one really knows who wrote these stories either. They seem to have been compiled anonymously by early church teachers and only later were they assigned to four evangelistic saints, most likely in order to bestow legitimacy. It's interesting to ask what were these "anonymous" writers doing and why? For their time they appear to have had quite a radical, progressive and inclusive bent - they reached out to gentiles and encouraged their followers to congregate in homes rather than temples. They saw it was time to move on, to advance and evolve.
Theologians agree that each of the gospel authors had their own agenda and bias, and deployed such in creating narratives to match the prophecy of the Old Testament written 2,000 years earlier. To embellish their stories, they employed the then common practice of incorporating fictional elements drawn from ancient writings about pagan religious heroes - in particular they “borrowed” heavily from Mithraism a rival and major religion of Persian origin then prevalent in the Roman Empire, which had existed for at least 700 years. This was based on a fictional character named Mithra and was popular in the first century with Roman soldiers and civil servants. Indeed for the first four centuries it was a competitor for the new Christianity and had a strikingly similar story line.... Mithra was born of a virgin..at his birth were adoring shepherds and magi kings (commonly inserted into these tales to signify that the birth was important).... the birth was celebrated on December 25th four days after the winter solstice (December 21st) when in the Northern Hemisphere the sun is at its lowest point. By the 25th it was evident to the ancients that the sun was rising again and thus it was a time for celebration and an auspicious day to be born. The rising sun provided the idea for ascension and in the tale of Mithra there were many stories of miracles, resurrection and ascension. The similarity in the story lines made for the easy conversion of Mithraism’s followers to Christianity. Out of all of this a new story was created (which many learned theologians now agree is mostly fiction) and a new religion born. And with it came another god “Christ” (Greek "Christos") essentially an interpretation of the Hebrew word for messiah, meaning the anointed one (as prophesied in the Old Testament). At some point someone declared these contrived stories to be the divinely inspired and infallible words of the one true God and people were led to believe that the same God that they created in their stories was responsible for the stories they created.
Around 1,400 years ago in Mecca, the leading city of Arabia, another prophet appeared. He too heard the infallible words of God and had a scribe make notes of what he heard. These notes were recorded in small segments over a 23 year period and compiled into a book known as the Koran (length = 80% that of the New Testament). Thus was born another religion Islam, meaning peace and surrender or submission to the one true God. Now the Koran too is considered by most Muslims to be the final and infallible revelation of God’s will.
We have given our Gods great powers - they are omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (everywhere), and omniscient (they have all learning and knowledge) and their stories have caused great confusion and conflict and wars. We kill(ed) each other over these stories (66% of wars). How absurd and ironic it is that we have created these stories to establish examples of exemplary behavior and proper rules for living, and we then kill each other over them. Go fookin' figure!!
We cling to belief systems that are thousands of years old, beliefs some (including yours truly) would be inclined to describe as products of the infancy of our intelligence. As a consequence many of us exist in a world of fiction and fantasy. We do not understand our reality and the behavioral demands of that reality. We do not recognise the security and joy to be found in the oneness in which we exist – the unity in our diversity. Instead we create all kinds of divisions/ tribes - corporations, nations, political parties, religions, etc. And being less secure as a result, we are constantly at war with each other. If we are going to sustain our species and advance our civilisation we have to halt and reverse the destructive and unsustainable momentum we have created. We need a new understanding of the way our world works. As a certain Mr. Gandhi said....“religious ideas are subject to the same laws of evolution that govern everything else in the universe”. In other words, there comes a time to let go of dated ideas and advance as life demands. Or in the words of the Buddha...."to insist on a spiritual practice that served us in the past is to carry the raft on our back after we have crossed the river”. The lack of congruence between our major inherited religions and the power and exuberance of our modern world is gravely problematic, something of which most of us seem to be unaware (or perhaps chose to deny). And this "unbalanced reality" is perpetuated by clinging to ancient notions of what is sacred.
A perceptive man (Dr. Clinton Lee Scott, a Universalist Minister) in considering “What Does it Mean to be Religious?” once wrote that no one person or category of people has the inside track on truth. He said that truth may be discovered “....by scientists, poets, prophets, housewives, and garage mechanics. And always by the one way of human experience. Truths are derived from the experience of men and women living not apart from the world (not cloistered away), but within it, with all the temptations, problems and perplexities of the daily round of human relations. It is in this round of the common everyday life that to many of us religion must have meaning, if it is to have any meaning at all. Not in formal observances, not in creeds or doctrines, however long ago proclaimed, but in the lives we live, in the home, in the community, and in the world, is the religious way of life to be found.”
There are many today who may not like organised religion but would claim to be “spiritual” which seems to amount to having to do with sacred matters or sacred things. And perhaps a somewhat narrow definition of sacred would be that which is associated with Gods and/or religion. A real difficulty here, however, is the huge volume of different ideas we have about the concept of a God - agreement is rare and where there is agreement on anything, it might be that life has its mysteries. When we attempt to define these mysteries, particularly as Gods, invariably we create divisive problems and invite conflicts. Indeed it would appear (from history for instance) that worship of these Gods is diversionary and distracting as attention gets focused on something out there we have been programmed to believe exists and is sacred and by which we are going to be “saved.” No worries we are going to be saved while at the same time we live unhealthy lives, go to war with our neighbours literally and figuratively, and degrade our environment. Senseless or what? We seem to have gone from spiritual having to do with sacred, to sacred, to having to do with religion, and maybe now we're starting back again toward spiritual. It almost seems like we haven’t gotten very far at all.
Early man possibly profoundly ignorant of life as we know it today, created Gods and creation stories and religions to explain the cause and purpose and nature of the universe. Many of us today have much difficulty with such definite supernatural explanations for these things, While we are gaining some knowledge as to its likely cause (Big Bang theory), we understand only a very small portion of the universe e.g. we don’t have a clue as to its purpose or if it has a purpose. More importantly we've acquired enough cop on to know that we don't know much, but a lot of the little we do know relates to the nature of the universe where the architecture of life and what we might call true sacredness are revealed.
It was Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, who famously observed that all truth passes through three stages - ridicule, violent opposition and finally accepted as self-evident. One such truth in our lifetime informs us that we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking whole in which all of the parts are interconnected and dependent upon each other for survival - a sort of giant jigsaw where all is interrelated and interdependent. We now know that is the nature of the universe and of life. In this regard it's interesting that in a sense all our relationships flow from three core ones - that with the self (about health or its opposite), that with others (about kindness or not), and that with our environment (about respect or otherwise), and the quality of our lives appears to reflect the quality of these foundational relationships. What we seem to have here is a truly sacred construct that exists as an integral part of reality. This is simply the way life works. Unlike much of our historical religion, it's not contrived or fictional, not arbitrary or subject to dismissal, nor indeed negotiable. How we take care of ourselves, each other, and our environment determines the quality of our lives and whether we are at peace or war. These sacred relationships are the wellsprings of life from which we have emerged and by which we are sustained. In reality we are surrounded by the very sacredness we have historically sought from afar.
Understanding sacredness in this way necessitates a dynamic and changing reality, as distinct from one vested in the past like archaic dogma. As Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, observed “you cannot step into the same river twice”. The river is forever flowing and changing and yet remains the same river. Similarly, our understanding of what best favours these three core relationships flows out of a stream of knowledge that continually changes. The relationships will always exist but our understanding of how to optimise them evolves as our knowledge grows. Many of us are now coming to see that the Spirit (in Latin spiritus = breath) which animates life exists in, expresses itself through, and is sustained by these foundational relationships, and when we destroy them there's no place for life to express itself (to breathe) - the vitality is gone (real sin?). It seems that to truly live a spiritual life/to breathe is to honor these three basic relationships in all their manifestations. For us humanoids, then, the concept of sustainability (i.e. sustain ability) appears to require that we fulfill our stewardship role here with the understanding that we must leave this planet as we found it or improve it for later generations. We must sustain healthy relationships with ourselves, others and our environment, or our race is run.
With apologies to the Monty Python crowd, rather than wondering about the purpose or meaning of life (and maybe going round in endless circles), it's perhaps a lot more practical and relevant at this time in our evolution to ask what are the responsibilities (i.e. response abilities) of life? It appears we must develop our abilities to respond to life’s challenges and stimuli in order to optimise and sustain our foundational relationships. Sacredness can then readily be understood as mandating responsibility rather than worship i.e. right living is about behaviour, not worship. Saving ourselves from harm or loss (salvation) is earned by ourselves, not delivered. The forgiveness of “sins” lies in our alignment with the uncompromising demands of the reality in which we exist, not in the hands of some external God.
Most of our religions advise adherence to some version of the Golden Rule, as well as avoidance of self-centeredness. Sadly we're too often deaf to such advice, doing whatever we can get away with (in the short term). Later, however, we discover we are victims of our own exploitation because the architecture of life reveals an intimacy and interweaving among all phenomena. The Golden Rule sets out that we do to others as we would have others do to us, and the reverse side (which we tend to forget) warns that what we do to others we do to ourselves. In an interconnected world, all exploitation/oppression inevitably returns to its source. Understanding this reality we can make the critical mind shift required of us if we are to sustain our species and advance our civilisation. To repeat....what we do to others we do to ourselves.
If we harm our environment (e.g. our food chain), we harm ourselves. If we mistreat and are unkind to others, our actions will over time return to haunt/torment us one way or another. If we abuse ourselves/our health, sooner or later we suffer the consequences. When we understand this and act appropriately, our belief system and our behaviour become aligned with the reality in which we exist, not with some fantasy or fiction. In fact our belief system becomes our lifestyle aligned with and honoring the larger reality in which we exist, not something for particular times/days to be celebrated only in special places. This sacredness then is about a way of being and is found in our present real-life relationships here and now, not out there somewhere.
Each of us is like a cell in the body of humanity. The health of all of us taken together determines the health of our species and civilisation. Perhaps one reason that we don’t cherish our bodies and minds more is that we get them for free (at birth). By the time we realise their value, it is very late if not too late for many of us.
We also need to treat each other better and to stop exploiting each other. All our achievements, affiliations, connections, possessions, piety, skills, status, etc. don't matter in the least - what really matters is whether or not we are kind to one another.
We are linked to our environment in every way. We've evolved from it and we are sustained by it. And if we don't respect our environment, it may not respect us in the long run. Ecological systems might well regenerate but will we? Nature could eliminate us.
Unfortunately we humans have been somewhat "cursed" with competing sets of survival instincts, which account for opposing worldviews and the daily struggle for the evolution and survival of humanity. Curiously these instincts (original sin?) are the products of evolution.
Our short-term survival instincts are perfectly normal, natural, organic, and....disastrous (they can destroy us). Like all creatures, we are programmed/hardwired to make it to tomorrow i.e. to survive and reproduce. And these instincts generate behaviour that is characterised by fear/ greed/power/control/immediate gratification/self-centeredness/authoritarianism/denial of differences, and the like.
But evolution has also given us another set of survival instincts which occur as a result of our large and evolved brains. Unique among all the Earth's species, we are able to reflect on our behaviour and project where it is taking us. We are now beginning to grasp the destructiveness of our short-term and short-sighted behaviour, and to realise that we want to survive for the long-term, to sustain humanity and advance our civilisation. We are starting to understand the meaning of "sustain ability" for us.
Both the "older" short-term survival instincts and our "emerging" long-term ones, continue to generate powerful political, economic, social and religious belief systems. The former type generate adversarial, hostile and belligerent politics focused on the defeat of one’s perceived opposition (including unilateralism and pre-emptive war, as we have seen many times) - the politics of conflict. The latter type are about a non-adversarial politics seeking to find the common ground and coupled with a worldview that recognizes we don’t have the time, resources, or energy to squander fighting with each other, and that we need to address our problems in a constructive and multilateral manner - the politics of dialogue.
In the area of economics our old way of thinking is about short-term gain, maximising profits and exploiting people and our environment. The emerging worldview is about long-term gain / sustainability and understanding that life is a far more complex phenomenon than a race to see who can accumulate the most in the least amount of time.
In social interaction the old worldview is about exclusivity and segregation ("us versus them"). The emerging view recognizes that such interaction must be inclusive and integrated so as to mirror the interconnected phenomenon and structure of life itself.
Again old religious thinking positions one’s own truth and tribe against that of others, resulting in never-ending conflict and chaos - the antithesis of peace. The emerging spiritual thinking focuses on kindness and universal benevolence in all relationships, hopefully with an intelligent understanding of the origins of ancient belief systems and of the phenomenon of religion.
In summary, our (still strong) old worldview is marked by separation, exclusivity, segregation and unilateralism, while our emerging view points towards togetherness, unity, inclusiveness, integration and multilateralism - a growing broadening perspective on the long march of our evolution.
Because many of us are predisposed as a consequence of our genetics and life experiences to think and act in outdated and destructive and unsustainable ways, the new paradigm now seeking to emerge in our world requires a hefty dose of unlearning and evolution of thought and behaviour. And our very survival may depend on our making this leap of faith e.g. if we continue to engage in unhealthy ways with ourselves, each other and our environment, the foundations of this interlocking whole existence of ours may collapse. As always our future lies mostly in our own hands. Unlike in the past, however, we're now starting to understand a great deal more about what sustains and optimises life. And the time has come to start applying that knowledge.
A new set of Universal Principles is drifting into view - Oneness (all that exists is a part of and is affected by everything else that exists), Diversity (the whole is comprised of an infinite number of diverse parts), Interrelatedness (of all parts), Individuality (all parts are unique), and Interdependence (all parts depend upon each other for survival). Understanding these "rules" can yield reverence and universal benevolence, and can perhaps explain how we have created our problems as well as providing clearer direction on how we can change. It’s a system calling for individual responsibility and personal initiative. The simple truth is that if we honor the way of life as it really is, we prosper, and if we violate it, we suffer. We need simply to be healthy and kind, and to respect our environment. In this context it's important to keep asking ourselves....
what do we do to develop our abilities and potential?.....do we educate ourselves about our own health and that of the planet?....are our habits constructive?.....are we healthy in mind/body?.... how do we treat others?....are we kind?....how do we treat ourselves?....do we have the courage to become the best we can be? As noted by the German/American psychologist Erich Fromm - “the tragedy in life for most of us is that we die before we are born" (into our unique potential). It's our responsibility to develop ourselves. We make a difference by what we know and do. Each of us is a change agent. And each of us is the one we have the most control over and the one easiest to change. It's clear too, in an interrelated world, that we are obliged also to look beyond ourselves. We ignore and mistreat others at our peril. We are like links in a chain - individual but not independent. Our integrity affects the integrity of the whole. What we do to others, we do to ourselves. Everyone gains when we replace our destructive habits with constructive ones.
Over billions of years, we have evolved in concert with other species of plants and animals on this tiny orb we call Earth and as a part of this whole, we are subject to the natural laws that enable everything here to exist. Every breath we take and every move we make is derived from our environment. And in the economies and cultures in which we live, great attention and diligence are required to remain healthy, to be kind, and to respect that environment.
Perhaps it's now opportune (or fast becoming so) to correct an innocent error that began thousands of years ago in the infancy of our intelligence, when we created and worshipped our mythological Gods. We did not then understand what is truly sacred in the life all around us. Now with an appropriate nod to the life-affirming Spirit which has always been there for us, may I recommend my own hope/prayer for the future of our beautiful world and all her inhabitants..... that the open mind will prevail over the closed mind, that real discovery-orientated science will prevail over the pseudo agenda-driven variety, and that real faith (= open-minded trust) will prevail over closed-minded belief.
Come, come dance with the angels,
Soar away from the everyday
And feed your inner vibrations.
Tap your tune on heaven's door,
Trust in the arms of the Lord
And search for your liberations.
Love to be free, be free to love,
Take off the chains of fear
And take care of your inclinations.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
March, 2013.