Mythos
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Our Story as Gaia

I’ve created a dappled story of our evolution including everything that’s happened for us from the beginning of the universe and onward, even into the future. this evolutionary sequence is a blend between a delvish drop, the book thinking like a mountain, by john seed, joanna macy, arne neass and pat flemming as well as from brian swimme’s the hidden heart of the cosmos and also from joanna macy’s book despair and empowerment in the nuclear age.This drop is intended to be read out loud while the listeners meditate on the words as they flow through… for this purpose, feel free to read these words, while gently flowing in and out of the reading to visualise and imagine yourself as each of these life forms as you are prompted. I have left the words just about as they would be read to an audience of listeners, so that they can be taken and used for just that purpose by any of you. Feel free to further experiment with this visualisation, and guide people through this process. The best method to be successful with this meditation, is to know that it is easy to remember all this, because all this information is already deeply embedded into our genetic memory. please feel free to post a reply, and let us know what our story was like for you.telektenonik embrionik total recall recapitulate.

As organic expressions of life on earth, we have a long and panoramic history. We are not yesterday’s child, nor limited to this one brief moment of our planet’s sotry: our roots go back ot the beginning of time. We can learn to remember them. The knowledge is in us. As in our mothers’ wombs our embryonic bodies recapitualted the evolution of cellular life on earth, so can we now do it consciously, harnessing intellect and the power of the imagination. Certain methods help to trigger that remembering. They are various guided meditations focused on our evolutionary journey, evoking our fifteen billion-year story as the Universe.

Taking this opportunity to think about the more-than-human world from a more-than-human perspective : if you are open to a little ego dissolution this will lead you through a shamanistic visualization sequence. The intention is to prime our creative imaginations, and explore a path of evolutionary remembering, mourning, honoring the extinct and taking responsibility as steward-healers of the biosphere.

If we peek through the frameworks of the evolutionary history of life on our planet, it is clear that our species has single handedly wreaked havok upon a sensitive interconnected web of life which is far larger than we can possibly imagine… or can we?

Let us go back, way back before the birth of our planet Earth, back to the mystery of the universe coming into being. We go back 13,500 million years to a time of primordial silence… of emptiness… before the beginning of time … the very ground of all being … From this state of immense potential, an unimaginably powerful explosion takes place … energy travelling at the speed of light hurdles in all directions, creating direciton, creating the universe. It is so hot in these first moments that no matter can exist, only pure energy in the form of light … thus time and space are born.

All that is now, every galaxy, star and planet, every particle existing comes into being at this great fiery birthing. Every particle which makes up you and me comes into being at this instant and has been circulating through countless forms ever since, born of this great couldron of creativity. When we look at a candle flame, or a star, we see the light of that fireball. Your metabolism burns with that same fire now.

After one Earth year, the universe has cooled down to some 13 billion degrees centigrade. It now occupies a sphere of perhaps 17 billion miles in diameter … This continues to expand and stream outward …

Some 300,000 years pass while great space grows to about one billiionth of its present volume and cools to a few thousand degrees – about as hot and bright as the visible surface of the sun. The electrons are now cool eneough for the electric force to snare, cool enough for matter to take form.

Matter begins to assume its familiar atomic form for the first time. The first atoms are of hydrogen, then helium and then other gases.

These gases exist as huge swirling masses of super hot cosmic clouds drawn together by the allure of gravity … these slowly condense into forms we know as galaxies and our own galaxy; the Milky Way dances among them. Purged of free electrons, the universe becomes highly transparent by its millionth birthday.

Within the Milky Way, our sun was born about 5 billion years ago, near the edgs of this galaxy while the cosmic dust and gas spinning around it crystalized inot planets. The third planet from the sun, our own Earth, came inot being about 4.5 billion years ago.

The ground then was rock and crystal beneath which burned tremendous fires. Heavier matter like iron sank to the centre, the lighter elemetns floated to the surface forming a granite crust. Continuous volcanic activity brough tup a rich supply of minerals, and lifeted up chains of moutnains.

Then about 4 billion years ago, when the temperature fell below the boiling point of water, it began to rain. Hot rain slowly dissoloved the rocks upon which it fell and the seas became a thin salty soup containing the basic ingreditents necessary for life.

Finally, a bolt of lightening fertilized this molecular soup and an adventure into biology began. The first cell was born. I was there. You were there. We all trace our genetic and epigenetic lineage to this event, as does every cell of every living thing on Earth. Every single cell in our bodies is a direct descendent in an unbroken chain from that original cell. In this way we are intimately, energetically and physically related to all living things.

Through this cell, our common ancestor, we are all related to every plant and animal on the earth

Remember that cell awakening. Be that cell awakening (as indeed you are). We are all composed of that cell which grew, diversified, multiplied and evolved into all the biota of the earth.

What does it feel like to reproduce by dividing into two parts that were me, and now WE go our seperate ways?

The cell evolved into forms of bacteria, some of which created the oxygen that began to form the biosphere. 1 billion years ago the first multicellular organisms evolved as algae and then seaweed, creating an atmosphere that killed much of the bacteria and make it possible for further developments of plant life. 600 million years ago simple water creatures emerge.

Now I am a creature of the water. For 2.5 billion years, simple forms of life wash back and forth in the ocean currents. Imagine them as I speak their names: coral … snails … flatworms … jellyfish … sponges … During this time there is a vast ice age on the earth wiping out many prehistoric gene pools. Imagine yourself as perhaps a simple worm of an early coral living in the warm sea. Feel your existence at this time for it remains within each of your cells, the memories of this period in your childhood as Gaia.

FISH .:. This is followed by the evolution of fish and other animals with backbones. How does it feel to have a flexible backbone? How do you move through the water as a fish?

Lying belly down, now, staying in one place, begin to experience a gentle side to side rolling, with your head torso and lower body moving all as one. How does the world look, feel, sound? Be aware of your backbone, your head and gills. What does it feel like to move through the ocean, to listen through the ocean?

500 million years ago came fish, the first vertebrates to emerge from the evolutionary chain of being. By 25 million years later green plants had moved onto the land and began to cultivate the soil strata for animals to follow. Millipedes and centipedes were amongst the first animals to travel along the land, cultivating dry habitat around 450 million years ago. Spiders and Scorpians developed soon after. Early, wingless insects like silverfish could be seen on the new greening landscapes.

300 million years ago the earths geography began to develop as a PanGaian supercontinent, a period of unbridaled evolution begins at this time. Insects developed wings and 2 feet long dragonflies could be seen flying through forests of ferns, moss and horsetail. During this time seeding plants now sweep across the fertile lands and amphibians emerge.

AMPHIBIAN .:. The first animals to emerge from the seas were the amphibians … slowly use your forearms to drag your body along. Pull with your left and right together … as amphibians, we are still very dependent on the water, especially for our reproductive cycle.

250 million years ago comes reptiles and dinosaurs.

REPTILE .:. It isn’t until the evolution of the reptilian amniotic egg that we are liberated from our dependence on water and able to move completely onto dry land … still crawling on your belly start to use legs coordinated with arms, alternating from one side ot the other. Notice how our range of movement and perception changes … By 200 million years ago, we have successfully moved onto the land.

During the next period of 50 million years there are two major extinction events which decimate the earths diverse population. About 180 million years ago Pangaia begins to split apart and continents form, these filled with huge dinosaurs and increasingly forested landscapes. 130 million years ago pollen containing flowers form and beautiful new colors come to the gardenic earth. During this time the first proto-mammals begin to develop. 65 million years ago a huge meteor strikes the earth killing most of the dinosaurs and making more space for mammalian development.

EARLY MAMMAL .:. As mammals we become warm blooded. Remember how as a reptile you used to have to wait, sluggish, for the sun to warm you? The sun now fuels your metabolims in a more complex way. What are the advantages of this?

Living in holes, alert, sense of smell, sampling molecules from the air. To breed before being consumed. All of us are descended from this pedigree for 4 billion years. At every step billions fell by the wayside but each of us was there. In this game, to throw tails once is to fall by the wayside, extinct, a ghost.

Imagine yourself as a lemur, or perhaps as a small cat … Notice how supple your spine feels … Now with your belly off the floor, begin crawling on your hands and knees. Hwo does this new-found freedom feel? How does your head move?

Now our young need to be looked after until they can fend for themselves.

EARLY MONKEY .:. Begin by moving on hands and feet with greater lightness, leaping and climbing,. Discover more flexibility in movement of the spine, head and neck. Make sounds. Notice increasing playfulness and curiosity. We move trhough the trees, running along brances and swinging through them, our strong opposable thumbs giving us the grasp we need. Our sensitive fingertips (with nails instead of claws) able to judge the ripeness of fruit or groom. Agile balance and keen vision develop. We eat food on the spot where we find it.

GREAT APE .:. Our bodies become heavier and stronger. We can squat erect but use knuckles to walk. Experiment with balancing. How does the wrold look and smell? Communication?

Ten million years ago a major climactic change begins and the forest, home of the ape, begins to retreat to the mountains and is replaced by woodland and open savannah.

EARLY HUMAN .:. It is here on the open savannah that we first learnt to walk on two legs … standing on two feet with strong jaw thrust forward. How does it feel? Vulnerable but inventive and adaptable. Able to look up and easily see the sky. We postpone eating food until it can be brought back to camp and shared. We live in families, discover language, catch fire, make art music, tools … the complexities and subtleties of cooperating successfully with others in a group involves the development of language, the telling of stories, the use of tools, the making of fires.

About 100,000 years ago, during the warm interglacial period, a new hominid species emerges called Neanderthal. We bury our dead, sometimes with flint tools – many in a fetal position suggesting the return to the womb of mother earth for rebirth, often in graves lying on an east/west axis – on the path of the sun which is reborn every day – our practice of burying the dead shows a dramatic increase in human self-consciousness. Now physical evolution stands still and cultural evolution takes over.

By our archeological records, 4000 years ago marks the beginning of recorded human history. This evolutionary storyline shows that our roots reach much deeper than our civilization. To this day the first few weeks of human embryonic development is identical to the embryonic development of all animals, reptiles and fish. We are connected.

Although just a blip in the deep ecology of our world, in a few thousand years we have managed to rape and pillage the nature that used to grow strong in this very spot. Imagine a rainforest of thousand year old trees surrounding you here. Those trees, plants and animals are the ancestor spirits of this sacred space.

Being responsible stewards of the earth means taking to heart the current planetary healing crisis. What are the long term consequences of gmo seeds, monocropping, fish farming, deforestation, desertification, waste mis-management, urbanization, chemical fertilizers, terminator genes, acid rain, global warming, fossil fuel depletion, species extinction, cultural appropriation and warfare?

In Canada we are hosting some of the last Whooping Cranes, Peregrine Falcons, Burrowing Owls and Beluga Whales. Through the toxic destruction of their natural habitats, and introduction of alien species into the ecosystem, these beautiful creatures are now on the endangered species list.

Canada has seen the total extinction our Labrador ducks, Passenger Pigeons, and the flightless relatives of the penguin, the Great Auks.

Hear the silently sung state of grace from Gaia and all her living denizens. Understand how countless dna links in the co-ecology of the Earth have been lost through our disfunctional human development strategies and irresponsible energy usage. Since everything is connected, we must revision the way we relate to our process of being in the world.

FUTURE HUMAN .:. The possible human: to the extent that we can surrender our tiny self to our actual, biological being, we can then manifest the powerful erotic energy of evolution and then our personalities slowly come to partake of the nature of evolution, the nature of this planet home.

Sitting down quietly by yourself … in your mind’s eye, open to any glimpses images, forms that are waiting to emerge as future human life … potential in us that is waiting to awaken a larger ecological self, living fully as part of nature expressing our full potential in watever way may occur to us … form.

Now slowly come back and opening your eyes, find a partner close by to you and sit with them. Taking turns speaking, going back over the stages you remember, describing in the first person what you experienced, what you noticed about each life form. Using the presnet tense – “i am a single cell and i notice …. “ You are now recounting your evolutionary journey, recounting how the cosmic journey has been for you so far. You have 5 minutes each to do this recounting, so try to capture the parts that were most vivid for you. Be sure to listen to the partner who is speaking silently, wtihout interjecting.

And so now we come to the present moment once again, and what now shapes our world. Our industrial society with its bombs and bulldozers. We are at the brink of time. We are know this at some level of our consciousness. Each of us, at some level, knows that we are doing ourselves in – that Gaia herself, our self, is in danger. And at some level of your consciousness that is why you are here. Perhaps in some ways you came here to heal yoursleves on a personal level and find your power in terms of your individual lives. True enoguh. But we are also here because we know our planet is in danger and all life on it could go – just like that! And we fear that this knowledge might drive us insane if we let it in. Even those who are working hard to eliminate these dangers often find it hard to fathom the scope of these realities.

So we are now at a point unlike any other in our long history. I supspect that we have in some way opted to be here at this culminating chapter or turning point. We have opted to be alive when the stakes are high, to test everything we have ever learned about interconnectedness, about courage, to test it now when Gaia is ailing and her children are ill. We are alive right now when it could be the end of conscious life on this beautiful water planet hanging there like a celestial jewel in space.

Our foremeothers and forefather faced nothing quite like this, because every generation before us took it for granted that life would continue. Each lived with the tacid assumption. Personal death, wars, plagues were ever encompassed in that larger assurance that life would contineu. That assurance is lost now and we are alive at a time of that great loss. It effects everyone, weather they work for the logging companies or the peace movement. And the toll it takes has barely begun to be measured.

In so-called primitive societies rites of passage are held for adolescents, because it is in adolescence that the fact of personal death or mortality is integrated in to the personality. The individual goes through the prescribed ordeal of the initiation rite, in order to integrate that knowledge, so that he or she can assume the rights and responsibilites of adulthoodl. That is what we are doing right now on the collective level, in this planet-time. We are confronting and integrating into our awareness our collective mortality as a species. We must do that so that we can wake up and assume the rights and responsibiliteis of planetary adulthood – so that we can grow up! That is in a sense what we are doing here.

When you return to your communities to organize, saying no to the machinery of death and yes to life, remember your true identity. Remember your story, our story. Clothe yourself in your true authority. You speak not only as yourself or for yourself. You were not born yesterday. You have been through many dyings and know in yoru heartbeat and bones the precarious, exquisite balance of life. Out of that knowledge you can speak and act. You will speak and act with the courage and endurance that has been yorus through the long, beautiful aeons of your life story as Gaia.

7 Comments

  1. Philippe says

    Beautifully wrote it by a very gifted one.
    An ancient soul that can help the young ones to open their mind to the truth.
    Thank you.

  2. hi,
    well,this article i see it as a evolutionary “scientific” reading.
    what about an esoteric-anthoposhopic or other,reading?

  3. hi,
    well,this article i see it as a evolutionary “scientific” reading.
    what about an esoteric-anthoposhopic or other,reading?

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