A Stretch in Consciousness
Today is Mother’s Day. My dear mom died almost two years ago so I have no mom to call, visit or send flowers to, but nonetheless I bought flowers – light orange tulips – in honor of her spirit.
Today I am also thinking of the great Mother Earth, as “she” has been called. It is our “mother earth” that is crying out for help.
Recently in writing about my life since losing my mom, I ended the essay by saying that the world is aching to rise to a different consciousness and care. I did not intend to write that, but the writing and the thought has stayed with me. It does ring true. We have lived, particularly in this relatively new country, at least for the non-native population, as if we had endless resources to rely on and use. We have lived as if there is no end to these resources. A comparison could be made to living as if we will never die; that sense of infinite life. And now the quiet or rude awakening, for many of us. that it just isn’t the case. Perhaps in Europe and other smaller countries that have been very populated for many more years, there is more of that sense of finitude. There are less resources and land and maybe more “humility.” We, in the United States, act as if there is no end in sight, as if life will inevitably go on and on forever.
What would it mean to live in a very different way? What would this leap in consciousness and care look like?
I don’t know if any of us have all the answers to this question because it is a leap into a new paradigm and one that we have never experienced before. Yes, there are aspects that have existed and still exist now, but still it is new. It’s new because it is not about going back…that is not possible, and yet there is a dramatic call from the depths of our planet and our soul for a change.
Although new, I do imagine everyone has some sense of what this leap in consciousness and care might look like.
For myself, it would mean caring for the health and well being of our mother Earth as a whole; for the seas, the land, the air, the creatures – all the creatures – and that would also mean reflecting on what kind of life we are all living now. Big businesses, health systems, governments, schools…the list goes on…would also reflect upon this and would reflect on how our life has become, at this point, over industrialized, over packaged, overextended. How much waste can we keep producing without it effecting the whole environment? How related is our environment of pollution, carbon emissions, carcinogens to disease? How much have we lost touch with what really matters? Our connection to nature, to our fellow human beings, to all of life – to the simple values; values that can easily get obscured. It’s the value of caring for ourselves, our friends, neighbors, neighboring countries and countries far away. We are all connected living on this beautiful blue, white and green planet.
I remember being very touched by reading about Edgar Mitchell, one of our early astronauts, and his transformation after going up in Apollo 14 and walking on the moon. He said: “Suddenly, from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery.”
He had a revelation from this huge perspective that we are all “part of a living system, harmonious and whole—and that we all participate, as he expressed it later, in a ‘universe of consciousness.'” This revelation changed his life. Literally blasted out in space, it gave him a whole new way of seeing.
It’s a huge stretch in consciousness – a stretch to go beyond our boundaries of family, state and country – way beyond – to an awareness of how interconnected we all are on every level; human, biological, geophysical, chemical – on every level imaginable. We are One living breathing, moving organism that is constantly being effected on seen and unseen levels.
This is not new information but clearly we, as a species, have not caught up with the implications of what it means in terms of our life now and how we live.
This is the great challenge of our times and all times. We have gone so far, made so much “progress” in many ways and now the demand is to stop, reflect and take stock together. What does this consciousness and care look like when it is for the whole planet, for the survival of our species and for all of life?