Journeys

Recently my journeys intertwined. There was joy, pain and hope in this confluence of my physical, intellectual and spiritual being with that of others.

I moved from Canberra, through China to the US then the UK for my daughter Heather’s graduation and then onto to Scotland to my perception of my sanguine soul’s perceived source. In this journey I moved through Chinese, US, European and Multicultural ways of analyzing, feeling, thinking and choosing. I moved from ancient eternal ways to constructed felt ways of being.

Our journeys matter. The relationship between them is often obscurely buried in our subconscious. Even if we think not, they may still be obscured. However, Lao Tzu has given us confidence, born out by experience, that on “The Way” thesis and anti-thesis are a whole born of human and universal at-one-ment, not conflict.

On my journey this seemed challenged.

My journey paralleled that of fellow Europeans, Americans, Jews and Muslims into or out of the current bloodiness of the Middle East in Iraq and Lebanon. There “The People of the Book” whom the Prophet, and God in the Koran, set out to unite under God’s merciful ordinance slay each other every day in a manner inconsistent with their stated shared beliefs in the same God. In their shared vision of God: Muslims should not seek conflict, Jews should not judge when judgement is the Lords and Christians should always forgive. Yet each sees the other seeking conflict, judges the other wrong and shows little capacity for forgiveness. Where is their room in this for their shared vision of God?

In the more ancient tradition of the East, China’s new, legitimate and awe inspiring industrial aspirations must impact heavily on us all. Particularly in this New Age I noted China’s vision of security seems to encompass not only its geopolitical integrity but its wish for a distinct integrity in cyberspace. This blog is unavailable in China. China it seems now leads in marking out political boundaries in cyberspace. This despite the fact that the latter has emerged as an evolved potentially bountiful new truly free range. Through its emergence we are on the verge of finally replacing the free range we abandoned in the Garden of Eden. To do so we require to pay attention to what my new friend, Mr Chou, from Juihua Shan in Anhui, calls, “Valuable Lessons for the Present We (Humanity) Have Forgotten from our Childhood”. We forgot these to farm within defended, eventually national, borders. In the now ending industrial age the latter did evolve to become permeable. First through the hegemony of a few Western nations then as a result of the gains evident to all in industrialisation underwritten by the scale and scope made possible by truly free trade.

In the US I attended the International Society for the Systems Sciences Annual Conference in Sonoma there some feared, as does Lovelock in the "Revenge of Gaia", that the consequence of current human activity and change would either be our planets rejection of us as foreign bodies or its own death. To me this is strange human egocentricity. Evolution has taken 4.5billion years to get Gaia here. Seen as special and distinct from that we may indeed be destructive. But as a small integral part of the universe’s investment in Gaia it is surely a more tenable hypothesis that we are part of Gaia’s constructive means of becoming. With the evolutionary evidence to date I would like to ask if it is likely that we will be eliminated or Gaia die. We can be seen easily as part of Gaia’s nervous system. Through our Internet intra-connectivity we maybe evolving into a key component of an embryonic brain for Gaia. Finally we seem to be the planet’s only currently evident hope for procreation (through our demonstrated wish and capacity to spawn out into the universe). What evolving creature excises its nervous system, eliminates its brain or gives up its potential for procreation. Clearly pathologies exist where this occurs but in general any of these is inconsistent with the broad thrust of observed evolution.

On arrival in the UK I found my loved ones had serious misgivings about my own and others way of wishing to be. Their perceptions, of the above events and our mutually constructed visions of our own present, as a result of past journeys together were painful.

The harmful consequences of our tendency to see ourselves as distinct vulnerable beings only capable of hearing, seeing feeling and sensing each other indirectly with our minds was evident and I fear mutually painful.. The dire consequences of our need for our own strong identity and from that our willingness to judge others quickly without immediate room for forgiveness seems to lead to the attacks we feel are necessary to defend our identities and their views of their own integrity.

However on arrival at Heathrow I met a cherished Internet friend whose journey had taken her coincidentally to Colombia, the Sierra Nevada and the Kogi Indians. She discovered them and their views in her own journey to seek meaning from the childhood destruction of her being. The Kogi feel their duty is to protect the planet from the rest of us. They believe they can. She carried into her journey with them a great unresolved hurt that requires unforthcoming and unlikely atonement within her own and familial being. How can the Kogi succeed if we cannot find the means to produce healing closure from those near and dear to us?

What end can there be to our journeys? Acceptance of our at-one-ment as manifest in the Gaia hypothesis is perhaps a start? In knowing that, and that we may only see through the glass darkly, we would seem well advised to hold back in our judgement of what others are doing, forgive the hurt we feel we know others intend and in doing so avoid conflicts that may stem from our perception not reality. Such cannot be resolved by attacking a perceived source we cannot control.

Following this path does not absolve any of us from accountable responsibility for our actions as they effect others. However empowered thus we can find what we need to heal ourselves without demanding anything from others. In achieving this we can become fit and well to assist the Kogi in enabling our planet become. This will hopefully be into the emergent Serene Dawn of a New Golden Age of sustainable planetary and human wellbeing.