Peter Adair is the author of the books Sacred Universe and Sacred Earth.
WESTMINSTER WEST-There is no place for us in our contemporary materialist science. That science is an inheritance from the 19th century and bespeaks an indifferent and incidental universe.
The perspective we have of our world is important, since the images of our cosmic origins determine the values, aesthetics, and moralities of the cultures we create from them. How we think we came into being is who we think we are.
We belong to a truly miraculous planet, and this miracle has a story. It is a story telling of the significance of humans within Earth's unfolding, and of Earth within the encompassing universe. It is a story of science with sentience.
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The most fundamental question we can ask of ourselves is, "Who am I?" To which the obvious and truthful answer is, "I am human." At a basic level, our understanding of ourselves and the universe is derived from the activity of our bodies and brains - bodies and brains made literally of star matter.
A supernova occurred 4.6 billion years ago and seeded a wafting cloud of dust and gases with its collection of elements that one day coalesced into Earth, plants, animals, and human beings. We are indeed star children.
When a star is in the process of imploding and exploding, becoming a supernova, physical reactions turn the base elements of that star - hydrogen and helium - into a panoply of chemical elements: phosphorus, carbon, oxygen, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and all others.
Drawing rabbits out of a hat would not be a more amazing event. The star revealing its elements is akin to white light revealing its hidden rainbow spectrum. Within each appearance there is an unsuspected offering of richness and diversity.
With this gift of plenitude, our solar system forms. Every solar system is a creative field of possibility, an opportunity for self-expression in the galaxy. However, not every seed is sown, not every dream is realized. Being of a favorable size and distance from the sun, Earth is able to maintain the creative energy of the star that spawned it. Earth carries forth the originating supernova's mantle of remarkable transformation.
There is simply no other way to say it: Earth is a blessed planet.
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When Earth forms as an arid planet 4.5 billion years ago - a span of time told by Earth's memory banks, its rocks - it is a planetary stem cell. Earth roils with internal heat and burgeoning imagination.
Who could divine, following soon after our planet's formation, that a celestial body impacting Earth - our nascent Moon - would release the water held within Earth's rocks, thereby facilitating Earth's shape-shift into a glistening, jewel-like, blue-ocean oasis?
The Moon becomes Earth's inspired dance partner, slowing our planet's frantic five-hour daily spin to a stately 24-hour rotation; establishing the orbital tilt, allowing four seasons; and inducing the tides, providing Earth with the equivalent of a pulsing heart. The midwifing Moon, regulating the ovulation cycle of human females, became an enchantress in the night sky.
Water, water, everywhere: in the air and clouds; in the seas and oceans; in lakes, rivers, and streams; in ice caps and mountain peaks. The legacy of water is held within our bodies, for although it is commonly known our bodies are 60–75% water by weight, by molecular makeup we are in fact 99% water. We are embodied testaments to Earth's revelation of itself as a water planet.
Moon-activated oceans dilate and contract like a pulsing heart, and four billion years ago that cradling heart brings forth the wonder of single-celled life. The new entities are microorganisms that can feed, metabolize, feel, and learn; they are vital expressions of Earth's dynamic energy.
Life's advent transfigures the planet. Our once-molten planet that became an ocean planet blossoms now into a living planet. Insofar as we are living beings, we manifest this wildly evocative dream of Earth.
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Amidst the primordial ocean life of Earth, a group of organisms called cyanobacteria cultivates a unique relationship with the Sun. With marvelous sensitivity, these microorganisms lure photons of light energy from our local star - the Sun - to break the chemical makeup of water molecules, combine the released hydrogen with carbon dioxide, and so produce carbohydrates - sugars - as food. The astounding process of photosynthesis is born.
Photosynthesis confers not only the gift of food. This momentous connection of life and star provides a catalyst for the further development of life - namely, oxygen. Oxygen gas is a boon from photosynthesis. Its presence increases tenfold the metabolic energy previously available to life-forms. This bounteous capacity nurtures the agglomeration of single cells into multi-cellular organisms, and a future Earth of fungi, animals, and plants.
The Sun is our guiding star. Photosynthesis is the merging of Earth life and star light, a songline of connection within the solar system. When our planet receives the universe, the universe responds with the enhancement of life on Earth. This is a magical alliance.
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As oxygen seeps into the atmosphere from the sea, becoming our air, a landscape of diverse flora and fauna develops. Into this oxygen-charged atmosphere and established land life, 400 million years ago, Earth introduces an uncanny presence: fire.
Fire is such a special energy that it cannot exist elsewhere in the solar system, since only Earth has evolved the conditions for its sudden appearance. Earth transformed itself into a planet that can burn. And burn it does: At the whim of fire, entire ecosystems are promoted and destroyed, altering the face of the planet.
The twin elements necessary for fire - namely, oxygen-rich air and complex life - were spawned and spurred by Earth's early-life bonding with our Sun. Fire is a veritable echo of that star's qualities: its heat and brightness and intensity and transformative power. Earth remains star-struck.
Remarkably, in the history of life on Earth, just a single species has evolved able to manipulate fire. Human beings do not instinctively fear fire; we are fascinated by it. This alluring and mysterious energy was the stimulator of human imagination - and so, of human culture.
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Earth unveiled itself through a sequence of astonishing transformations. Sacred primary elements, each one arising from a preceding one, marked Earth's trajectory. Molten rock (earth) released water, water birthed life, life produced air, air unleashed fire, and fire stoked human imagination. Each stage is an expression of Earth's maturing imagination. This creative capacity becomes embodied in the human.
More than one million years ago humans began interacting with fire. Fire offered not only warmth and safety from predators, it allowed for gatherings and interchange beyond daylight hours. A basic human social unit cohered and the central fire, in the dreamtime of the night, evoked communal singing, dancing, and storytelling. Storytelling is the means by which we interpret the universe to ourselves.
Human culture is so thoroughly intertwined with fire we can easily overlook its impact. Whether by cooking food, forming pottery, or enabling metallurgy and every kind of combusting engine, fire is woven into our DNA. Fire seeded human imagination, and the fount of invention and insight issuing forth from that imagination has transformed our planet.
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Since the 18th century, a particular view of Earth and ourselves has become predominant. Global civilization now rests upon a scientific materialist orientation - that is, a stance of dissociation and exploitation toward Earth resulting in a march of destruction and pollution on a planetary scale. The species Earth gifted with imagination has shaped a perspective that bespeaks alienation from our very planet.
A seemingly bizarre development. Yet, this materialist scientific consciousness was necessary to expose unseen dimensions of Earth's wholeness. No Hindu scripture, Buddhist sutra, mystic vision, or shamanic journey, for example, reveals Earth to be a sphere, let alone rotating on its axis, let alone revolving around a star.
Our widened and deepened view of Earth garnered from scientific explorations may foster a regard and caring for all of Earth's creatures and plants, even a love for the planet in its entirety. We are able to fathom the gradual development of Earth over billions of years and realize all of Earth is a unity. In knowledge and feeling, we have available to us a relation to wholeness to a degree even our indigenous ancestors could not imagine.
There is no denying the presence of suffering, destruction, and violence in our world. These facets are as real as air or water. It is also undeniable that no matter how terrible or terrifying, these challenging aspects of Earthly life happen within the sheer wonder of existence.
An expression of that wonder is human imagination. With that imagination we can choose to enhance or mitigate conditions of thriving or misery.
We can envision and enable a more beautiful world. We can embrace a stunning vision of wholeness: the revelation of an innate creative intention of matter and Earth. As humans we consciously share in this miracle. The intrinsic radiance of a star-inspired fertile planet is our heritage - a heritage we honor as willing co-creators of an Earth luminous with its own self-unveiling.
This Voices Essay was submitted to The Commons.
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