The Natural and the Technological:Formulating the Co-Creative Integration of These Two Inestimably Valuable Realms of Experience


 

Part 1: The Temple of the Holy Spirit

It is a given that the quintessential moral position is profound respect, or reverence for the Creator, the Source of all we know of ourselves, and of Reality. Yet there is a perfect justification for the assertion that the quintessential moral duty of our time, is care for and protection of Nature. The statements are actually complementary. The Christian Bible says that the Creator looked upon the creation and declared “It is Good”. This statement is taken to mean “It will serve as a Vessel of My Infinite Spirit, Love”. Goodness has always been identified as one of the irreducible attributes of the manifestation of the Infinite, and for this reason, it is defined as the capacity of a given manifestation to serve as an instrument or a vessel of the Supreme Principle of Identity, Love. Thus, the most reverent renderings as to the spiritual nature of these humble vessels we call our lives produce “the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit”, from which is readily derived “that we were made in the Image of the Supreme”. These contemplations, also from the Christian Bible, are not far removed from the social identity processes of the modern person. Therefore, we perceive the following as an inevitable epiphany, already embraced by some: That the Union of All Bodies, Mother Nature, is the Supreme Temple of Life, and is Justly Revered as the Supreme Form of the Holy Spirit. When we recognize that reverence is mandatory in our relationship to Life Itself, we begin to realise the passionate foundation of the realizations that would cause some people to chain themselves to a tree to protect it from exploitation, and others to deploy their little inflatable boats between the bodies of the great whales and menacing harpoon boats of the whaling ships. Life is Sacred. That is what the environmental movement is saying, in their carefully formulated legislative proposals, and in the courageous gestures of their zealots. And this position is not actually up for discussion, since Life is the only Way by which the Infinite is known. Life is Value. The Sacredness of Life is as irrefutable as Its Essentiality to the Experience of Spirit, Love, the tangible aspect of the Infinite. Life is Goodness. It serves Its Purpose in being the instrument and vessel for the Self-Appreciation of Spirit’s Own Essence, Love. Everything that enhances or advances our experience of the sacredness of the Way of Life is valuable or praiseworthy, and everything that compromises our access to, or our quality experience of, the Way of Life, is detestable, unacceptable. Life is the standard of all value, then. Life, the vitality of beingness, is the measure, the primary criterion itself.

As Life is the fundamental level of beingness that says “I” within the individual, Life is the Essential Identity of every individual being. And, since “Planetary Life System” is the fundamental level of the manifestation of Intelligent Life, we must recognize that the quality of the experience of our Planetary Life System qualifies, or conditions, our own fundamental experience of Identity. Thus, the pure experience of our self, and the Pure Experience of the Self of Life, and the experience of our Planetary Life System are inseparably connected, even innately fused with the Galactic and Universal levels of Life's own Selfhood.

Whether the travesty of the abuse of Our Mother, Life, occurs as a dramatic trauma, as in the logging of a stand of ancient trees, or as the effect of a gradual and innocuous attrition, caused by incremental degradation in any given area, the effect upon our own identity as humans is indisputably damaging. Our inner sense of decency is ravaged, even if innocuously, by the transformation of lush, pristine abundance into a sterile industrial environment. The Natural Dignity of the Human Soul is degraded when we are forced into situations requiring impossible choices. And the choice between the precious health and beauty of our natural Life System, our True Mother, and the progress of human industry represents one such choice.

Part 2: The Challenge to Our Reason: Too Good to Believe?

The human is the Intellectual Species. And the Intellect will extrapolate principles from physical phenomena, and test those principles again by causing physical effects. The Intellectual Species serves as the head upon the body of all Life, and we are purposefully satisfied by making Life more efficient, more pleasureful, and more enlightening for our human selves and for all of the Life around us. The potent responsibility of the rational free will is what gives the species that heads up the Life Process the access to the great might afforded by rational manipulation of matter. The human must use the Intellect. In fact, the human phase in the primate evolution is initiated by a simultaneous group recognition of the Unified Mind, described quite aptly by the adage, "We are all One". It is a spiritual realisation, centering in the father of the group, and causing every member to begin to identify with the unity of self-possessed free wills. The process initiated thus has always, and probably will always give rise to technological industry eventually. So it is a given that if Life needs a Head, Industry must come into being. But it is that very head that has effectively challenged the assumption that if industry must come into being, Nature must suffer. The following synthesis celebrates the practicality of the notion that both pure natural experience and the luxury of technological abundance actually co-exist co-creatively when their potentials are manifested correctly, giving the fullness of respect to both of these irreplaceable realms of life's venerable creativity.

The richness, the profundity of the experience of Life is to be found in the lushest, purest, most abundant wildlands of Our Mother Nature. These are the kinds of places that have caused so many people to be moved to say “This is God’s Country!”. The Innate Goodness of such experience stands as ardent affirmation of the position of soulful social planners: that such experience ought to be readily available to every member of human society. The pristine goodness of the North American Continent enraptured many of the early Caucasian explorers of this bountiful wild land to the degree of reverence. And their reverent proclamations of loyalty to It’s Goodness and Beauty served as the binding oaths that opened the spirit of this land to exploration and habitation by this new people. While the vision of the pure vibrance of these initial immersions in Life’s luxuriant plenitude is still fairly vital within our collective mind, we need to contemplate the counterpoise of the modern industrial mega-cities of New York, Chicago, and Detroit; London, Paris, Dusseldorf, Beijing, Rio and Nairobi. Here, upon some of our most cherished and grand river mouths and lakeshores, modern insensitivity has sprawled a stultifying maze of concrete and steel factories, and other constructions, many of them seeping with treacherously toxic contaminants. The lush purity of these ancestral memories of arcadian abundance, seeping with springs as sweet as exotic nectars, is so far removed from the perceptual immediacy of the environment of the megapolis, that the normal mind can no longer identify the splendour of the boundless bountifulness as their Home. That is where, in Her Pristine Goodness, the Soulful Intelligence of Life, of our Planet, knows Herself, in Beauty and Goodness, and would have us identify Her, our Living Home. And the distance that each individual experiences from that soul-affirming, identity-affirming experience of sweet, rich, Life is in direct proportion to the self-destructive, anti-social alienation felt and expressed by the person, and manifested as inefficiency, corruption, and entropy by the society. The Essence of the social contract is a group of thinking persons choosing to form a bond of mutual service in order to enhance the potential of their experience of Life: more and better nourishment, shelter, and time to experience the good things that Life offers. The modern synthesis of this ancient compact has apparently over-emphasized the technological dimensions of abundance, at the sacrifice of the more ancient and fundamental natural dimensions of fulfillment. And the power of the Soul’s identity with the Eternal Purity and Goodness of Life is so essential to human existence that wave after wave of magnificent cultural attainments - entire civilisations - are vanquished repetitively, in a cycle of arrogance and humiliation, because of the spiritual tension caused by the competitive counterpoise of human culture against the Life of Nature. The Soul of every healthy human favors victory for Nature, our True Mother, at least as much as they do for themselves. And postulated as such, posited against the purposes of Life Itself, no human civilized endeavor can long subsist.

At this juncture, one must recognize these psychological challenges: either humanity is innately flawed, an experiment marked “failed”, and doomed for cancellation, or indeed, Life is worth experiencing, the Creator loves us, and we shall discover and engineer a solution to this mortally humiliating conundrum.

Humanity shall again embrace Life as Purity and Boundless Abundance when we mobilize ourselves to automate every task that might be automated, and dedicate enormous international consortiums of industrial expertise and ambition to the glorious endeavor of relocating the great mass of humanity’s industrial and commercial constructions into secure subterranean emplacements, lined with stainless steel, and formulated to produce the blessings of technical industry perfectly, without the expulsion of harmful by-products into the body of Nature. The calculations have already produced practicable outcomes: the rate of production need only be slowed less than ten percent in order to manifest only pure products and stable by-products. The writer suggests that the surface be spangled with just a few cultural jewels: churches, museums, historic, and monumental or aesthetically inspiring structures, and the architecture celebrating the physical culture, such as playing fields, fitness emporiums, sports arenas, and equestrian enclosures. Of course, bridges and other transportation structures must also greet the eye. But precisely how much residential structure should be subsumed into the subterranean realm is a matter to be decided by the residents themselves.

What we are referring to here is nothing less than a re-formulation of the concept of human cultural expression within a natural evolutionary process. It is a renovation of the human concept of habitation that precludes the anguish presuming the necessity for the desecration of our own original home, Nature. And it dramatically enhances the satisfaction of enterprise in the industrial-technological dimension. The creative mind of industry no longer will be in opposition to the laws which formed and which satisfy its body. Lives which produce wealth will no longer produce ill, but good health, for their world, and for their own families and themselves. Envision those same lands that presently suffocate beneath oppressive masses of concrete, macadam, and steel, reborn as lush parks and playgrounds, studded with only the occaisional impressive structure: houses of worship, ancient or modern, built to endure the ages; museums, storehouses of cultural treasures; historic constructions, built when the land was still fresh with innocence; centers for the culture of physical fitness, placed and sculpted for optimal interface with the vitalizing forces of Life; and perhaps one majestic tower for each urban center, soaring over the treetops, as an emblem of the industrial vitality of humanity pulsing beneath the surface. There will also be great numbers of pavilions and gazebos, for daily use, offering varying degrees of protection from the elements, and constructed from the bedrock, quarried from below, and stainless steel, or similarly durable substances. Of course, these structures, decorating the surface above urban centers, will give way to the more appropriate lean-to’s, and reservable cabins, as we travel from the super-urban and agricultural spaces into the wildlands surrounding.

Perhaps we will always preserve some wilderness, completely untrammeled by human structures, for the enjoyment and education of those willing to put a backpack on their backs containing their thin polymer temporary homes-away-from-home, but for most folks, it is these wildlands, studded with sturdy cabins, that will afford the ideal opportunity to complement the industrial intensity of modern life with a refreshing renewal of intimacy with the primal springs of our being. These bedrock and stainless steel cabins, should be constructed to endure any natural event, including forest fire, with walls two feet thick, and windows with strong fire shutters, that close automatically when electronically monitored outside conditions indicate the approach of a blaze. Their solar roof will charge durable batteries to provide light, water pressure, power to the built-in microwave oven in the kitchen area, and perhaps perform the sundry task to monitor, or aerate, or package the products of, the compost privy. The keypad at the front door recognizes the ID card of the person or family with reservations, and subsequent re-entries could be mediated by one or some of the various forms of recognition software. The lean-to’s, although of similarly durable construction, are available to campers on a first-come-first-serve basis, and are distributed along major hiking trails and throughout the wilder lands, exclusive of the wilderness preserves. They might be designed to include a sub-floor vault, large enough to shelter several campers from fire, should shelter be required, and it could also serve as a convenient storage space for those highly coveted food supplies in normal times.

The processes we are describing contain the constituents to enable the alleviation of the strain from the over-use of our very precious lands, the National Parks and Monuments. Once the subterranean sciences are perfected to the appropriate degree, both roads, and the vast bulk of visitor accommodation should be sculpted out of bedrock, one hundred feet or more beneath the preciously abundant surface. From our subterranean hotels and RV parks, we will ascend stairways or ramps, (and perhaps the occaisional special use elevator), to view our spectacular preserves, now safe from diesel and auto emissions, and motorized threat to wildlife, and from the congested appearance that has begun to degrade the experience of some of our most sacred places.

Within the same vein of intellectual ore, we share a method for “utilizing” our National Forests that simultaneously produces more raw material for the production of, for example, paper, than was possible using the previous cruder methods, but instead of decimating forests, both aesthetically and biotically, through clearcutting, the forest remains virtually intact even while its precious product is being harvested, affording the fecund opportunity of using the same acreage to sustain, underneath, a residential community with thriving shopping mall, with prime forest land continuously available above for recreational - educational use. This transformation becomes possible through the careful harvest of small, one-to-two-inch diameter branches to serve the provision of pulp for the paper mills. We are told that less effort is required, both in terms of chemical processes, and in terms of the expenditure of human labor, to produce a higher quality paper product, using this method.

We have had to repeat ourselves time and again, to people who are hard pressed to believe that simple straightforward solutions to problems that had come to be accepted as part of the human condition are actually within the reach of humanity today. It comes very naturally to the overly cautious mind to doubt the practicality of such visions of the future. What seems so awesome to them as to be nearly incredible, is the fact that greater practical benefit is readily available when we are willing and able to conceive the optimal human destiny as integral with the optimal fulfillment of the great life system of which the life of Humanity is a part. We suggest that “perfect ideas” may come only from the core of being inclusive of the good will for every life. Let me illustrate this point: the major objection to the practicality of the vision described above revolves around the great expense of hollowing huge encasements within the bedrock, for our shopping malls and such. City planners and entrepreneurs have often turned their backs upon these apparently exotic notions, based upon the cost of moving the rock, until we clarified the issue for them: the rock is not a burden, it is a valuable asset! It is the short-sighted mind of shortcut methods that could not see the self-justifying validity of these beautiful conceptions for the future of Humanity. It must be understood from the outset that the rock must never, ever, be regarded as an obstruction or a burden. If we enter this precious subterranean realm with tools to carefully quarry, block by block, the stone from the encasement we are sculpting, we will be free from both the curse of financial burden, and from the tormented conscience that accompanies the catastrophic failure of grand projects that are researched inadequately. We will construct secure, enduring emplacements that will swiftly pay for themselves when we carefully quarry, mill and sell the stone that is removed from these subterranean projects, to serve the appropriate topside uses.

Careful examination of the ramifications of a massive shift of commerce and industry into the subsurface regions reveals a delightful aspect of this project which might have been overlooked by the planners, architects, and construction engineers of the multi-national consortiums that will undertake these momentous endeavors. Immense cultural wealth will come forth from these excavations, in the form of myriad crystal, mineral, and metal extractions discovered incidentally to the formation of the vaults and tunnels that comprise the fundamental form of our recently discovered legacy of subterranean real estate. The excavating automatons must be engineered with this peripheral purpose carefully integrated into the design of each machine. Through the use of the advanced sensing technologies available today, our rock-processing machines will first scan each expanse of stone to be quarried. Signatures of gemstones, crystals, or useful metals will activate mini extraction modules utilizing sonic knife technology or hyper-compressed fluid cutters to excise these nodes of extraordinarily pure, or educational material forms, for the edification and entertainment of the cultural whole. Schools, Museums, Civic Centers, and Places of Worship will be immeasurably enriched by the inspiring perfection of the crystalforms of the subterranean intelligence of our planet. These confluences of mineral essentiality serve as windows into the innate orderliness of the fundamental building blocks of all material being, the atoms and molecules of primordial matter itself.

Thus, Humanity will move forward into phases of existence that are free from self-negation. But, absolutely imperative to this transition is the revolutionary decision to suspend habitual instinctive and emotional patterns of awareness, long enough to re-organize, learn, and integrate a pattern of being in relation with Life that posits the potentially permanent relationship of mutual gratification, instead of the habitual strife called forth by the attitude “Man against Nature”. We will continue to measure our progress in Spirit amidst the vastness and antiquity of our Sustaining Life Matrix, Nature, but we will have matured beyond the need to measure our greatness beside the suffering and destruction of Her vast resource. Restoring the three- and four-hundred foot tall trees along the Hudson River where the megapolis now stands will be a partial restoration of depth and sensitvitity to the human conscience. Restoring Her Beauty, Her Lushness, Her Bountifulness will be the restoration of precious dimensions of our own being.

Release from the bittersweet self-concept of Humanity is release from a destiny that repetitively ends in calamity, cycle after cycle of human civilization. Until now, the human Identity has conceived its place in Life as a destructive spoiled child, bringing as much shame and anguish to our venerable Source, Life, as joy, and the inescapable instability of such a relationship brings inevitable humiliation. Many modern persons harbor an identity with Life that is unsavory; unresolved. They see creativeness and destructiveness within Life and attempt to mirror Life’s comprehensive integrity by including both of these as wilfull vectors within their own personalities. But destructiveness is anti-Life, death. Life is just Creative Force, and uses destructive force only to protect Its Pure Principle. Life does not identify with destructive force; neither should any human being. The soulful dimension of the human Identity cannot conceive its existence in a context of self-affirmation and self-negation in alternation. In fact, this describes an efficiently soul-destroying pattern of existence. If the enduring intelligence of the Mind, and the enduring dignity of the Body are to experience the continuity of Identity that is Soulfulness at all, these polarities of the Human Soul must be able to recognize their Identity as of a Unity with the Great Process of Life Itself. Only from such a stable foundation, as proud sons and daughters of the Great Life Process, is Humanity able to conceive and construct a truly proud and stable civilization. Life Essence is what endures forever, and the Human Soul that achieves unity with That is one who has attained real fulfillment. The analogous is true of entire human civilizations. If we want our society to pulsate with vibrance, joy, and intelligence, then we want the soulful dimension of our existence to come clearly into focus and step to the fore to define the imperatives for the age to come.

The aforegoing description of the renovation of the manner of presentation of the human productiveness to Life Itself is not merely an accessory conceived as a necessary concomitant to the reawakening of the Soul, it is the quintessential practical necessity, the missing piece from the puzzle, the long awaited paradigm shift that can restore the energy of Soulful Inspiration to the social beingness of Humankind. It is true there are other more personal transformations that are essential to the advent of the more fully aware times we are conceiving, but this is an objective, an external change which we describe, which, as well as bringing into being the above described psycho-physical advantages, provides an exemplary opportunity for diverse international cultural and industrial intelligences to consort co-creatively upon truly momentous accomplishment, a shared focus which in itself can and should serve as a vehicle for the practical dynamization of Humanity within the dimension of Unity. This colossal endeavor, conceived at the level of international governmental/corporate consortiums, serves not only to initialize the shared endeavor of our species within the vision of co-creative progress, but also prepares the material as a more fit vessel for the experience of the greater personal freedoms, and the more intimate joys that are to come.