A Gaian Imagination by David Spangler
A Gaian Imagination
DAVID’S DESK # 73
David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however the material is ©2013 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters please let us know at info@Lorian.org. Previous issues of "David's Desk" are posted on www.lorian.org.
I had nearly finished this month’s David’s Desk when I woke up in the middle of the night with a very clear voice saying, “Write about imagination.” As this was not the topic I had been writing about, I was reluctant to start over again, especially as I’m already late getting my essay out to you. But when I awoke again this morning, I felt the same urging to make imagination this month’s topic.
Back in the Seventies, my primary inner contact, a being I called “John” said to me, “The challenge for humanity in the future is to learn to think like a planet.” This is a theme I’ve been exploring in my upcoming issue of Views from the Borderland, my quarterly esoteric journal. After I’d finished the journal, which is what made me late getting started on David’s Desk this month, and sent it off to be printed, I kept getting a recurring comment from my inner colleagues which said in essence, “It’s not just ‘thinking like a planet’ that’s important. It’s imagining like a planet.” Another similar comment was made that Gaia [the term I use for the planetary Soul, i.e. the vast spiritual being that really is “thinking like a planet”] was “the imagination of the earth.” The difference that was being suggested was that thinking was a processing of information that maintained a separation between the thinker and the thought, but imagination was an act of entering into and sharing the identity or reality of that which is being held as an image. It is integral to a process of becoming, a way of holding a concept so it becomes alive and can take shape and substance. In my Manifestation Card Deck, I call this “inhabiting.” It’s the difference between thinking about a person and, as the saying goes, “walking a mile in their moccasins.”
I normally don’t write about topics that are too esoteric here in David’s Desk. This is partly due to the broad nature of the readership—not everyone who reads and enjoys my monthly essays is all that well versed in or even interested in metaphysics and the inner worlds. My intent is to provide easily accessible, inspirational thoughts and insights each month, often indulging my love of puns and wordplay, as I did last month writing about the spiritual equivalent of a Higgs particle.
But in for a penny, in for a pound. Let me see if I can do justice to the ideas formulating around the key word of imagination that I did not have time or space to add to my journal.
The general attitude towards incarnate humanity and our future on the part of those inner beings with whom I’m in regular contact might be described as cautious optimism coupled with fiery hope. That is to say, they are aware of the problems we face and while recognizing the possibility of our failure to meet them adequately, they are also very aware of our potentials for new vision and transformed behavior. That’s where the “fiery hope” comes in. But with this hope comes a recognition that if we are to successfully navigate the challenges of the next few decades, we need to learn to think differently about ourselves and about our world. Although by now the words are practically clichés, we need to think holistically, ecologically and systemically with a deeper awareness of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life.
However, what marshals the “fiery hope” and sets transformation into motion isn’t simply a new world view or a new way of thinking. It’s an ability to imagine a new way of being, to actually see ourselves in a new context, acting in new ways, feeling within us a felt sense of what this is like. We need to change how we conduct ourselves upon the earth, but change flows out of a will and will flows out of imagination. If I want to break a habit, it’s often not enough to will myself to do so or try to force change; I need to imagine the “new me,” the person I can be when free of this habit, and allow this image to become real enough that it supplies fuel to the transformational process.
So can we imagine ourselves as Homo Gaians instead of just Homo Sapiens? Can we imagine ourselves and our world the way Gaia, the World Soul, imagines us and the earth?
When I think of a “Gaian imagination,” three things come to mind. First, it is an imagination of diversity and complexity. Just look around you at how diverse and complex life is. By contrast, human imagination and action is often reductive, seeking simplicity and conformity. We can easily imagine living in a world where everyone thinks and acts as we do, a monocultural world, but can we imagine living successfully and peacefully in a world filled with many different ways of being? Can we imagine actively honoring and supporting ways of being different from our own?
Think of what it took to imagine giving women the vote. Think of what it is currently taking to imagine marriage between homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. For that matter, imagine yourself being good friends with a gay couple or encouraging someone in his or her sexual orientation though it may be different from yours. Gaian imagination is not “one-size-fits-all.” It encourages difference and uniqueness.
Second, the imagination of the earth is open to possibility, experimentation, and change. Again, we have only to look at the fossil record or at the wondrous diversity of life on earth right now to see the truth of this. On the other hand, human imagination is often constricted by attachment to the familiar, and a fear of change. Why is it so difficult for people to accept that human behavior is causing catastrophic climate change? One can point fingers at the influence of vested interests such as the energy companies whose existence, wealth and power depend on the continued use of the fossil fuels. But a more compelling reason is that we have grown accustomed to a world created and energized by such fuels, and it’s become hard to imagine other possibilities.
Can we imagine ourselves successful and prospering in a civilization that doesn’t depend on fossil fuels? Can we imagine such a civilization having a technology that serves us at least as well and brings us at least as much pleasure, if not more, than the technology we have now? Can we imagine what steps we might take right now to bring such a civilization into being? If not, why not? Why is it hard to imagine ourselves making new choices and exploring new possibilities that take us along a middle way between what we have now that is familiar but unsustainable and some catastrophic apocalypse? We seem to have no problem imagining our doom. Why can we not tap our inner resources of possibility and imagine our success but in new ways different from business as usual?
Thirdly, the imagination of the earth arises from what I think of as a “conscience of the whole.” It’s an organic imagination, one that demonstrates an ethic of connectedness. By contrast, our imaginations often express narrow self-interest and disconnection from any sense of being part of a larger wholeness. We can imagine new things, new possibilities; what we don’t imagine is how they fit in an integrated and harmless way into the larger community of life and planetary being. Thus we can imagine strip mining for coal or fracking for gas but not imagine the long-term consequences to air, water, soil, and people. We’re not good at imagining consequences, in part because we may not care about them as much as we care about ourselves and our short-term benefit. We forget that a Gaian imagination includes in its considerations connections and consequences over hundreds and thousands of years. It is an imagination that cares.
This is, I think, the core point that my inner colleagues wanted to get across. We need imagination to navigate our future successfully; we need to be able to think beyond what is familiar, comfortable, and safe. But this imagination needs to be grounded in an ethic of caring and love and a vision of a wholeness that extends through time. This is the heart of what a Gaian imagination means.
There was one other point my late-night visitor stressed. “There is a need,” this being said, “to clear your imaginations in order to see anew.” This is an important corollary to the three points I just made. Imagination needs emptiness and a clear space in which to work as much as it needs images to inhabit. Media of all kinds bombard us daily with thousands of images inviting, imploring, even demanding that we imagine the world and ourselves in this way or another, often to our detriment and the detriment of our planet. We need to be discerning about the images that we accept. Taking an “imaginal fast” now and then seems a good technique to clear our minds and to give ourselves a space in which new images can arise from our own hearts and wisdom and from the heart and wisdom of the world.
I, for one, am confident that we can do this. We can find a clear space within ourselves that is open to possibility and we can summon up a Gaian kind of imagination. A great many people are doing it already. But as we do, we need to remember that it’s not simply an imagination about our future or about what our society might look like in the years ahead. It’s also an imagination about ourselves, and this may be the most challenging of all. I can easily imagine a society based on renewable energy, for instance. Can I imagine myself as capable of bringing such a society into being? Can I imagine myself making whatever changes would help bring this about? Can I imagine myself as an agent of a better human future, whatever form that may take? Can I imagine myself as a source of love, able to think about and care for the good of the whole of life? Can I imagine myself as a seed of a new humanity?
That is the Gaian imagination that we need, and I think the earth—Gaia itself—is depending on us to find it.
_________________________________________________________________________
Lorian offers David Spangler's journal: Views from the Borderland Quarterly as a subscription service with 4 mailings and 2 online discussion/dialogues with David over a year. Click link to read more about the Quarterly along with samples of the material included. New subscription year for Views from the Borderland Quarterly begins this month with journal #1 mailed the 3rd week of June. Register here.
Visit the Lorian website to read the Lorian blog, view a short video or past David's Desk posts and learn more about other classes and self study work available. www.lorian.org
DAVID’S DESK # 73
David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however the material is ©2013 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters please let us know at info@Lorian.org. Previous issues of "David's Desk" are posted on www.lorian.org.
I had nearly finished this month’s David’s Desk when I woke up in the middle of the night with a very clear voice saying, “Write about imagination.” As this was not the topic I had been writing about, I was reluctant to start over again, especially as I’m already late getting my essay out to you. But when I awoke again this morning, I felt the same urging to make imagination this month’s topic.
Back in the Seventies, my primary inner contact, a being I called “John” said to me, “The challenge for humanity in the future is to learn to think like a planet.” This is a theme I’ve been exploring in my upcoming issue of Views from the Borderland, my quarterly esoteric journal. After I’d finished the journal, which is what made me late getting started on David’s Desk this month, and sent it off to be printed, I kept getting a recurring comment from my inner colleagues which said in essence, “It’s not just ‘thinking like a planet’ that’s important. It’s imagining like a planet.” Another similar comment was made that Gaia [the term I use for the planetary Soul, i.e. the vast spiritual being that really is “thinking like a planet”] was “the imagination of the earth.” The difference that was being suggested was that thinking was a processing of information that maintained a separation between the thinker and the thought, but imagination was an act of entering into and sharing the identity or reality of that which is being held as an image. It is integral to a process of becoming, a way of holding a concept so it becomes alive and can take shape and substance. In my Manifestation Card Deck, I call this “inhabiting.” It’s the difference between thinking about a person and, as the saying goes, “walking a mile in their moccasins.”
I normally don’t write about topics that are too esoteric here in David’s Desk. This is partly due to the broad nature of the readership—not everyone who reads and enjoys my monthly essays is all that well versed in or even interested in metaphysics and the inner worlds. My intent is to provide easily accessible, inspirational thoughts and insights each month, often indulging my love of puns and wordplay, as I did last month writing about the spiritual equivalent of a Higgs particle.
But in for a penny, in for a pound. Let me see if I can do justice to the ideas formulating around the key word of imagination that I did not have time or space to add to my journal.
The general attitude towards incarnate humanity and our future on the part of those inner beings with whom I’m in regular contact might be described as cautious optimism coupled with fiery hope. That is to say, they are aware of the problems we face and while recognizing the possibility of our failure to meet them adequately, they are also very aware of our potentials for new vision and transformed behavior. That’s where the “fiery hope” comes in. But with this hope comes a recognition that if we are to successfully navigate the challenges of the next few decades, we need to learn to think differently about ourselves and about our world. Although by now the words are practically clichés, we need to think holistically, ecologically and systemically with a deeper awareness of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life.
However, what marshals the “fiery hope” and sets transformation into motion isn’t simply a new world view or a new way of thinking. It’s an ability to imagine a new way of being, to actually see ourselves in a new context, acting in new ways, feeling within us a felt sense of what this is like. We need to change how we conduct ourselves upon the earth, but change flows out of a will and will flows out of imagination. If I want to break a habit, it’s often not enough to will myself to do so or try to force change; I need to imagine the “new me,” the person I can be when free of this habit, and allow this image to become real enough that it supplies fuel to the transformational process.
So can we imagine ourselves as Homo Gaians instead of just Homo Sapiens? Can we imagine ourselves and our world the way Gaia, the World Soul, imagines us and the earth?
When I think of a “Gaian imagination,” three things come to mind. First, it is an imagination of diversity and complexity. Just look around you at how diverse and complex life is. By contrast, human imagination and action is often reductive, seeking simplicity and conformity. We can easily imagine living in a world where everyone thinks and acts as we do, a monocultural world, but can we imagine living successfully and peacefully in a world filled with many different ways of being? Can we imagine actively honoring and supporting ways of being different from our own?
Think of what it took to imagine giving women the vote. Think of what it is currently taking to imagine marriage between homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. For that matter, imagine yourself being good friends with a gay couple or encouraging someone in his or her sexual orientation though it may be different from yours. Gaian imagination is not “one-size-fits-all.” It encourages difference and uniqueness.
Second, the imagination of the earth is open to possibility, experimentation, and change. Again, we have only to look at the fossil record or at the wondrous diversity of life on earth right now to see the truth of this. On the other hand, human imagination is often constricted by attachment to the familiar, and a fear of change. Why is it so difficult for people to accept that human behavior is causing catastrophic climate change? One can point fingers at the influence of vested interests such as the energy companies whose existence, wealth and power depend on the continued use of the fossil fuels. But a more compelling reason is that we have grown accustomed to a world created and energized by such fuels, and it’s become hard to imagine other possibilities.
Can we imagine ourselves successful and prospering in a civilization that doesn’t depend on fossil fuels? Can we imagine such a civilization having a technology that serves us at least as well and brings us at least as much pleasure, if not more, than the technology we have now? Can we imagine what steps we might take right now to bring such a civilization into being? If not, why not? Why is it hard to imagine ourselves making new choices and exploring new possibilities that take us along a middle way between what we have now that is familiar but unsustainable and some catastrophic apocalypse? We seem to have no problem imagining our doom. Why can we not tap our inner resources of possibility and imagine our success but in new ways different from business as usual?
Thirdly, the imagination of the earth arises from what I think of as a “conscience of the whole.” It’s an organic imagination, one that demonstrates an ethic of connectedness. By contrast, our imaginations often express narrow self-interest and disconnection from any sense of being part of a larger wholeness. We can imagine new things, new possibilities; what we don’t imagine is how they fit in an integrated and harmless way into the larger community of life and planetary being. Thus we can imagine strip mining for coal or fracking for gas but not imagine the long-term consequences to air, water, soil, and people. We’re not good at imagining consequences, in part because we may not care about them as much as we care about ourselves and our short-term benefit. We forget that a Gaian imagination includes in its considerations connections and consequences over hundreds and thousands of years. It is an imagination that cares.
This is, I think, the core point that my inner colleagues wanted to get across. We need imagination to navigate our future successfully; we need to be able to think beyond what is familiar, comfortable, and safe. But this imagination needs to be grounded in an ethic of caring and love and a vision of a wholeness that extends through time. This is the heart of what a Gaian imagination means.
There was one other point my late-night visitor stressed. “There is a need,” this being said, “to clear your imaginations in order to see anew.” This is an important corollary to the three points I just made. Imagination needs emptiness and a clear space in which to work as much as it needs images to inhabit. Media of all kinds bombard us daily with thousands of images inviting, imploring, even demanding that we imagine the world and ourselves in this way or another, often to our detriment and the detriment of our planet. We need to be discerning about the images that we accept. Taking an “imaginal fast” now and then seems a good technique to clear our minds and to give ourselves a space in which new images can arise from our own hearts and wisdom and from the heart and wisdom of the world.
I, for one, am confident that we can do this. We can find a clear space within ourselves that is open to possibility and we can summon up a Gaian kind of imagination. A great many people are doing it already. But as we do, we need to remember that it’s not simply an imagination about our future or about what our society might look like in the years ahead. It’s also an imagination about ourselves, and this may be the most challenging of all. I can easily imagine a society based on renewable energy, for instance. Can I imagine myself as capable of bringing such a society into being? Can I imagine myself making whatever changes would help bring this about? Can I imagine myself as an agent of a better human future, whatever form that may take? Can I imagine myself as a source of love, able to think about and care for the good of the whole of life? Can I imagine myself as a seed of a new humanity?
That is the Gaian imagination that we need, and I think the earth—Gaia itself—is depending on us to find it.
_________________________________________________________________________
Lorian offers David Spangler's journal: Views from the Borderland Quarterly as a subscription service with 4 mailings and 2 online discussion/dialogues with David over a year. Click link to read more about the Quarterly along with samples of the material included. New subscription year for Views from the Borderland Quarterly begins this month with journal #1 mailed the 3rd week of June. Register here.
Visit the Lorian website to read the Lorian blog, view a short video or past David's Desk posts and learn more about other classes and self study work available. www.lorian.org
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