Back to the future: re-membering how to live as one with the All

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. There is no enlightenment outside of daily life."

~ Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh

Our evolutionary data banks are being amped up exponentially as we approach the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012 — not the literal end of the world, but the end of gathering information about our stories: the climax of history, heralding our initiation into a wholly new reality.

Because we know some ancient civilizations were quite enlightened compared with our own — although we are on the cusp of again being able to access our atavistic instincts — it behooves us to ask, "What happened?"

Mayan elder and prolific researcher/author, Barbara Hand Clow (who published José Argüelles' seminal book, The Mayan Factor in 1987) posits an extraordinary scenario concerning humanity's regression, split from Nature, and imminent return to wholeness in The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind.

Based on the work of scientific historian D.S. Allan and geologist/astronomer J.B. Delair, she hypothesizes that not only did a cataclysm circa 9500 BC plunge us from unity consciousness into duality and survival mode, which is still encoded in our limbic brains, but that the reconfiguration of the world at that time created tectonic plates, forming a planet with 20 faces: an icosahedron. She writes, "Icosahedrons are one of the five Platonic solids, the geometrical shapes that are the basis of how matter is formulated. In other words, Earth transmuted into sacred geometry 11,500 years ago."

These words electrified me to the core: an ancient cellular memory trigger.

We can only perceive the true nature of power through understanding the power of Nature. Clow states that until we return to the symbiotic relationship with Creation that we once enjoyed, we will not fully inhabit a World Mind, because this unity extends to all life on earth, not just humans.

Kenny Ausubel, co-founder of the Bioneers Conference, suggests we try biomimicry: see Nature as teacher rather than resource, and ask, "How would Nature do it? How can we wed human ingenuity to the wisdom of the wild?"

From Egocentric to Ecocentric

What does respect for the natural world look like? Marine acoustician Michael Stocker gives a stunning example of a man living on the Hawaiian island of Molokai who helped a beached shark return to the ocean. The Samaritan explained, "I like to swim out to a distant rock. There are a lot of hammerheads in the water, and now I've got credit."

This is a remarkable perspective compared with the more typical separation and fear to which we're accustomed — and a shift that is becoming easier to embrace as we draw nearer to what Clow calls galactocentric consciousness. She prophesies that by 2011 we will transcend our reliance on technology as a means of mass communication and become a truly telepathic global society, just as "primitive" people were many thousands of years ago.

If the implications of such a possibility cause your circuitry to go haywire, download this: paleoscientific research indicates that "early humans showed no signs of being aware of the existence of the four seasons until 10,000 years ago." The cataclysmic event created Earth's variable rotation — or wobble — which gives rise to climatic changes.

Clow writes, "I believe the tilting axis inspired a preliterate scientific revolution that we are decoding in our times. The axial tilt changed the way we receive light on Earth…Megalithic astronomy, as well as indigenous astronomy, suggests that the Light is more potent and transmutative for humans during the equinoxes, solstices, and new and full moons. Perhaps that intentional attunement awakens cosmic intelligence. Perhaps a new evolutionary form began when the tilting axis cracked Earth open, as if Earth were a cosmic egg ready to hatch in the universe."

The ultimate key to coming home to ourselves as One people, one destiny, ready to rejoin the Universal collective, may lie in what peaceable cultures have always known: from the pain that cracks our hearts wide open, compassion and kindness flower. Naomi Shihab Nye's poem Kindness eloquently expresses this "proper dose of poignancy," a universal salve not salvo.

Changing the weather of our hearts alters the climate of civilization. It's another subtle shift we're quite capable of making as we travel at Light speed into the Age of Aquarius. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, the power to return Home has been with us all the time — but we have to discover it for ourselves.

For further info:

∞ The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, who initially assembled in 2004, continues its work, "for all our relations."

The words of African Grandmother Bernadette Rebienot move me the most: "Nothing happens in my country without consulting the women. Our wise people, our elders, they are like libraries. We consult them whenever we need to make large decisions. When the grandmothers speak, the president listens."

Intriguingly, the United States Constitution is actually patterned on the Iroquois model of leadership, with one notable omission: the Grandmother Council. Perhaps if the Founding Fathers had included Founding Mothers in the new nation's governing body, we'd consider ritual-based decision-making, that honors both masculine and feminine voices, the natural course for balance and well being. Imagine what our culture — and the environment — might look like, if the White House consulted a group of wise women prior to instituting any major policy change.

∞ Befriend your brain: Fascinating and useful tools to keep the grey matter well scrubbed and ready to forge new neural nets…

∞ Share your brilliance: Wiser Earth is a hub for social artisans focusing on the key issues of now: climate change, poverty, the environment, peace, water, hunger, social justice, conservation, human rights and more. Site users create the content — including some very cool job postings.