AWAKENING EARTH

by Duane Elgin

Humanity is the vehicle through which the earth is becoming conscious of itself. In our awakening, the earth awakens as well. Since the rugged conditions of the ice ages, we have relentlessly pressed forward -- learning the revolutionary skills of agriculture and building a settled village existence, then growing into city-states and beyond to nation-states. Our growth from wandering tribes of food gatherers to a species with global dominance has been filled with conflict and crises. These crises are the visible evidence that we are working through a highly purposeful process of development. Just as a growing child makes many missteps along the path to adulthood, so too have we made may painful mistakes along our way. Entire civilizations have collapsed, or wandered off into stagnant dead ends, or made horrendous use of newfound powers. Still, we humans have learned through our mistakes and, step by step, we have moved ahead, ever more experienced, ever more seasoned, ever more mature.

Just as there are recognizable stages in the development of an individual in moving from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, so too are there stages of development that describe the maturation of an entire species. Thus far humanity seems to have grown from its species-childhood to early adolescence. In my view, we are roughly halfway home as a species. We are approximately halfway along the path of achieving a planetary civilization that is able both to maintain itself and surpass itself into the deep future. Although we now confront immensely difficult crises of planetary scale-global climate changes, environmental pollution, species extinction, dwindling energy reserves, and many more -- these are catalysts for the next major step in our evolution to species-maturity.

We can place our current predicament in perspective by considering our situation from a cosmic scale. Astronomers estimate there are roughly a trillion galaxies. Each galaxy is estimated to contain a billion or more star systems like our sun. Our cosmos likely contains trillions of planetary systems upon which life can evolve. With an overflowing abundance of planetary systems, the universe appears designed to "seed" countless life experiments. Throughout the cosmos, then, there are likely many other beings struggling to achieve their maturity as a planetary-scale species. Imagine, then, that you have a space vehicle which enables you to traverse the immense distances of the cosmos at great speed. Your craft hurtles through space, passing by millions of star systems, each with its accompanying planetary systems. On some planets, the experiment in life failed early on. Like our own Mars, these planets are akin to seeds from a tree that have fallen on barren ground. Other planets are humming with life as one dominant species moves along the path to maturity, its capacity for stewardship still far from secure. Finally, you see a small percentage of planets that have worked through their stages of learning and acquired the wisdom and compassion needed to sustain themselves for the long-term future by continually balancing between planetary unity and individual diversity. Having attained a stable platform for ongoing evolution, these successful planetary civilizations are now reaching into the heavens, seeking to join with other civilizations into societies of galactic scale.

Although the probability of life arising as depicted by this scenario is intensely debated, it is useful for giving perspective to our current evolutionary challenge. It seems reasonable to think that, while there are many failed attempts by life-forms to grow to a planetary scale of civilization, still a significant percentage do succeed. If so, sprinkled throughout the unutterably vast number of galaxies are mature, species civilizations that have achieved a capacity for planetary stewardship. The seemingly impossible challenges we now face have been encountered and transformed many times by other civilizations throughout the cosmos.

Still, each being and each planetary culture is unique. For better or for worse -- on a small planet circling a moderate-sized star located at the outer edge of the swirling cloud of a billion stars that comprises an average-sized galaxy-we are involved in the birth of a unique global civilization. Will we become one of the planets where life struggles forward only to fall back before achieving its full measure of development -- our environment crippled by pollution, our abundant resources squandered, and humanity torn apart by chronic conflict? There is no guarantee of success. We live in a universe that is both awesomely creative and massively destructive. We participate in an open-ended and uncertain experiment of life working to achieve its maturity. Given the rich resources of this planet, we have every reason to think we can succeed. Whether we actually succeed will depend on our capacity to now move consciously through our seasons of growth and achieve balanced development as a mature species-civilization.

If the human family drifts into the future half-awake, then we are assured of a future with immense hardship and suffering for ourselves and our children. Because our power to devastate our planet has become so great, the process of evolution must now become conscious of itself. It is imperative that we begin to deliberately choose our pathway into the future as a human family. If we do not muster the will and creativity to choose our future more consciously, we will become one of the unfortunate "cosmic seeds" that has taken root, but is so crippled by self-destructive actions that it never flowers into the fullness of its potential

Despite the dangers, I am confident of our evolutionary capacity as a species. We can communicate our way through these dangerous times and choose a future of mutually supportive development. We are already well into the process of building a global civilization with a capacity for conscious stewardship. With the moon landing, "Live Aid," and environmental "Earth Days," we have already begun to create a shared awareness and species-memory. We live increasingly in a global, electronic culture where a new reflective consciousness of planetary scope is rapidly emerging. We have already begun to create a conscious, planetary civilization. The earth is already awakening.

This article is from Duane Elgin's forthcoming book, Awakening Earth.

Duane Elgin is the Director of Choosing Our Future, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization working to revitalize citizen participation through the development of "Electronic Town Meetings" that scientifically poll citizen views. He is the author of a book on ecological lifestyles: Voluntary Simplicity, New York: William Morrow, 1981. Formerly, he was a Senior Researcher with SRI International where he conducted studies on alternative futures for clients such as the National Science Foundation, EPA, and President's Science Advisor; for example, Changing Images of Man, Alternative Futures for Environmental Planning; Exploring Future National and International Problem Areas. He has an MBA and an MA.