Birth of New Planetery Consciousness

"The Birth of a New Planetary Consciousness” an excerpt from "Consciousness in Action" book quoting Joanna Macy

“It could well be that our work now is to grow a new planetary consciousness. Carl Jung said there’s no birth of consciousness without pain. We are discovering that we are the sensory organs of our living planet, and that discovery involves pain. All of a sudden we realize that we care, that our hearts are breaking over people who aren’t even born yet. This is truly a noble thing. Over twenty years of doing this work I have found that people would rather hurt and feel connected than be anesthetized and feel isolated. “

“In terms of living systems theory, at every level of life’s self-organizing there is subjectivity. The brains of higher mammals – at our own level of subjectivity and consciousness – are the most complex objects in the known universe: one hundred billion neurons, all highly differentiated, with trillions of synaptic connections. This internal complexity evolved thanks to choice-making. This is still where we make conscious choices – right here between our ears – separately. But given our current global crisis, individual decision-making may be too isolated and too slow to stop the destruction. What could save us is if we start thinking and intending together – as interconnected whole. And fortunately, this is beginning to happen.”

“It’s as if we’re neurons in a big brain, which is itself starting to think. It’s like we’re being ‘thought through.’ I think that people are having that experience where they finish each other’s sentences or come up with the same ideas. We tend to refer to clairvoyant experiences in terms of the occult, like channeling, as if it’s somebody “out there” who’s channeling through me. But from the systems perspective we don’t need that kind of explanation. It's all emerging synergistically from our interactions.”

“This ‘mind sharing’ is, I believe, a natural function of our experiencing a common danger to our survival. The danger is not simply to Joanna or to Andrew or to John but to the whole Earth community. We are capable now of identifying with the planet as a whole. We start by identifying with families and countries, and then with humans as a species, then we move right out and identify with other species. I see this happening with people from all walks of life, regardless of location and background."