There is an animation called ‘Man’ by Steve Cutts, wwwhttps://youtu.be/jid2A7ldc_8.stevecutts.com that accurately sums up Man’s impact on planet Earth. This three and a half minute video is possibly the most damning portrayal of our abuse of the planet, its animals and its environment, for our own selfish gain. See for yourself:
What Will We Do?
It is up to man, (humans), to make reparations for the mess we have made of the Earth. Our planet cannot take any more of our unconscious polluting, killing, abusing or selfish lifestyle that we have adopted through all human history. We have become parasites, and when parasites are too numerous, they kill the host, which in this case, is the supportive, biodiverse ecosystem that gives us life. Earth.
The Gaia foundation commissioned Steve Cutts to produce this short animation as a wake up call to all of us on our constant demand for material goods. The lesson is clear…it might already be too late if we do not wake up! We must reduce our demands and our waste. See for yourself:
And, one of the biggest problems we have, is the sheer numbers of humans on the planet. If we are going to survive as a species and still continue to grow our numbers we really need to look at our eating habits, because our food choices are actually making the planet evolve to one that will no longer support life as we know it! It is sick, the temperature rising, and we are not doing anything to make it well again.
See for yourself: A Video posted by Socioecological Researcher on Youtube.
When Anna Breytenbach (Interspecies Communicator) asked a Sunflower buzzing with bees collecting nectar and pollen, ‘how it felt?’ the answer she received was, ‘The bees kiss me with their awareness!’
Many varieties of bees have existed on the earth since the first flowering plants evolved millenia before humans ever walked. They are some of the most social animals that exist but they are dying in numbers that are truly horrifying.
Martha Spivak, giving her Ted Talk in September 2013, shares her concerns:
The bee is not just an insect ‘without feeling or emotion’ as some of my friends have often stated to me. They do not sting for ‘no reason’ and they are not without compassion or intelligence. It is well documented by commercial bee keepers that bees communicate the location of nectar sources on a high level, they groom each other, cool and heat the hive together, and they sacrifice themselves for the good of the hive community.
I have often picked up drowning bees and let them walk on my hands drying themselves until they are fit to fly. I have never been stung by any of them.
Peter Nelson explains our relationship with bees in his video ‘Dance of the Bees.’
Recently, a cold and sudden winter wind blew foraging honey bees into the shade on my patio. The cold quickly disabled them (bees will die very quickly if their body temperature drops below 13.5 C) and they crawled helplessly, getting slower and more crippled by the extreme change. Some had already folded themselves up, trying to conserve what little heat they had but quickly becoming dormant bodies. I gathered dozens in my hands. Their stingers came out, but as soon as they felt the heat in my hands, and my damp breath trying to warm them, they stopped and became relaxed, their abdomens pulsing. I transferred them gently to a clear box, placing them on paper towel and put them beside a fan heater. After a few seconds, the strongest came to life, and immediately crawled over to those that had not. They put their mouth parts into the pollen sacks of the invalids and took much of the pollen, but they didn’t steal it. Instead they gave it back to the invalid by mouth and stimulated them with their antennae. There was much scurrying as all the bees revived each other and took part in this strange ritual… a caring rescue of saving their sisters and themselves. A short time later, after they were warmed and buzzing… I released them back into the sunshine so they could return to the hive.
We should learn that what we do to bees, we do to ourselves. The pesticides and herbicides are slowly killing them (something that will affect our health too). Commercial bee keepers take as much as 90% of the honey and pollen from hives, replacing it with high fructose corn syrup (a cheap and poor nutritional alternative) for the bees to use to feed themselves and developing larvae. The result is weakened bees that have no defenses against Varroa mites and bee viruses.
Without bees, a whole link in the interdepedent food chain disappears and we will have lost a very special animal. But worse, we will lose vast crops essential to feeding ourselves. It is time to be kind to the bees! Our future depends on it!
Finally, Michael Sutton sums up some interesting facts about Honey Bee Life in this amazing short video:
If it isn’t bad enough, that we hurt other humans through wars, fighting, emotional abuse and so on, we are even more cruel when it comes to other animals that we share the planet with. But what if we could actually talk to them? What if they could tell us how wrong we are to hurt them?
To learn more about this incredible ability to really connect with animals, please visit Anna’s website. http://animalspirit.org/
We need to become better partners with our animal friends. We share the Earth. We do not have dominion over all animals… that is a fallacy created by man for man. We are abusers of our role on this planet and it is time that we changed!
There is a wonderful one-hour presentation on Youtube given by Anna Breytenbach at Findorn in 2013… a recommended watch and Anna has many other Youtube videos you can enjoy. Perhaps she will change your mind and your perceptions about our animal friends.
I am wondering, after all the Millennia that Homosapiens have walked this earth, why we have not evolved from the selfish beings that we are, into a more giving entity?
I am not able to say this any better than in this Youtube Video, so bow to a better authority on this question.
Are we Psychologically conditioned? Why aren’t we free to be the Interconnected Being that preserves life?
This is a question that we all ask ourselves at some point in our life. Usually, it is a thought that pops into our mind when life isn’t going quite as well as we’d like. It is when we question the purpose of our life experiences?
So, what is the answer? We search through vast numbers of religions, alternate ideas, read Greek Mythology or Ancient Celtic texts, or perhaps early Sanskrit texts. The only thing that we find in any (or all) of these things, is a set of basic ideas on how to best live our lives to complement our happiness, personal growth, social acceptance and generally how to get on with every other life form on the planet. All of that can take a lifetime, but doesn’t really answer the question – Why?
Perhaps the ‘Why?’ is because we are the only species to ask ourselves that question. All other animals have varying degrees of self awareness, but perhaps are not interested in the ‘Why?’ We don’t really know that, but we humans guess that they are not intelligent enough to contemplate their existence. This is perhaps our greatest misunderstanding. Perhaps every animal has its own form of ‘Why?’
So, ‘Why am I Here?’
What is the reason for a physical existence? Our thinking mind seems to be independent of the day to day physiological function of our bodies. Indeed, some mystics claim to have ‘out of body’ existences and others claim to be able to live without food and water! This of course is impossible for most of us. But, there are times when we wonder if there is a reason for a separate thinking mind?
Imagine that your thinking mind is independent of your body but nevertheless inherited and a part of all consciousness. A sort of accumulation of all your ancestors, passed on through the genome from generation to generation. Would this explain why often generations of children find themselves following similar occupations to their parents, grandparents, great, great grandparents? Even when they are not aware that they are copying a set of behaviours, many children choose the same path as those that have gone before them.
This idea of inheriting our thoughts or ideas would explain the Buddhist belief of Karmic lives. But it is more than that. Taken to its nth degree, we would be the embodiment of all that has ever lived (if we believe this idea). It is an interesting thought. If we are everything, then we are joined to everything and influence everything.
The ‘Why?’ is explainable, if we imagine that to influence everything, everything must also be independent to choose. Without independence, we have no diversity and without diversity, we have no change or movement. The Earth is a dynamic changing planet because of us and all other life upon it. So far it is unique in the Universe. The ‘Why?’ is because we and other lifeforms manifest a concious living planet that supports all life. So we are here to keep our planet alive, evolving and interactive in its life forms. We, and all living entities form the consciousness of everything through a mass connection with each and every molecule that makes up the physical world.
There is some interesting material on how science approaches the topic of conciousness, to be found in a 2014 TED conference talk, given by David Chalmers:
Stargazing Futures 