Our place in the Universe

When something really moves me and I believe that it can help to inspire others, I love to share the information. I’ve had quite a few of those experiences and want to share some of them with you. In all honesty, you may view these things and nothing will change for you. For me, each one came in just the right time and was in alignment with something else going on in my life and they helped to awaken me…to change me. I know they have the potential to do the same for you.

I rented a DVD called “IMAX - Cosmic Voyage”. It was a movie made for the IMAX theater. I believe this is a movie that everyone on the planet should see. It’s only 36 minutes long but it’s some of the most amazing minutes you’ll ever spend. The basis of the movie is a journey out into space as it would look based upon scientific findings and data from space exploration and telescopes. It also goes deep into the inside of our DNA based upon scientific research into what we are made of.

The really fascinating thing about this movie is that rather than showing what the Universe looks like from our perspective via telescopes, they show what it would look like if we were flying away from the planet. They travel out to the farthest reaches that our telescopes have been able to see. The movie also outlines our evolutionary journey as a planet and as a species. The movie ends with a rapid journey from the edge of our known Universe all the way down to the center of our DNA. It’s the most intense zoom in any movie I’ve ever seen. Do yourself a huge favor and watch this movie. It will leave you breathless and in awe. This movie is all visual with a minimum of narrating. The images speak volumes and help one get a better perspective of where Earth really is in the very big picture.

That larger picture is where we need to focus. When we can see a larger perspective on situations, our consciousness rises to a higher level. It is ego busting to see how tiny and insignificant the Earth is in comparison to the Universe. We are just one tiny planet in a galaxy of innumerable stars each as bright and powerful as, most even more than, our sun. Each of these stars is capable of supporting life just like our sun. Each star is energy evolving as light. That burst of light and the chemical components released from it are the source of our life. It is what sustains us, nourishes us and gives us life. Without it we would soon die. Without it we would never have existed. It has nourished life on this planet for billions of years and has allowed life to slowly evolve little by little since the birth of our planet.

We live on a planet that is still evolving. It’s easy to take an immediate view of life and say that what we are experiencing right now is what the Earth has evolved to and it’s done, but it’s not. The Earth is evolving and all life-forms are evolving with it. Our history and scientific explorations tell us that humans are part of a very long evolutionary chain. Wisdom teaches us that evolution never ends. Everything that we know of is evolving. Everything.

Like any species that has evolved, our species has the will to survive, the survival instinct. Any entity (species, technology, culture, etc.) survives by adapting and reproducing, thus evolving. Humans evolved just like every other species. Every species changes and grows little by little to adapt to its environment until it gains enough consciousness to make a leap to the next higher level of consciousness for that species. I believe that we are in one of those leaps or “mutations” as a species. For many of us, we’ll make the leap consciously. For the rest, just like with any species that doesn’t evolve, they will reach the end of their viability and fade into history. The grand cycle of life will continue regardless of the choice we make.


When I returned that DVD, I rented another IMAX movie called “Blue Planet”. This one shows how Earth looks from space. The movie was filmed by the astronauts aboard the Space Station. When you see our beautiful blue planet from outer space it’s easier to see what we as a species are doing to our planet. I’m certain this will come as no surprise to anyone but we are literally destroying the planet. Through our unregulated actions to ensure our survival we are slowly breaking down the ecosystem that provides us with the air, water and nutrients we need to simply exist.

This movie focuses on the systems that shape the planet and how the planet is able to sustain life. It is a fragile ecosystem that is dangerously near the breaking point. From learning about our planets history, we know that it has undergone eons of terrain altering changes. These changes occurred long before humans dominated the planet. They are occurring right now and will continue for as long as our planet exists. The Earth is a living, evolving entity and we are one of the many life-forms whose existence is inextricably tied of that evolutionary process. That is the nature of co-evolution.

As mankind has evolved from our knuckle-dragging ancestors, our consciousness has evolved as well. We are the only self-aware species on the planet with the power to fully explore and understand our environment. We are the only species with a language that can express the depths and dimensions of those discoveries. We are also the only species with the power, understanding and ability to rise up in defense of the very source of our existence. With our increased consciousness comes increased responsibility.

By observing the systems that shape the planet and understanding how they affect us, it’s easy to see that something must be done. If we can take a cold, hard, honest look at the effect our struggle to survive and prosper as a species is having on our planet, we can use our divine wisdom to help save that planet from ourselves. Before we can have the power to really make a difference, we have to accept responsibility for our actions. We have to realize that all of the world’s problems can be attributed to one thing. That thing is our belief in the sense of separation. It is our belief that we are separate from each other, from our planet and from the source of our creation and guidance.

We live in a time of rapid social, economic, technological and environmental change. We face drought, famine, disease, as well as natural and man-made disasters. Rather than working together to solve our problems as the stewards of our planet, we choose to fight with each other because of our differences, because of our sense of separateness. Wars are being fought all around the planet because we sit in judgment of others and see their differences as a threat to our existence.

The boundaries that divide us as nations are arbitrary and based upon our ancestors staking claim to bits of the landmasses and using those boundaries to separate us from others of our same species. Even within these boundaries we still set up even more divisions. Divisions based upon culture, religion, gender and sexuality to name just a few. We have separated out from nature and now we are trying to separate out from our own species. We must wake up and recognize that we are ALL connected and work toward solutions that serve the greater good of our planet and our species.

Each of us must be willing to do our part. We must be willing to take an honest look at our behaviors, our current state of affairs and decide to follow the path that unites us. We must be willing to raise our consciousness above the façade of separation that is presented to us by governments, religious organizations and those who seek to control power. We must be willing to question the use of war as a means of achieving peace for it can never bring us the peace we seek. We must be willing to challenge those that teach us to fear and judge ourselves and others.

Love is the only solution which will bring us together. Working together is the first step in raising our consciousness to the species level. To solve our planetary problems we have to raise our consciousness because, as Einstein stated, our problems can never be solved in the same consciousness in which they were created. We’ve tried war, hate, judgment, control, domination and separation. None of these have worked as a long-term solution. Love is the way and the energy which unites us. Just like the cells of our bodies, if we all work together we can achieve something far beyond the capabilities of any of us working in separation.

Imagine if you will what it would be like and what we could accomplish if we could all learn to get along and share. Parents teach their children to share and cooperate yet as adults that message gets lost. Rather than wasting our energy (time, money, resources) on gaining power over others, imagine what we could accomplish as a species. We separate ourselves along class, economic, social, religious, city, state and country lines. We do this from a place of fear rather than from loving acceptance of others and their differences.

In truth we do this because we deny the truth about ourselves. We are taught through various belief systems that we are created by a judgmental God whose favor we must earn and whose wrath must ultimately endure if we fall out of favor. We believe that we are unworthy of the love from which we were created. Based upon the belief that we are separate from the source of our creation and the base of our existence, we can only see ourselves as separate from everyone and everything which evolved from the exact same source.

If we look at the lesson that trees can teach us we can learn a lot about ourselves. A tree grows from the nutrients it gains from the soil it is planted in and the water which nourishes it. In time, a seed grows on the tree and drops off. This seed then sprouts and begins its process of growth and maturity until it creates another seed which will follow the same process as the tree. If the seed came completely from the tree, despite its seeming sense of separation to us, in truth it is still one with the tree from which it originally spouted. It is able to grow, flourish and reproduce exactly like the tree from which it came. This is true no matter how many times the tree to seed to tree cycle reproduces. They are all the same tree. Just as a seed is the same as the tree which it grew from, we are the same as that which created us.

As our personal consciousness evolves, we learn that we are truly one with that which created us. As such we are imbued with all the power and glory to which we attribute to that source. In claiming that power, rather than assigning it to an entity outside ourselves, we begin to transform and evolve even further. In that deeper awareness, we realize that what is true for me is also true for everyone else. As we gain this awareness we move back into oneness with all that exists. In that oneness, despite our egoic sense of separation, we learn to love ourselves at the deepest level possible. In that love then we can begin to truly love others as we love ourselves. But it all begins with a deep, unconditional, undeniable love of self.

It’s one thing to say “I love myself” but another to believe it and live a life which is a full expression of that unconditional love. The world is a mirror which reflects back to us our deepest truths. What do you see in your mirror? Do you see a reflection of fear manifesting as anger, hatred, violence and war? Or do you see your seed of the Divine growing into the tree of life?

May you always be nourished by the unending flow of eternal life and become a manifestation of the loving force which created you and may you create your life from that source of unconditional love.