“At the present rate of change, it seems likely that in the period between now and 2061, the turning point for the human species will have been reached. If we survive until then, our passage to the next apparition of Halley’s Comet should be comparatively easy.”
Carl Sagan
This is a once in a lifetime gift, this supervening celestial body, with flaming tail streaming from another dimension, this Neowise comet flying by the Earth and a chastened human species looking for answers to this fragile, maddening time. It is named after NASA’s Near Earth Object Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer that is looking for near Earth objects and asteroids that could impact our planet. The comet literally came out of the blue and was discovered on March 27, just in time for us to shed a different light on this pandemic.
Comets were always considered omens since the “Dark Ages” from 676 to 1145. Harold, Earl of Essex must have had serious misgivings before marching to war against William of Normandy in 1066. There have been portents of possible doom and end times on 32 occasions when comets were sighted over the last 1,400 years. This may be the last opportunity the universe literally shows us that there is still a faint ray of hope at the end of a very dark tunnel. Or that humanity as we have known it may be coming to an end.
When the Neowise comet returns in 6,800 years, will there be a civilization on Earth? Or only scattered tribes etching cave paintings like Lascaux 30,000 years ago? What will be left of Earthly life, if so much is slated to disappear within our lifetime? We are supposedly an intellectual species, but something is missing in our moral chemistry, our capacity to respect the larger world. Maybe we are being asked to go beyond anything our senses have ever had to cope with and transcend their limits.
In Australia, there are supposedly elders, men of high degree and initiation, at least there were in the old days, who could see sound waves and hear the frequency of different colors. They had senses the average human does not. Not mere synesthesia but a radical reordering of our common experience. Some people have lost the ability to taste in the pandemic. Perhaps other senses will emerge. Something is being asked of us that demands our full attention and so far we have not answered the call. We have not aspired very far on the horizon. Can we change our very nature, from an inordinately selfish and belligerent species to one that can transcend its killer ape gene pool? Hale Bopp almost 30 years ago was a brighter torch, a signal, that the universe is much grander than our imagination and that we may need enlightenment, real enlightenment this time, but it will not come from science and without, but from deep within. Globalism in the last few decades took over and overwhelmed the environment with human commerce and waste. Now some other order beckons, one more suited to the energy system we will need to survive. And it all has to change this decade.
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The alternative is ruination. If we can take advantage of a transition economy that supports life, it will be an evolutionary jump perhaps as important as agriculture or the invention of fire. Hundreds of millions of “green” technology jobs the world over — and 10 trillion dollars a year gained after the worst of the pandemic is over is nothing to sneeze at. A Nature first approach will provide the jobs necessary for those who will need them most.
So much of what we have taken for granted may very well be gone in the next generation: frogs, whales, reefs, childhood itself. This comet is a grand cipher from the miracle of space and also the inner space we need to transform inside us as humans. Because it is not bombs and inventions that define us as human. It is perhaps not even just artifacts of culture, literature and art that define us although that is usually all that remains of a civilization long after it is gone. It is the ability to envision and communicate through language. We need to see in this comet a messenger of a higher calling for this species that names itself sapient. We have to become the guardians of the Earth, for we have become its desecrators. And that is a task befitting the only species that walks upright. We have been at each others’ throats like human hyenas for all of human memory. Right now we are being punished for our actions. Our acts have transgressed every organic law. We must change now and irrevocably.
It is proximate and yet so far this comet. Despite what the Green Revolution says in terms of feeding people, the Earth can realistically support only 2 billion people. We have almost exhausted our carrying capacity and many, many will suffer, be crowded out, flooded or starved out of their homes. Even in America. Does it really have to be the way forward?
Groups like Komaza, an Africa-focused forestry campaign, are trying to plant the seeds and know how to plant a billion trees in deforested areas by 2030. Started by American scientist Tevis Howard, whose program has helped 25,000 farmers in Kenya plant 6 million trees, it is the type of program needed around the world. The would-be next president of the U.S. hopes to jump start a 2 trillion dollar green initiative for America. A few weeks ago renewables surpassed coal use for the first time in 130 years. There is a desire among conservationists to preserve 30 percent of the planet by 2030. We have to stabilize the loss of Earth’s species and act on the Convention on Biological Diversity. It may be the one life raft we still own.
So far, we have looked at Earth from a mainly geocentric vantage and now we are being urged to look further afield, far beyond the Earthly horizon to see the humble stature we should really occupy before the framework of the universe. We have had Biblical scourges infect us in the last year, and now comes a soaring celestial indicator, that we can aspire to far greater heights, and at the same time, that we are very small indeed. If we were to make contact with another civilization, how would those beings look at us, in light of our massacres, forced upon ourselves and our fellow creatures? They would tell us, where we come from, we bow to each and every day mindfully, before every living being that inhabits our planet. What on your Earth are you doing? You will not long survive without these others.
Some rare cultures still honor the Earth. They are the ones we have most jeopardized and continue to threaten every day with the juggernaut of an economic system that is off the rails.
A human language with incalculable vision and depth of relationship to the organic world is being lost every two weeks. It is the co-equal in human terms to the 6th extinction. It has to end this tsunami of eradication. We are being given a window onto a possible awakening, a torch to not only what is far and distant but deep within the core of what makes us tick. The comet is a faint but brilliant reminder of the consummately, unimaginably inexplicable called life, of which we still have very little understanding. And how life got here, we have next to no understanding. It will take more than mere science, biology, chemistry and technical knowhow to convince the captains steering this ship of fools in charge of civilization, from drowning. It will take a change of heart.
A subtle but glowing messenger from Creation, Neowise wants us to be in awe of that which we are but a very small part of and in greater stride capable of becoming, if we so choose. Halley’s Comet will make an unusually close approach to Earth once aqain in 2061, a hundred years after the start of the vaunted sixties that promised so much and again in 2134. What will have endured? Will our great grandchildren see it? Will we be worthy of seeing it once again? Neowise is an enormous sentinel to a beleaguered species. Saving the Earth and making a living can go hand in hand. We have to be able to discern the vast difference between reality and the fantasy many of us in America have not been able to distinguish. We are not starring in a science fiction movie. Society needs to become visionary to salvage the beauty of what remains on Earth before it becomes uninhabitable like Mars presently is. A beauty we have to salvage before Nature vanishes before our eyes.
A full-scale system change can give rise to a new civilization, that could literally shed a new light on our kind. Will we continue to be destroyers or become saviors of the species and ultimately ourselves? With the wonder of this superb celestial creature, this increasingly obsolete civilization has to change course. Perhaps the comet is showing us the way. Utter, near mystical wonder, or is it the sword of Damocles has come knocking at our door? We have landed on the moon, have our eyes set for distant planets and beyond but still need to find a way to live with ourselves. This is the ultimate calling in our 10,000-year history. Not fight, coerce, subjugate and dominate others anymore. That was the old way and it doesn’t work. From outer space, we are being asked to find grace deep within ourselves in inner space, while we still can.
“Birds know, better than humans, not to spoil the nest.”
Carl Sagan by Ann Druyan
BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
COUNTRIES LED BY WOMEN HAVE FARED BETTER AGAINST CORONAVIRUS. WHY?
MORE THAN 8.7 MILLION CORONAVIRUS CASES WENT UNDETECTED IN MARCH
EXPERTS: 90% OF CORONAVIRUS DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED
FAUCI PREDICTS ANOTHER CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK IN THE FALL WITH A ‘VERY DIFFERENT’ OUTCOME
Learn more about Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson’s work at their website.
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