What the World Mother Might Say…
“A living planet is a much more complex metaphor for deity than just a bigger father with a bigger fist.
If an omniscient, all-powerful Dad ignores your prayers, it’s taken personally. Hear only silence long enough, and you start wondering about his power. His fairness. His very existence.
But if a world mother doesn’t reply, Her excuse is simple. She never claimed conceited omnipotence. She has countless others clinging to her apron strings, including myriad species unable to speak for themselves.
To Her elder offspring She says – “Go raid the fridge.” “Go play outside.” “Go get a job.” “Or, better yet, lend me a hand. I have no time for idle whining.”
–David Brin (American Writer and Former Physics Professor and NASA Consultant, 1950- )
The Net of the Universe
“The universe (is) a great spread-out net with at every joint a gem, and each gem not only reflecting all the others but itself reflected in all.”
–Joseph Campbell (American Writer, Editor and Mythologist, 1904-1987)
The Oneness of the World
“The parts of the world are all so related and linked to one another, that I believe it impossible to know one without the other and without the whole.”
–Blaise Pascal (French Scientist and Religious Philosopher, 1623-1662)
Work On Yourself and You Work On The World
“We work on ourselves then, in order to help others. And we help others as a vehicle for working on ourselves.”
–Ram Dass (a.k.a. Richard Alpert, American Spiritual Teacher, Author and Lecturer, 1931-)
Impulse and Community
“The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.”
–William James (American Psychologist and Philosopher, 1842-1910)
We Are Parts of a Whole
“We are parts of a whole, and the whole must draw us as soon as we open our doors: this is grace working upon and within us.”
–Arthur Edward Waite (American-born English Scholar, Mystic and Esotericist, 1857-1942)
Energy Consciousness
“A transcendent energy consciousness informs the whole world and informs you.”
–Joseph Campbell (American Writer, Editor and Mythologist, 1904-1987)
The Universal Flux of Events and Processes
“Indeed, to some extent it has always been necessary and proper for man, in his thinking, to divide things up, if we tried to deal with the whole of reality at once, we would be swamped.
However when this mode of thought is applied more broadly to man’s notion of himself and the whole world in which he lives, i.e. in his world-view then man ceases to regard the resultant divisions as merely useful or convenient and begins to see and experience himself and this world as actually constituted of separately existing fragments. What is needed is a relativistic theory, to give up altogether the notion that the world is constituted of basic objects or building blocks.
Rather one has to view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes.”
–David Bohm (American-born Theoretical Physicist and Philosopher, 1917-1992)
Spiritual Principles
“The (mythic) stories of spiritual principals who are everywhere and all at once recalls the finding in quantum physics concerning the ways in which everything is part of everything else – every electron having knowledge and influence upon every other electron – and each one of us is ubiquitous throughout the great hologram that is our universe.”
–Jean Houston (American Scholar, Researcher and Author on Human Potentialities, 1937-)
{“Living in One’s and Future Myths” in:
“The Fabric of the Future – Women Visionaries Illuminate the Path to Tomorrow” (Conari Press)
Meaning and Communication
“In communication, meaning unfolds into the whole community and unfolds from the community into each person. Thus, there is an internal relationship of human beings to each other, and to society as a whole. The explicate form of all this is the structure of society, and the implicate form is the content of the culture, which extends into the consciousness of each person.”
–David Bohm (American-born Theoretical Physicist and Philosopher, 1917-1992) and F. David Peat (English Physicist and Writer, 1938)
