Dr. Zeus and the Enviroconomy of Life on Earth

Day 48– 6:31 PM (Krishna's Pantry)

In the first presentation I saw, Dr. Zeus was making his point of universal interconnectedness largely from an economic perspective, with a slight environmental spin. So today, I was looking forward to going several layers deeper to see if I could grasp an even bigger picture. It turns out that Dr. Zeus’ office was over at The Levels, the same complex where Wren’s lab was. So I hopped on the Rail to the East Village late this morning and made my way over to Level Seven for his observation period.

With about 35 of us gathered in his spacious presentation room, Dr. Zeus set the tone of the lecture for us.

“Everything in this three-dimensional realm – all forms of matter – is ultimately comprised of the same source energy. So when we talk about the interconnectedness that exists between each other, all living creatures and the earth, most people are referring to the shared molecular makeup of which everything is comprised. And, of course, this is the most foundational truth that connects us.”

“This is the whole quantum physics perspective, right?” someone asked.

“Uh…yeah…given that quantum physics deals with the science and behavior of the absolute smallest bits of matter,” Dr. Zeus replied. “Next month, I’ll be delving off into that whole subject with a fantastic new mini-doc that we’re just finishing up. But for today, I wanted to approach the subject of environmental interconnectedness from a broader perspective…one that’s further up the molecular totem pole, you might say.”

“We, the Environment…”

“Consider this,” Dr. Zeus said, stepping aside to show a ten-minute presentation on the big screen. It was a fast-moving, heavily animated piece of multimedia magic that explained how our entire eco system is built around the four elements of earth, fire, water and air and the interdependent roles that the planet and all of its inhabitants play in this divinely orchestrated dance.

It showed how, several billion years ago, our planet was toxic to humans due to the extreme amounts of carbon dioxide in the air. But then, over millions of years, as plant life flourished and photosynthesis came into play, these plants essentially began swapping out carbon dioxide for oxygen, thus setting the stage for animals (humans included) to inhabit the planet. This plant life/oxygen connection also facilitated fire, which, as we know, cannot exist without oxygen.

From there, as living things died and rotted in the earth, their molecules ultimately comprised the very soil where all human nutrition originated; in the staggering variety of plant-based foods which are grown directly in the earth. Additionally, as this soil became rich with life in the form of plant roots and various microorganisms (among many other things), it served as an efficient filtration system for all the water that passed through it, thus allowing us humans and other animals a clean drinking source. The main point, as I saw it, was to understand how all of these environmental components – all of this biodiversity – make it even possible for us to live on this planet.

But the presentation didn’t rest on this point. It went on to explore an even deeper level of interconnectedness; about how we humans are, in one sense or another, actually comprised of the elements of earth, fire, water and air. The explanation went something like this:

Air is one of the most obvious elements with which everything and everyone on earth shares a connection. We drink it in through our skin, we breathe it in and out of our lungs, and we share it with each other as we all participate in this web of interdependency that holds together our entire biosphere. Approximately one percent of air is comprised of an inert gas called argon. It has been pointed out that, as these multi-trillions of argon atoms linger around in our global atmosphere for century after century, we are quite literally breathing the same air as virtually every human or animal being who has walked the earth before us…just as all future generations of these beings will be breathing in our argons. So this is yet another way that air connects us in the present to both our past and future. It’s also a poignant reminder of how the polluting of our air can have such far-reaching effects on so many. Compositionally speaking, our bodies are comprised of about 70% water. The earth’s surface is also about 70% water and, like air, it is a key connecting element to all life forms. Water is the single most important nutrient we need everyday and it’s even present to some extent in virtually everything we eat, especially fruits and vegetables. Beyond that, water pervades every aspect of our environment; it rains from the sky, nourishes animal and plant life, fortifies lakes and rivers, vitalizes soil, evaporates, forms clouds and plays a critical role in so many earthly systems, just as it does in our bodily system. We are all connected to, and affected by, the hydrologic cycles of this planet. If we pollute or misappropriate our water, the unfortunate results are experienced by every single component of our biosphere. Likewise, our bodies share a key connection to the earth because they are built on nutrients that originated in the soil. Think about it; when we eat, we are extracting molecules from our food, which the plants originally absorbed from the soil where they grew. Then, as we eat, these molecules are integrated into our “machine” in the form of amino acids (protein), carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, etc. Even if someone eats animal products (which was not mentioned in the presentation for obvious reasons), they are still extracting nutrients from the flesh, milk or eggs that originated in the plants that the animal ate before he or she was killed. So ultimately, since our bodies are comprised of molecular components that originated in soil, we are the earth! And when we damage or deplete the soil, we are essentially doing the same to ourselves. And finally, the fire connection happens on two interesting levels. First, the driving force in our bodies – that is, the actual stored chemical energy in our cells – originated as sunlight. How do we absorb it? Through our old pal photosynthesis, plants are able to harness the sun’s energy by converting sunlight into chemical energy (or carbohydrate), which we take in via various plant foods, store, then burn off as needed. So the energy that you release as you run and sweat in the sunlight, actually originated in the sun. In this way, we are fire. Secondly, most any external source of fire energy that we humans have figured out how to harness, has originated from the sun, as well. Again, it’s sunlight captured by plants, then stored as either trees that we cut down or fossil fuels that we utilize as an energy source. As such, our treatment, conservation and discriminate use of these fire resources have a direct effect on most every aspect of our lives on earth.

At some point during the presentation, the light bulb exploded over my head: Most of us see ourselves as being on this earth, interacting with the environment, as opposed to being of this earth, intrinsically a part of the environment. This video, along with Dr. Zeus’ intricate narrative, really defined, in scientific terms, what it means to truly be connected to nature. I suddenly understood the bigger picture of how humans fit into the landscape of this three-dimensional earth…and how there is an intelligence, an order, to it all. Nothing was designed by accident or default. We are all part of a living, breathing masterpiece, the components of which are so microscopically dense and interdependent, it’s almost beyond our mental capacity to fully understand it all. But, we can understand it enough to know how and why we can fall out of harmony with the “system.”

This is an important revelation to make, in terms of our daily lifestyle choices. Because if we see ourselves as separate from the whole, then our tendency will be to treat the earth like a giant motel room and let maid service deal with the mess. (And this “maid service,” by the way, is left to those subsequent generations with whom we leave such a mess.) But if we recognize that we are actually an intrinsic part of it all, then we realize that everything we do has a consequence…and everything, including ourselves, is affected by our daily choices.

The New Economy

Dr. Zeus had a smooth segue into the second part of the presentation, which focused on the need to reinvent the economy as we currently know it. He described the current paradigm of economy as “a soulless matrix of numbers, which bow down to an unsustainable ideology of mindless growth and perpetual expansion…at any cost.”

“What part of the system is broken, do you think?” a student asked.

“Actually,” Dr. Zeus explained, “the system is perfect.”

A chorus of “whats” shot through the room.

“I said the system is perfect, meaning that the universe has made manifest exactly what we ordered. None of this happened by accident. Our current modality of economics wasn’t presented to us on a series of stone tablets. We conceived of this and have all played some role in the care and feeding of it. So in this sense, the system – that is, the energetic interface with which we all interact – is perfect. Our choices and actions, on the other hand, have been a bit suspect. So, to reinvent – make that recreate – the international economic paradigm, we have to shift over to a foundation that’s rooted in sustainability and service, as opposed to destructive self-interests.”

Dr. Zeus went on to illustrate two conflicting premises that he saw as the fundamental issue. First, how the indiscriminate commoditization of so many of our earthly resources was at the center of the current economic model. And second, how the blatant consequences of this – which includes global warming, the polluting of our air and water, deforestation and the erosion of our topsoil, the extreme misappropriation of crops as it relates to world hunger, the violent treatment of our fellow animal beings and the daily disappearance of 19 more of the earth’s species – are all either dismissed, downplayed or downright ignored, and not recognized as part of our economic matrix.

Meanwhile, Dr. Zeus estimates through a series of studies that planet earth and all of her natural processes are providing us with roughly 33 trillion dollars of services each year, free of charge! And this only includes those functions that are theoretically possible for us to recreate, like the carbon dioxide/oxygen exchange in our air and the natural filtration of much of our water. And yet, modern economists remain oblivious to the fact that, each time we obstruct or destroy any part of nature that provides any of these services, we then have to hit up our economy to replace it artificially. Translation; we, the people, wind up compensating for the fundamental dysfunction of this economic paradigm by paying for these new “services.”

A Parable of Spiders and the Exponential Suicide of the Growing Economy

A final gloomy chapter in Dr. Zeus’ presentation had to do with the fact that, should we stay the current course, we will run out of time and resources. It’s not a question of if, but when. And this course includes embracing the present notion of the “growing economy,” which relies on the consumer to keep consuming. Herein lies the vicious cycle: for the economy to grow, we consumers need to keep purchasing more and more stuff, the production of which depletes some resources, while poisoning others. He then pointed out the sheer numbers of humans on the earth today, and how much most of us consume…all those products, dressed up in all that packaging and, in many cases, all of the maintenance resources like gasoline or electricity consumed after purchase.

Then he illustrated the alarming arithmetic involved with the realities of exponential growth, as demonstrated by our total population. He used an old Zentaurian parable to make the point. It went something like this:

A man named Diego decides to get in the business of raising and selling African sand spiders. This special breed insect is in demand by crop farmers throughout Africa because they multiply extremely fast and serve as a natural pesticide. Diego establishes an elaborate community of five sand spider “mansions” on his property and is set to take delivery on his male-female starter couple. However, on the day his first two spiders arrive, he’s unexpectedly called to another village for a two-week trip. So, he asks his neighbor, Gorkah, to keep an eye on the spiders while he’s away. Diego warns Gorkah that they reproduce very quickly, and instructs him to monitor their population closely as he feeds them everyday. Diego also explains that each of the spider mansions can accommodate up to 2000 spiders comfortably and, in the unlikely event that they should exceed that number before he returns, Gorkah can use one of the other spider mansions to house the overpopulation.

Of course, Gorkah is thinking that there is no way in hell that he will need to use another spider mansion before Diego returns…until he notices that their population doubles every single day that Diego is away.

At first, it was amusing: 2 spiders on day one, 4 on day two, 8 on day three, 16 on day four, etc. By day 10, the mansion is just over half-full, but Gorkah only has four days left. On day 11, however, the population has exceeded the max, but he knows that there are still four more mansions to move the extra population into. On day 12, Gorkah has not one but two mansions full of spiders. On day 13, he finds himself on “high alert” as he has four mansions full of spiders. And by the time Diego returns on day 14 – he finds an exasperated Gorkah in a panic, as they are now a full three mansions shy of being able to accommodate the 16,384 sand spiders.

His point of this story? The deceiving power of exponential growth, and how total devastation of our earthly resources is not as far in the future as we would like to think. After all, consider how fast things went south in our spider story. At the halfway point, Gorkah had only 128 spiders; a fraction of what just one of the mansions could accommodate. And the day before the first mansion was maxed out, it was only half full. Then just three days later, they needed every bit of eight mansions. Game over, in a big way.

To draw the parallel, he ended this section with a sobering animated piece that depicted the exponential explosion of our world population. It showed how, way back in 950 A.D., there were only 250 million of us. Then it took about 650 years for us to double into a half-billion. No problem. But then 200 years later, at the turn of the nineteenth century, we had doubled into one billion. And then only 120 years after that we had doubled into two billion. And then about 50 years later, in the glorious 70’s, we were at four billion. And now, within the next 40 years, we’re expected to hit nine billion. This is a problem!

In the parable of spiders, it would be easy to imagine that Diego could simply acquire more spider mansions, while he vigorously began to redistribute his population to other buyers. But we’re dealing with only one planet, with a finite amount of resources, that’s already showing signs of fatigue, and a burgeoning international population that continues to westernize with its mantra of mega materialism. Once the resources are tapped, there are no more “spider mansions” to escape to (as the moon and mars are not exactly viable options), so there’s no place to redistribute our earthlings. Again, it’s game over. It’s the infamous *Easter Island syndrome on an international scale. Frightening…yet enlightening.

(*Easter Island was the isolated Polynesian island community who used up all their available resources, including food to eat and trees to build boats to leave the island, and basically cannibalized themselves into extinction.)

Atonement

After Dr. Zeus hammered all of us into exhaustion with such a weighty, thought provoking presentation, his solution-based summation took on a lighter, more hopeful tone. Once again, reminiscent of his “Global Reckoning” talk from a couple weeks ago, it all got back to personal accountability and basic lifestyle choices. It wasn’t just about all of these innovative new ways of how we can reinvent the global economy (although he did mention a few ideas that sounded pretty brilliant to me). Instead, Dr. Zeus’ suggestions were more from the bottom up…more about how, once we all change our collective way of “being” in the world, a healing atonement would occur that was reflective of this new way of being. Specifically, he talked about a three-step process utilizing principles that I had become quite familiar with around here; mindfulness, practice, and cultivation.

First, he said, it’s about being mindful of how everything we do affects everything else. Then it’s about abiding by certain lifestyle practices that reflect this level of mindfulness. Then it’s about the cultivation (creation) of things that are constructive and sustainable, and then it’s full-circle back to the mindfulness of expressing or delivering these gifts (creations) to the world in the spirit of service.

There was nothing in this equation that talked about receiving anything, including money. And yet, this new model of a conscientious economy would ensure that everyone on earth has all they need to comfortably make their contribution – no matter how big or small it may seem – and to experience a lot of joy in the process.

This new economic model seemed to be based on two primary concepts. One; as we focus on finding our joy from the inner world, we simply have less interest in pursuing so many superfluous things of the outer world. (An age-old tenet trumpeted by virtually every spiritual path, by the way.) This equates to less mindless consumption and, often times, fewer actual possessions. And two; everything that we do create is centered in service, value and sustainability, so there are no hidden deficits piling up behind the curtain somewhere…which means there are no imbalances in the equation of what we give and what we receive. It was a heavy presentation.

Perhaps the main point I left with was – once again – our life on earth is not about these separate compartments that we try to juggle and manage. Our life should really be about the streamline expression of Source through these various tenets, and the seamless integration of all of life’s various facets.

This was a message the whole world needs to get…and fast.

 

© 2009 Bobby Rock

 

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