Yesterday I walked in a sunlit drizzle, wondering what the forecast would bring. Would the sky open up into a warm spring day? The temperature was about 70 degrees. Or would the clouds convene into a darkened shroud and unleash a downpour? There were already reports of flooding in my area. The northwesterly winds that normally bring our cold winter rains had ceased for the last two years, leaving most of California in drought conditions. But the clouds that hung over my landscape on this day came from the more tropical south, carried on a Jetstream that has wreaked havoc for the entire United States. Our normal winter pattern has been interrupted by this Jetstream which has carried our winter north, where the polar front bounced it southward to entrench the eastern half of the country in rain, snow and ice. Whether I was to be drenched or warmed, clearly my only choice was to walk in a sunlit drizzle. Life has its risks, including everything from a rare spring deluge to death itself.

Our species has lived on this planet for a very brief part of its history. Yet we have developed timeless world views to explain our place within it. In much of human pre-history, our forebears believed that life never ends: the cave bear returns as does the buffalo; life extended beyond death, ever to return in various forms. With the advent of agriculture, the cycle of planting, harvesting and seeding brought the system of death and rebirth into our world view. Nearly all our orthodox religions have mythologized these two perspectives into their structure and organization. We either believe in immortality of some sort and/or the need to surrender to death in order to be reborn into new life.

It has long been believed that only humans are aware of their own mortality. I’m not sure this belief is valid, since we cannot get into the mind of other animals. Elephants, for example, recognize themselves in a mirror. The ability to objectify one’s self is the first step to visualizing your future self—and therefore your death. Whales clearly become kamikaze when a whaler kills their mate. Life without this lifelong bond seems not worth living to them. Choosing death over survival presumes acceptance of death—and that acceptance seems to presume awareness. Nevertheless, it is clear that animals have not developed world views or religions to help them deal with life’s uncertainties or even with their own mortality. We have. But have we cheated death, the mysterium tremendum?

The word “religion” comes from the Latin verb religere, “to bind or link back.” Like the word “yoga”—which means “yoke” or “bind”—religion is the experience of connecting to the source of life and consciousness. What else could a sentient, self-conscious being connect to, other than to all that is? For in our minds we can conceive all that we observe and conjecture the rest. We can relate to things, because we share their substance. We can relate to living organisms, because we are the same. We can relate to the patterns we find in nature—the laws and organization of matter and energy—because we pattern our lives and societies after conventions and laws we create for ourselves. My point is that religion is not a static belief system, but a living experience. The belief systems of organized religion may differ on particulars (and you are free to believe in any one of them), but they cannot exist without the experience of connection to the world we inhabit. Intrinsic to that connection is foreknowledge and acceptance of death.

And so I continued my walk yesterday, pondering life’s many uncertainties. Like the weather, I suddenly realized I had very little control over much of my life, including my death. All that I am or will be is no more than the flicker of a candle that will eventually burn out many eons after my time. And yet I was walking in the midst of it all, alive and aware of what overshadowed my every step. But this was not the time to entertain anxieties and fears. There may be devastating floods or springtime birdsong. It is all the same. The Buddhists say one must participate with joy in the sorrows of the world. Likewise, I think it best to walk blithely in a sunlit drizzle.

Why do dogs show such little interest in TV? My dog used to sleep at my feet while I watched the screen. Her only reaction to the set was an occasional show of irritation at its noise. What did interest her was a patch of grass or bark where she seemed entranced for extended periods. My initial assessment of her was that she would rather smell than see, until one day a nature program explained the mystery about my dog’s peculiar perception apparatus. It seems that dogs process images much faster than us; and, of course, their sense of smell is several hundred times as sensitive as ours. The latter knowledge did not surprise me. But the fact that she did not share my view of TV was a revelation. She saw a slide show where I perceived moving images. Suddenly, the references to “dog years” made sense: my dog lived more in the moment than I—at least when she wasn’t snoozing. Although I have already outlived her in human years, she lived longer in the moments of her life then I have in dog years. My life term has yet to reach a conclusion whereas hers has. By this yardstick, she lived a fuller life then I have as yet.

So why should I take notice of this difference between our species? Well, it turns out that many species have more acute senses than us. And in that fact lies a lesson for human kind. Have you ever noticed how time seems to fly by, especially when you are caught up in your daily activities? You rise in the morning, go to work, and return at night day after day. We often pass our time like a metronome, repetitive, non-stop, ever advancing towards tomorrow’s yesterday. Of course, we can’t hold back time’s relentless progress. But we can slow down the metronome, take in more of the moment, and, in effect, extend our lifetime.

My dear reader, hug you child, smile at your coworker’s silly joke, hold a sunset in your gaze, inhale deeply life’s invigorating air, and live the moments of your life. I wish you all well!

Often in this blog, you have borne with me as I assumed that individual differences were beneficial to human progress. America, in particular, is the grand “melting pot” where peoples from other lands and cultures intermingle, creating new energy, innovation, a broadening social awareness, and an expanding workforce. But I have also written about the failure of legislators to find common ground, about the absence of dialogue in debates at all levels in our society, and the illusions we create to preserve our self-image as a people and as individuals. What is the basis for this disparity in my view? Well, I think I can best explain myself by recounting what I expect is a relatable experience: watching a football game with a relative.

My father spent the better part of his adult life in the Los Angeles area, whereas mine, was in the San Francisco Bay area. Our sports’ loyalties seem to have been formed by this divergence. After my mother passed, Dad moved to northern California to be closer to his family. It was a blessing to spend time with him on a regular basis, including the ritual of watching Sunday football games together. The problem, of course, is that we viewed the game from different perspectives, especially when our team loyalties conflicted. Arguments constantly arose over which team was more brutal, what penalty was justified, or what foul was missed by the referee. The psychological term for these disagreements is cognitive bias. We were not alone in seeing the world as defined by all our previous perceptions and experiences. The human brain fills in the blanks in our limited view of the world from its reservoir of past experiences, some of which were freely chosen and some, merely conditioned by society and circumstances. What happened between my father and me on those Sunday game days is reminiscent of what we see around us every day. Politicians, for example, only see scandal in the opposing party. In the business world, corporate “culture” can determine a person’s work appraisal and promotion eligibility. When an outlier in these circumstances proposes that our diversity is our strength, that we are one nation united by a common bond, or that an individual’s contribution to an organization can’t be measured solely by some generic yardstick, those proposals can fall on deaf ears. To some extent each of us is deaf and mute, for we naturally tend to hear and speak past each other. This is the curse of our unique perspective on the reality that surrounds us.

Those football arguments with my father were a source of embarrassment for me. I loved my father and couldn’t understand how I allowed myself to be pulled into those trivial disagreements. Of course, our meetings always ended with hugs; our affection for each other could not be altered by personal team alliances. But love alone did not prevent these mini-brouhahas on game days. Eventually, I did find the remedy: I pretended to root for my Dad’s team. In other words, I tried to see things through his eyes. Suddenly, my team seemed to deserve more penalties; and my Dad’s team sometimes seemed more sportsmanlike than mine. Watching a game with my Dad became much more enjoyable without the embarrassment and stress that I had previously brought to our shared time together. A side benefit was the fact that I became more appreciative of both sides in the football game. Even a bad call by the referee did not unnerve me, for I realized he was just as limited as I was in my perception.

We are not born with intact egos, but grow into them. Once we discover ourselves as “subjects” in a world of “objects,” we become the epicenter of all our experiences with the world around us. The problem, of course, is that this personal prism through which we see everything can be our prison. The world is in fact multifaceted. Its many refracted surfaces should offer us clues to the mysteries we leave undiscovered. To embark on that journey of discovery, we actually have to move beyond our limited perspectives and engage with the “other.” But how does one move beyond personal ego? Well, in order to see and live the game of life from another perspective, one must first admit our own propensities and exclusiveness. Then one must “tune in” to other viewpoints—truly listen, not just to others, but to the reality that stands outside us. Transcending an egocentric perception can become a mind-boggling experience, where, like a gymnast, you can leap from one position to another. The world becomes a diamond of such brilliance that it dazzles differently with every turn of the mind. The ego is diminished by its luster, while life becomes a learning experience—an adventure into its unfolding mysteries. We learn to value only what we can personally conceive, rather than what we have assumed from past conditioning. Our individual perception becomes self-transcendent; and our values evolve as our own rather than as the unexamined prescriptions of our past experience.

Most often we tend to interpret our differences in terms of values. For example, Fox and MSNBC news subscribe to opposing political positions. Christians and Muslims seem unable to reconcile the difference between social justice and Sharia law. Jews and Arabs disagree on the one true God and His chosen people. But, if you look beneath the surface, we find these differing values represent justifications for limited views of reality. News outlets report the same event from totally different perspectives. Christians and Muslims can live together in harmony whenever they rid themselves of the conditioned viewpoint that defines each other as enemy combatants. And the fight between Jews and Arabs is really over land rather than principle, so their struggle has more to do with occupancy than religion. So at all levels of society, our disagreements are more about facts than values. The latter serve as faux justifications for myopic perspectives.

To conclude, self-awareness is not only the beginning of wisdom, but the necessary steppingstone to a collective awareness. Without this step forward in our individual lives, it will never be possible to extend the moral boundaries of our value systems to include every human being on this planet. Whether human perception is a curse or a blessing depends upon the ability of individuals to break the bonds of ego and to live in the collective as a true participant in our common progress.

Since Americans believe in the pursuit of happiness, the expression “Happy New Year” should seem especially appropriate. We are the “can do” people of our time. But to the “old world” colonial powers, we often appear naïve. To the rest of the world, we appear willing to solve international problems that are intransigent, even to the extent of engaging our economic and military power. When faced with failure, we abandon the field to others and reengage elsewhere. In this iterative process, we don’t lose colonies we never established or imperial prestige and power we never sought. We simply regroup, sometimes after a period of withdrawal from the world stage, and reengage elsewhere. When one travels to the imperial cities of Europe—London, Paris, Vienna, or Rome, for example—the sense of awe can be equally tinged with nostalgia for what has been lost. For, in those cities, there must be an undercurrent of sadness below the surface of pride in place and origin. We Americans have for the most part been immune to such feelings of great loss. In general, we anticipate better days ahead, without remorse for past failures. Civil war, economic traumas, civil unrest, disastrous foreign interventions seem unable to unhinge what others might term our naïve faith in our future happiness. The French, perhaps understandably, may feel ennui; and the Germans may show some regret for past excesses in nationalist fervor. But we Americans are just simply optimistic about our future.

Many magazines publish specialty issues at this time of the year around the same topic, a forecast of the New Year. The year 2014 is predicted to promise another NASA mission to Mars and several resupply missions to the international space station, including the first manned flights in rockets not made and operated by NASA, but by private companies. In fact, the future of private enterprise is touted in many financial publications: 2014 promises an expansive and profitable global economy led by the American market. There will be new breakthroughs in genetic research, possible cures for specific cancers, growing energy independence, continued reductions in Federal deficit spending, and the promise of new labor saving inventions that will further ease the mundane burdens of everyday life. Of course, there are those negative forecasters who remind us that the hourglass continues to run down on issues such as global warming, the impending time bomb of economic disparity, desalination of our oceans, and the loss of ecological diversity, arable land and drinking water sources. These latter issues seem not of immediate concern and can’t compete with the prospects for better economic news on the horizon and with projected American achievements in space, in the global market, or even in the upcoming Olympic Games. Our myopic view of the future reminds me of the words of a very astute senator of a bygone era. Although satirized by Juvenal, I believe it was Cicero who first decried the Roman Senate’s policy of assuaging the masses with panem et circenses (bread and circuses) while busying the legislative agenda with short-term, often self-serving policies, in lieu of the republic’s future interests and actual betterment. In our time, the Roman Senate’s influence is reprised not only by our government, but by our free press. Moreover, that influence often abets a basic aspect of our national character: we Americans tend to be optimistic. We believe we can solve any and all problems, even those that seem endemic to our way of life: stress can be relieved by medication; (mainly) urban violence, by incarceration; marital problems, by divorce; social alienation or personal limitations, by money, title and/or power over others. But these bromides are not the solutions that touch our daily lives and cannot be a basis for personal optimism.

It is not my intent to demean anticipated American achievements in space, economic dominance or the Olympic Games. These endeavors are promising and truly laudatory if realized. But they are not sufficient justification for a naïve and stilted vision of future prospects for Americans. In fact, they have little or no bearing on our individual success or failure in the game of life. They are merely contexts, along with everything else not directly connected with the daily choices we make in our lives. Is context important? Of course it is. But there are happy and fulfilled people living in our slums and in the war torn countries we’ve vacated (I’ve met more than a few personally). Their optimism is not based upon things outside of their control, but upon themselves. Certainly, like all of us, they hope for a better future. But they rely on their individual abilities to learn how to adapt to their circumstances, to create value and meaning in their everyday activities, to connect with and love the people in their lives, and to discover the uplifting virtue of gratitude for the experience of being alive. In the end, optimism is not something given to us by government or circumstances. It is a right we have to claim for ourselves. Otherwise, that right will be usurped by a sham.

Our lives are short, but the process of human evolution continues. Each of us is a seed—part of the new crop and the next harvest. So I remain optimistic and wish for you all a very happy new year.

Today I had to bundle up for my daily stroll, still eager to encounter what changes nature had prepared for me. The sparkle of summer has long since gone, and fall’s promise of winter haunts the cold air. Skeletal branches face the Artic draft stiff and leafless, and the mildly ruffled bay waters mirror a darkened sky. I walked alone to my favorite bayside spot, my self-proclaimed hidden cove, where I often keep lonely vigil. One day past I was greeted by a seal that suddenly broke the water’s surface and stared at me. Perhaps he was surprised to see a human so close to his natural habitat.

Two days ago, I was the one surprised to find another human near my little “cove.” He was sitting on a bench, reading a book, his bed roll and rucksack beside him. I had walked past him, not wanting to disturb his concentration. A few feet away, I stopped at the water’s edge. Looking across the bay at the dominant presence of Mt. Tamalpais, I was content to let the moment have its way with me. Then his words broke into my reverie, “What’s that you’re reading?” He had noticed the book I carried in my hand. And so we began a dialogue about many things—about books, world affairs, politics, and the state of America. His perspective was that of a homeless man, like an outsider peering through a crack in the wall. Given his point of view, the world seemed ruled by an evil force ruthlessly persistent in maintaining his estrangement from it. He blamed the Nazis for most everything. They were the evil force that explained it all. After about an hour, I was beginning to feel chilled and told him I had to leave. He rose and warmly shook my hand. It was only at that moment that I noticed his bare, sandal-clad feet. We parted on a first name basis. His name was Thomas, reminding me of his namesake in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” In the words of Poor Tom, “Who alone suffers, suffers most in the mind.” But who am I to judge: I may be one of Thomas’ Nazis.

Yesterday, I returned to where I had met Thomas. As I approached the same bench, I noticed another man stretched across its full length. He was asleep. Most of his head was covered by a furry hood; his body, by a heavy parka; and his feet, by hiking boots. What caught my attention was the contentment that seemed to infuse his face in repose. Perhaps he was dreaming. If so, his subconscious was rewarding him with a tranquility rarely found in waking states. I remember walking away unable to shake his countenance from my mind. It made me wonder what places or experiences filled my dreams. Unless awakened while dreaming, I rarely remember “what dreams may come” out of my subconscious. If not in purgatory, maybe I frolic in Elysian Fields. But how can one know what passes unawares in slumber: I may be very like this dreamer in quiet repose.

Today I walked the same path and steered myself to the same bench. There was nothing there to arrest my attention or spur my imagination. So I walked on where the paved walkway becomes a dirt path bordering the water. Ahead I saw a man standing on a rock. He appeared from my vantage point to be levitating over the water, standing so precariously on the precipice of the rocky breakwater that holds back the bay. Drawing near, I quietly made to pass him when he turned his head and smiled at me. Without aforethought I said, “You’ve chosen a good vantage point.” He responded, “Yes, I have.” I made another innocuous remark and moved on, but the look on his face stayed with me. He had the same look of peace I saw on my dreamer the day before. But he was fully present and so totally connected that he seemed integral to the scene before him. As I reached the end of the path, I wondered about the nature of my connections. The only meaningful part of my encounter with “Poor Tom” was our warm handshake. The dreamer in repose showed me there was a state of consciousness in which one can find peace and contentment. But his was not a waking state. It offered nothing I could connect with. But the man on a rock was fully aware. His smile seemed to emanate from an inner serenity. The simplicity of his response offered no insight into his thoughts.

Turning around, I was determined to engage him in conversation. I walked quickly back to his vantage point until I could see clearly that he was no longer there. I stood before that same rock and weighed the whim that floated in my mind. Then I stepped onto the rock. It swayed a bit, for its base was not level on the ground beneath it. Momentarily I glanced at the rocks six or seven feet directly below the tips of my feet. Should I lose my balance, I would either have to step back off the rock or, falling forward, be compelled to push off clear of the rocks, diving for the safety of the water. I quickly refocused my wayward thoughts. As I looked out over the bay, my body calmed and steadied on its perch above the water. The ground beneath me seemed to fall away. I floated on the swell of the bay as the rising tide found its course between moon and earth. The air that gently brushed my face pushed the clouds ever so slowly along its northwesterly direction, bringing with it the promise of winter’s rain. I soared with the slow movement of those clouds. I hovered there, caught in the midst of countervailing forces, drawn into a limitless horizon, and lost to the benchmarks of time.

Was it the flash of eternity I felt or merely the presence of silence? Whatever it was, I know that many have shared my experience. These words are but the empty echoes of that silence.

Schopenhauer once said that his life read like a novel written by a single author. I hope he found that novel written with meaning and purpose. Otherwise, it would represent the vicarious societal survival schemes that represent the normal conditioning state into which all of us are born. Schopenhauer did well if he created his own life’s narrative both in terms of his authenticity and the legacy he left behind. But today my interest looks beyond this myopic view of an author-ego’s short life story. Socrates, for example, could face his death sentence with equanimity because he believed in an immortal soul—an entity no mortal could create for himself. Plato, one of his pupils, saw the world, including everything in it, as mere reflections of ideas or perfect forms existing in the pure light of consciousness outside of the shadow existence we experience. Kant recognized an imperative that guided our moral evolution with a transcendent inevitability beyond our personal reckoning. And even the existentialist saw our existence floating like an island on a sea of nothingness. Their nearsightedness did not grant them the wisdom to understand that “nothingness” was merely “no-thingness.” For the sea that supports us in existence truly is no thing and cannot be named: “I am who am,” explained Moses’ God. What we do name are first the things we touch, see, hear, smell and taste, and second, the things we never truly understand, the world of metaphors, including the infinitely unknowable and “un-name-able.” Language cannot encompass the concept of “god.” Even our quantum physics fails to pin down the tiniest particles of matter with certainty, for only the probability of their appearance in the material world is predicted by quantum mechanics. Our physicists, you see, have raised the specter of a non-material dimension—of transcendent potentia–beyond the pale of our limited imaginings. For many centuries now we have identified this as the “god-dimension” or simply as God where reside all things possible. We invariably acknowledge an underlying ground of our being and an all pervasive consciousness at the core of our humanity, haunting our dreams, inspiring our insights, and motivating our more selfless inclinations. Quantum energy is not just a fundamental force of nature but the conscious force of everything and, possibly, the very face of God.

Many contemporary physicists and purveyors of the so-called perennial philosophy have told us our mortal lives are the ongoing reflection of a consciousness that exists outside of time and space. In this context, we are already immortal, though not in the storylines of a script written by our egos during their short lifetimes. Instead, we foreshadow in our very being what transcends all we know and everything that is. Our immortality reveals itself in the ecstatic arrest of wonder, in the flash of intuition, in the gravitational pull of selfless love, and in that moment of dazzling revelation when the clouds finally part. As William Blake once wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” Our personal lives are just the flickering manifestations of the divine. Acceptance of that fact weaves each individual’s personal story into the fabric of our species’ evolution. And that evolution is a growing awareness of who we are and wherein we find true immortality. Remember “The kingdom of God comes unawares . . . For behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21).”

In the last two hundred years, the character of our evolution has been affected by acceleration in the rate of change and the very context of our lives. Will the pace of this change spiral us forward into chaos? The industrial revolution consistently doubled our supply of energy every so many years. The transistor’s capacity also doubled in even less time. Our communication networks have merged into an interconnected net allowing worldwide access to devices as small as personal iPhones or as large as super computers. But, at the same time, our technological advances have impacted our biological evolution in ways that we are just beginning to understand. There are hydrocarbons in the air we breathe; chemical toxins in the food we eat; and microwaves bombarding every cell in our body. The biosphere upon which all life depends is stressed by the onslaught of global warming, the desalination of our oceans, the pollution of our inland water ways, and the depletion of arable land. When Darwin first raised the issue of evolution, he was solely focused upon biological evolution. His thesis of natural selection–i.e., the survival of those best adapted to environmental conditions–could not predict the environment we humans have helped create by the 21st century. In fact, his theory of adapted evolution, we now know, cannot fully explain the evolution of Homo sapiens—modern probability/statistical analysis and the fossil gaps in our evolutionary record have qualified its central thesis. There is more than “survival of the fittest” involved in our evolution if we humans do indeed change the context of that evolution. In fact, we are in some measure agents of that evolution. So what can we do with this awesome power to control our species’ destiny?

First, I think we have to relook at the discontinuity in our development and evaluate its impact upon our evolution. Obviously, a full evaluation of this matter would involve volumes. So forgive me for abbreviating this history with just a few examples. (Though “brevity may be the soul of wit,” in this case it is an excuse for both the limitations of this medium and of the author.) Let’s begin with the introduction of new meaning into the lives of our ancestors. What was the impact of the discovery of fire, the heliocentric solar system, the new calculus, the atom, the genetic structure of living organisms, quantum physics, and so on? Did not these discoveries change perspective and require new adaptations to our environment? To continue, how did our feelings evolve and impact our development when affected by Gregorian chant, Beethoven, Bach, Michelangelo, Rafael, Picasso, Blake, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Joyce, and so on? And, finally, what new insight was introduced into our value system by the contributions of Jesus Christ, Guatama Buddha, Mohammed, and more recently, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Mandela? Certainly, our values affect the goals we seek and the very nature of our interface with our environment. My point is simple: our evolution as a species has a mental, emotional, and spiritual dimension that is interwoven with the physical and genetic. In fact, our development has had many discontinuous leaps forward, unexplained by random genetic mutations and natural selection, but wholly consistent with the serendipitous breakthroughs of new insight, the collective surge of new sentiments, or the unexpected expansion of our moral boundaries. These advancements of the more subtle parts of the human psyche have transformed the nature and the context of our lives—both our custodianship of and adaptation to the environment. In other words, we transform ourselves and the world in a circular causal feedback loop.

Secondly, I feel we have to reevaluate the role of this personal transformation. Whereas Descartes and Newton triggered the Age of Enlightenment, Hitler invoked our potential for depravity and brutality. For most of us, our individual lifespan will not be writ on such a large stage. Yet the people in our history books lived personal lives not dissimilar to ours. Our achievements and failures affect the lives of those around us just the same. History consistently tells us that innovation and the most significant, lasting changes come from the likes of any one of us. What makes some individuals purveyors of positive transformations and others, of negative regressions in human development? Newton allegedly intuited the force of gravity when an apple fell from a tree. Gandhi, a lawyer for the downtrodden, became overwhelmed by the injustice suffered by Indians at the hands of a colonial power. Both men passionately pursued their insights, transformed themselves, and contributed to their posterity. Neither sought personal gain or power over others. They, like all men and women so inspired, recognized that the fruit of their short lifespans cannot be seized solely for themselves, but mainly for those who followed after them. Our individual success persists only for those who succeed us. Coincidently, wise men and women through the ages have told us this simple truth. It remains for each of us to apply it to our personal lives. Human evolution depends upon our individual transformation in mind, in feeling, and in values. Otherwise, nothing worthy of our short time on this planet will be left for future generations; and our personal lives will lack both passion and purpose.

Today, as my daily walk skirted a local park, I came across a plastic lawnmower and a miniature scooter. Like most people, the sight of toys immediately brought to my mind’s eye a picture of children at play. But there were no children. These toys were abandoned–lifeless, like a fallow field after the harvest or an anchored ship in dry dock. Why do toys so forsaken appear forlorn? If they were in my parent’s garage, they would be mere remnants of a childhood long past. Here in a neighborhood park, they just seemed oddly out of place, absent the innocence and exuberance of their little animators. Considering the size of these toys, the children who played with them could not have been older than 5 or 6 years. Turning my back to the street, I scanned the park for the owners. But there were no children in sight, not even in the play area where the mother-guardians usually looked after their giggling, screeching charges. My mind, riding a wave of free association, roamed freely over images of children at play. I recalled my two daughters at comparable ages. The older of the two often performed arabesques as she flew around the house. I was sure she would become another Margot Fonteyn or Martha Graham. When my younger daughter began to draw on the walls of her room, I consoled myself with the thought that she might be another Picasso. Later, when she showed an interest in all things scientific, another Marie Curie did not seem beyond my prognostication. Their play inspired me to forecast futures consistent with their unlimited imagination and enthusiasm for life. Is this not the way of every parent?

Standing next to that empty park and steeped in my own reverie, I again glanced at the discarded playthings. Their circumstance once again struck me as unusual, but for another reason. My rational mind was succumbing to its normal unimaginative and analytical bent. The toys lay askance alongside the sidewalk. But small children would not be able to push the toy lawnmower or ride the scooter except on pavement. They were deliberately discarded on the grass. Why, I wondered, did the children leave their playthings and not return to retrieve them? What so captured their attention? I walked closer. Sensing something ominous, I began to scan the surroundings more closely. Finally, I turned around to face the street. Beside the curb I found the evidence I sought. Strewn in a fanlike pattern was shattered glass.

I shuddered. What happens in the mind’s eye happens just the same.

I pray, so real the pain I fear,
That god may spare these lives so dear

It’s now fall, and trees have begun to shed their leaves. Outside my balcony I see a centipede crawling along a barren branch, unaware that his world is changing. One lone leaf awaits him at the end of his journey, though its promise of food may not await his too slow progress before the leaf succumbs to its fate. As I meditate on this bug’s mortal journey, his legs busily pushing him forward, I realize that he must be unaware how insulated his struggle is in the context of the large tree that he inhabits. There are still many edible leaves there that could reward his efforts and perhaps extend his life. But his time is short; his travel, limited; and spring is another lifetime away from his unassuming existence. Nature’s cycle holds all life in its balance like the very seasons by which we measure time’s progress. This little bug lives in but a singular moment, plying his lonely trek on a branch while the world spins its broad path through time and space, seemingly without regard for his tryst with survival.

Like the centipede, there is the same immediacy to my world and to my struggles to survive in it. I breathe the same air, and my legs carry me over a very particular piece of the continent. But, in the words of John Donne, I sense I am indeed “a part of the main.” I am aware that I was not born into this world, but out of it. When I raise my eyes above the trees, I can see a firmament seeded with the substances that formed the biosphere in which I live and out of which my species evolved. Nevertheless, my individual lifetime does not differ from that centipede’s. For we are both bound within the confines of our time and the particular space we inhabit. Only my awareness differentiates me and my fellow human beings from that centipede.

Of course, this awareness is not bounded, but open-ended; for it borders on the edge of mysteries that science will forever attempt to unravel. Language provides signs and symbols in which to house my thoughts. But these thoughts are mere representations of what each individual experiences. The beauty of language is that it gives us the ability to recreate in each of us the experience of another. This re-creation would not be possible if there was not a core existence that each of us manifests and reflects in our communication. We may be like that centipede on a limb, but we live in an all-encompassing world of a more general awareness: we touch the heavens and live in eternity.

The flow of history can be gauged from many perspectives. On the broadest level, somebody like Splengler can trace the decline of the west over many generations. The end of feudalism, the age of enlightenment, the industrial revolution and like macro changes are the inhalations of that vast biosphere we call civilization. Alongside these massive movements, we find singular events that can change history’s trajectory. These events may not seem so singular to those who lived them. I’m sure Themistocles had no intention of preserving Athenian democracy for future generations to emulate when he defeated Xerxes at the battle of Salamis. The Battle of Hastings laid the groundwork for the emergence of Britain. Who could argue that inventions like the printing press, the electric light bulb, or the transistor were not of historic significance? Unlike macro changes that are slow-moving and causally continuous over a long period of time, micro changes are discontinuous, “coming out of nowhere,” and represent quantum leaps forward. They can send history spinning in new and unanticipated directions.

Now these were the grand ideas floating in my head during my daily “recreational” walk when I was suddenly alarmed by two screeching seagulls. They were just overhead, perched on a rooftop, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. What inspired their clarion call is not for me to know, but I suspect it had something to do with fish. They both swooped over my head, piercing my ear drums with raucous excitement as they descended on the Bay. Now awakened out of my abstract reverie, my olfactory sense became aware of the tide’s recent residue. Those birds were attuned to their senses and to the course of nature in their little feathered bodies. And, at that moment, I too was made to feel the call of nature. How is it that we can be so arrested by nature? Whether witnessing the patterns of life or the certitude of death, we are drawn into a center where the flurry of thoughts cease and our individual lives are momentarily stilled. At those times we are drawn into the mythic realm, what Joseph Campbell identified as the transcendent world of mysteries. Here is where words fail and only the religious or artistic symbol points. Language, after all, is not real in the same sense as what it represents. And symbols, as Jung explained, refer to mysteries—those transcendent, subtle things we know but can’t define.

So what do myths have to do with the flow of history? Perhaps everything, for they are the creative force behind the ideas that empower generations. The great epic poems like the Aeneid or the Odyssey represent the foundations of Roman and Greek culture. Could we say less of the influence of the Bible on the West? These works have held the wisdom and values at the very groundswell of the civilizations that mark our history. Having said that, I don’t mean they define truth, justice, beauty, and goodness. For these words are the linguistic metaphors we use for the unattainable. Myths help us recognize their values. But mostly they inspire us to seek them out and emulate them in our individual lives. For whether arrested by nature or a religious experience or a work of art, whether touched by an act of kindness or inspired by a flash of intuition, it is in the mythic world of wonderment that we find the true north of our personal history. Philosophers and historians have told us that change—macro or micro—starts with individuals. Personal change can infect a community and become part of the collective. Or it can create new opportunities by means of an invention, an extraordinary act, or an innovative idea. For it is to the degree we can share our mythic experiences with others that the history of our time will be generated. The initiating point is the “now” experience for that is the portal to the future. And that experience requires only that we be fully awake and still in the moment.

Joseph Campbell regretted that the West seemed to lack a motivating myth for our time. I think it’s possible he may have been wrong. Perhaps we are all too caught up in the fast moving current to see its direction. But the way to stay still in this current is to flow with it. A screeching bird can awaken one to that fact.