– A call to action

Most readers will know that Gaia is most often associated with the term coined by the ecologist James Lovelock to describe the coherent, complex, balanced, living entity of Planet Earth in all its natural richness.

I (Bill) had always taken this as a metaphor – until I met Inelia. And so I tell this little story which follows against myself. To Inelia, it was self-evident that Gaia was a magnificent, fully sentient, godlike being. And when talking about this with me, she did what she often does when words are inadequate: she invited me to take her hands while she gave me a download of direct perception.

This she did: and I immediately perceived Gaia, a huge, eon-ancient entity that is our planet and all her multitudinous natural habitats. It was enormous, and strong, and solid, and eternal. I could feel her power. It was something literally awesome. I shall never forget that moment of first encounter. No doubt exists for me now about Gaia’s conscious reality.

Gaia talks to Inelia all the time. And last month, when in Switzerland, I was inspired to ask for a direct communication. Staying for weeks in a small hotel room waiting for my US visa to be issued, I decided to take an afternoon out to climb a mountain.

I used to climb a lot of mountains, but this time I took the mountain railway to the summit. I’d been cooped up for weeks, and I expanded my awareness in gratitude and appreciation at the marvelous natural environment of rocks, trees and alpine meadows which we were passing through on the train. I am a mountain man to my roots, and I deeply love this kind of terrain.

Near the summit, the mist swirled around me as I climbed the rocks to the very top. And suddenly, feeling connected with Gaia, I had a wild thought. I said to myself, as if in prayer:“Gaia, if you can hear me, show me a Brocken Specter.”

Now, a Brocken Specter is a spectacular natural phenomenon which requires a precisely coordinated combination of sun, clouds, atmospherics and moisture. It consists of a huge shadow of oneself projected on the clouds below, surrounded by a rainbow halo. They’re very rare: in all my time in the mountains, years and countless expeditions all over the world, I have seen only a handful of Brocken Specters.

And suddenly, within maybe a minute and a half, one suddenly appeared. There it was. I spent half an hour filming it, in various stages of awe and disbelief. I was staggered. As in the movie Avatar, I found myself thinking: “Eywa has heard me.”

That was over a month ago, in Europe. And now, we cut to today, in Sacramento, California. I had not seen Inelia for a couple of days, and she came round to see me towards the end of a very busy afternoon. It was wonderful to see her, as always. And as I gave her a hug, she collapsed in tears in my arms.

I looked at her, and held her hands, not knowing what was the matter.

She looked back at me, eyes brimming. “I can hear the cry”, she said. “It’s getting louder. I can’t bear it. It’s overwhelming.”

I looked at her intently, realizing. “The cry of the collective, and Gaia”, she said. “All the people, animals, all the plants, all the trees. There’s so much pain, so much suffering, so much violence. I feel it all. I hear it all. Every minute of every day. It never stops. I can’t stand it. And it’s getting louder all the time.”

She looked at me, asking me to understand. And I did. Like many humans, I’m a hypocrite: that means that I compartmentalize my experience for convenience. I wear a leather hat, and eat as much meat as I can. But I cannot bring myself to kill even a mosquito. I genuinely regard all living things as sacred. I have a dictum that I must never destroy anything I can’t create - which is why I save mosquitoes. Yet I deny my participation as a cavalier consumer.

Meanwhile, Inelia was directly experiencing the pain of Gaia. Through tears of compassion, she talked of the blind unawareness of the men in the slaughterhouses, the chemical farmers, the factory fishermen, the destroyers of the rainforests, the creators of wars. Those men and women who torture and kill millions of people, animals and trees every day. Those that think animals and trees don’t feel pain, fear, and terror, or relish the thought of inflicting these on the vulnerable. Those who deliver psychic and physical attacks on to others.

Deeply moved, and in response, I read to her the opening paragraph of Thom Hartmann’s masterwork, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight:

In the 24 hours since this time yesterday, over 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed in our world. Fully 13 million tons of toxic chemicals have been released into our environment. Over 45,000 people have died of starvation, 38,000 of them children. And more than 130 plant or animal species have been driven to extinction by the actions of humans. (The last time there was such a rapid loss of species was when the dinosaurs vanished.) And all this just since yesterday.

I was brought up in Africa. I’ve spent my life exploring wild places. Inelia has deep connections with sacred land in her native Chile, and a few years ago was brave enough to sail round Cape Horn in a small boat. When she was a little girl, she would pick hummingbirds off the branches of trees, and they would let her hold them in her tiny hands. They knew who she was; and they knew that they would not be harmed.

Still through her tears of Gaia’s suffering, Inelia told me a story about violence and anger. Years ago, she had a German Shepherd, which had caught its paw in a metal gate. The dog was beside itself with anger and pain. Its head whipped backwards and forwards, snapping at anyone who tried to get near as it struggled to free itself.

Inelia walked up to it and held him firmly, but to get to his paw she had to put her arm between his jaws and the gate. In its pain it sank its teeth into her arm – which Inelia permitted it to do. Then after the paw was free, Inelia held the dog’s jaws tight, as he continued trying to bite. She held him against the ground firmly but gently. It calmed down and she was able to release it, knowing it would no longer bite those around him. The wound in her arm healed without scars.

The moral of the story? Humans, too, lash out in anger and violence, because they are in great pain and fear. “I’d like to hold them all in my arms”, said Inelia. “All of them. I’d like to show them that they are loved, and that they are safe. All the murderers, all the rapists, all the butchers of the seals, whales and dolphins, all the bloodthirsty workers in the abattoirs, the creators of wars.”

I listened to Inelia stating clearly through her tears that all violent men needed was love, safety and compassion. I suggested, attempting to reassure, that what she stated so eloquently in her video interview was sufficient:

“I only have one job. And that’s to raise the vibrational level of the planet, including the human collective, which is part of the planet, to a critical point that will allow a transition into the new paradigm, a new level of awareness for everything. For the planet and every being in it. Every rock, every insect, every person. And that’s my only job. And I will do anything to achieve that.”

Meaning: that if we raise the level of awareness of what Inelia calls the ‘collective’ – the group-mind and collective consciousness of the human race – then the murderers, rapists, polluters and destroyers will all be dragged along in the same collective direction – they HAVE to swim in the same rushing, accelerating river as the rest of us. In that way we are all connected… and with some of us leading the way, the rest will follow: even those humans with the morals and awareness of crocodiles.

But to Inelia, this was not enough. How to maximize the effect? How to reach those unreachable people? How to halt the pain and damage as soon as possible? How to educate the uneducable? How to release THEIR paw from the metal gate? Lovingly stop THEM from biting, and removing all gates where their paws might get caught?

Who will read these words we’re writing here? Not the killers and destroyers. We’re surely preaching to the converted: having read thus far, you’re almost certain to be in strong agreement.

My own answer is as follows.

Rupert Sheldrake brought us the concept of Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance. Lynne McTaggart described ‘The Field’ in her best-selling book of the same name. We have an intuitive understanding of the Hundred Monkey syndrome, and of Tipping Points in general.

My personal strong feeling is we have to assume that, like blowing up an airbed (gradually, with an inefficient handpump), some corners of the mattress will inflate before others. When doing this, it almost always seems that nothing is ever going to happen – until a tipping point is reached and the rapidly inflating mattress all suddenly picks up and takes the desired shape as if by magic.

I think we’re in that kind of position now. The mattress doesn’t yet look like a mattress, and it seems as if it’s never going to inflate. We might think it looks hopeless. But soon – I do believe – things may start to feel different.

I want to say a word about ‘Ascension’ – and how the word is often misunderstood and misapplied. Some people really do think that they will literally ‘ascend’ out of here – as in some kind of ‘beam-me-up’ ‘rapture’ or rescue, possibly at the hands of helpful ETs or angelic beings.

In my strong view, this is escapist wishful thinking. * Any kind of get-me-outta-here-Scotty mindset is actually failing to take responsibility – certainly for those of us who have been here many lifetimes and who have in one way or another contributed to the mess we’re in. Many of us reading this have been here on Planet Earth for quite a while – and we have to face what we have done: we have to square up to what we’ve permitted to occur in our name.

If we’re here to fix all this – which it’s very clear to me that we are – then we HAVE TO face what we’ve done. There’s no easy escape, and certainly no rescue. Rather, there’s a massive clean-up job waiting for people, tools, resources and organization to get started on… together.

It may take several generations. Maybe many generations. But it’s do-able. Not just to repair the damage, but to educate the human race in understanding finally that we must live in balance and harmony with Gaia – or else we merely imperil ourselves. (Gaia will always be all right. She’s been around for several billion years, and is probably only half way through her lifespan as the Guardian-Goddess of this exquisitely beautiful planet.)

But there’s the real risk – for us, not for her – that if we do not learn the lessons that are for the taking, right here in front of our noses (and our wallets) - we may flunk the class and be destroyed. It could all happen terribly easily. And the choice is ours: collectively ours.

In my personal view, this is one of the key significances of the 2012 Tipping Point. 21 December 2012 is a distraction. The real significance of the year (certainly not one standalone day in that year) is that if we as the collective human race make the right choices, it will not be too late to re-create the balanced dynamic paradise that Planet Earth could be for all living things – and for mankind itself.

And if we make the wrong choices, our children may have a very rough time of it indeed. They would rightly blame their parents for not doing what they could when they had all the information available to them.

So guess what: it’s all about Free Will. Should we be surprised that the equation distills down to this again?

Here are Inelia’s own words in conclusion:

It is not about who’s to blame. The solution has to be inclusive. Yes, we take responsibility in minimizing the pain and suffering of others through our actions. We eat meat from small farms, organic producers who love their animals. Yes, we buy furniture from renewable sources of wood, clothes from factories which don’t exploit people. But what of the perpetrators of fear and pain? We might hold them in our field of light, and allow Gaia to do her work. As a ‘singularity’ – I am but one person. But WE are many.

If we dedicate 10 minutes a day to holding these people in our collective light, it can make a huge shift for them and us. After the 10 minutes, let us focus on the compassion and love of the millions of lightworkers and lightwarriors around the planet, our brethren, so that our collective power increases -- making each one of us more able to accomplish our collective work.

I also feel the love, light and compassion of billions of people around the world. All those parents who hold their new born baby in wonderment and deep love, all those who behold our Mother Earth in awe as they sense Her power and compassion. I also feel millions of lightworkers and lightwarriors diligently doing daily acts of selfless love and compassion to bring light to others and the planet.

For every murderer there are 10 healers, for every abuser of animals, there are a thousand who hold animals in respect and equality. For every creator of war, there are millions of us who do not agree with that particular game.

If I didn't feel the LIGHT I would not be alive today. Mother Earth made the call for assistance, and we, all of us, are the answer to that call.

Bill and Inelia

17-18 June 2011