STARSEED

    The world-wide web of knowledge being spun
    Around the globe, connecting every node
    To every other, joining us as one,
    Exalts our species to another mode.

    A global brain awakens here on Earth,
    Collective consciousness that can transcend
    Our ignorant antipathies and birth
    A being who’ll avert a tragic end.

    Homo noeticus, deep in our genes,
    Is being evoked by some Akashic beam
    Providing us the necessary means
    To realize an ancient mythic dream:

         A starseed was once planted in Earth’s ground
         That only after eons would be found.

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LEARNING OUR LIMITS

We human beings are marvelously malleable and cultivatable, by virtue of our distinctive intelligence, compared with any other animal.  Our evolution as a species is not only natural but cultural, as we are molded and remolded by the urgings and constraints of our societal values, norms and institutions.

Just now appears to be a time when a major cultural transformation is necessary to reshape human behaviors worldwide, lest our current materialistic motives further overwhelm the Earth’s carrying capacity and disrupt vital natural systems.  From one perspective, humanity, with its burgeoning and ravenous population, is a blight on the planet, a cancerous growth within the Gaian ecosystem.  Can that threat be changed intentionally?  If so, how?

My observation above is the premise of my inquiry into the topic of “Human Frontiers.”  Think of a frontier as both a border and a gateway, a perimeter that either encloses and protects a territory or that opens onto new lands and opportunities for advancement.  This second interpretation is distinctively American, given our history of westward expansion toward the Pacific Ocean.  That same perspective also informs the Star Trek motto: “Space—The Final Frontier,” implying that outer space is to be explored, conquered and colonized as a natural next chapter of the human adventure of quest and conquest.

What’s imperative now, though, is not conquest but making do: recognizing the limits of our Earthbound species’ growth and expansion, and learning to be as frugal as astronauts living in a space ship must be, lest our whole enterprise come to catastrophe.

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HOMO NOETICUS

     Homo noeticus will be our name
     Once we’ve grown more illumined, and evolved
     To realize that sapience is our aim
     And of our foolishness we’ve been absolved.

     Such gnosis has lain latent in our genes
     Although made manifest in harbingers
     Wiser than we (who still remain as teens):
     What’s evident in them, within us stirs.

          The only hope for earth’s futurity
          Is man’s advancing toward maturity.

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"Every last kibble, I told you!"

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BECOMING YOU

There are many ways for human beings to be—as many ways as there are human beings.  That’s the special thing about our species: we each get to make our self up uniquely, with far more latitude for expressing individuality than any other species owns.

Just as our fingerprints are unique, so are the characters we craft, ever more definitively throughout our lives.  Some patterns and proclivities seem to be innate, as functions of our singular neuronal constitutions, but even more individuating are the unique shaping forces of each person’s environment and the formative events befalling him or her.

Creative self-individuation, however, is our implicit goal as human beings, growing into who we might become or, some would say, becoming who we are essentially, realizing the Self or soul enfolded in us at our birth, which time and cultivation can unfold.

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OF GOVERNANCE

    Concerning governance and sovereign rule,
    The question is not mainly how but who’ll:
    Which spans from king to corporatocracy
    Throughout the course of modern history.
    Despite our dream of democratic sway,
    It’s still the plutocrats who rule the day.
    The wealthy and the powerful command
    From ornate offices and mansions grand
    The world’s resources for their corporate schemes,
    Leaving in tatters democratic dreams.
    Their theory is that wealth will trickle down,
    A few gauds falling from a gorgeous gown,
    To elevate the hopes of underlings,
    While magnates garner all the precious things.

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STILL HERE

      
       I cannot wholly miss our little Dear
       Because I feel her presence still is here.
       It’s something more than wishful memory
       Imagining the ways she used to be,
       Although those images are lingering,
       For what I feel is more inspiring:
       Her spirit still infuses both our lives
       And in our hurting hearts she yet survives
       And will live with us always through the years
       Along with all our other cherished Dears.

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