Earthdance

Elisabet Sahtouris (PhD. Biology) should be well-known to many SMN members. At the recent Scientists and Mystics conference (Winchester, April 2005) she impressed the audience with her polished and visually spectacular address A New Model for a Living Universe: Evolution as Creative Response to Crisis which conveys the essential message of Earthdance and her other recent books Biology Revsioned (a dialogue with Willis Harman) and A walk through time: from stardust to us (both 1998). Like her talk, the book is pleasantly but deceptive simple. Most of its points are substantial and cogent, and backed by a short, interesting bibliography but no index. Such big picture overviews of cosmogenesis, biogenenesis and anthropogenesis are valuable for several reasons. First, they remind us of the perennial connectedness of all things. Second, they show that evolution in the broadest sense is a highly dynamic process that can not be reduced to simple control mechanisms. Third, they point to the profound mysteries of complex organisation that inevitably raises questions about universal intelligence and cosmic vitality. Sahtouris outlines the book's main purpose, rather late in the day (p. 288-9), when she states that "the purpose of this book" is to put human life into ... [a] … kind of perspective that allows us to see ourselves within the whole evolving world, even within the whole evolving cosmos" rather than from the perspective of "hopeless pessimism" that too often creates a "dark hole" from which we may find it hard "to see a way out." Certainly this message is optimistic and we may indeed hope that "the problems we humans have created may not be as great as problems other species have created for which life found solutions." EarthDance reminds me of Anna Lemkow's The Wholeness Principle (1998) except that it has greater emphasis on biological systems. It nevertheless places organic evolution in its proper context between cosmic beginnings and anthropological and cultural maturation with pertinent reminders about sustainability and cosmic continuation. Sahtouris picks examples of biological organisation which point to the intriguing and still mysterious dynamics of Gaian homeostasis and self-organisation (autopoesis) and her optimistic vision of a biology revisioned, and applied, is warmly endorsed by Lovelock himself. So we humans are not only sentient species, we are also part of Lovelock's Gaian biosphere and the greater cosmic intelligence and vitality that so often inspires visionary scientists to lyrical praise. Sahtouris neatly avoids the dualism of a pro or anti-Darwinian stance by depicting evolution as at spiral of immature competition and mature co-operation that is both cyclic and progressive: i.e., each new cycle revisits old patterns and structure but also introduces novelty. Such a model resonates with the ideas of Sheldrake and other complex systems thinkers who recognise repetition or fractal recursion of morphogenetic fields/habits with endless variation. Sahtouris generally regards "technology as an inhuman disaster" even though she at the same time holds that "our technological development is as natural as our pre-technological infancy." Thus, she is a great advocate of a simple more natural life which she associates with the "natives of the Amazon, New Guinea [and] the Australian Outback." Incidentally her personal biography shows that she is committed to these beliefs, and relationships with such cultures, in practice – not merely in theory. Here the reader may find Sahtouris a little torn between her strong advocacy of native culture and her optimistic acceptance of inevitable technological progress. Thus, she regards it as fortunate that "many developing countries can now avoid the expensive and exhausting heavy industry phase almost entirely by jumping directly to the age of electronics and information with the assistance of the most technologically advanced nations." Nevertheless, she laments the price paid as profit motives and interest on loans create more problems than are solved, especially as monocultures damage and destroy ecosystems. So does evil necessarily come with good? Nature- we are reminded "works not for profits but for balance, recycling everything." Perhaps we can all acknowledge the tension between what we take and what we give back. Although dealing with the big sweep of cosmogenesis, biogenenesis and anthropogenesis, in later chapters EarthDance strikes an easy balance between deep time history and today's immediate problems of a sustainable society. Current obstacles to such sustainability are the multi-billion dollar lobbying industry in Washington DC and the "3,000 corporate financed holidays" taken by U.S. Congressmen "during a single legislative session" which keeps the " U.S government … in service to business rather than the other way around." (p. 347). However, historian Arnold Toynbee reminds us that he identified 21 civilisations that collapsed through "inflexibility under stress and the concentration of wealth into a few hands."

The final chapter entitled Cosmic Continuation addresses consciousness from the viewpoint of "quantum theorists" who hold that in an "interconnected universe, consciousness anywhere means consciousness everywhere." Nevertheless "many scientists still unwilling to accept consciousness as the source of creation, rather than its late product, will continue for some time to vacillate between ideas of accident and purpose in attempts to explain how non-life becomes life." Perhaps like nature, consciousness works for balance and human consciousness is the organ that mediates our present choreography. Like Sahtouris we experience the dynamic give and take tension of anthropogenesis, biogenesis, cosmogenesis as the very the A, B, C of existence. Between our human experience and the music of the spheres Earth is our ballroom and hers the dance!