The One

In meditation this morning, I had the thought that at the moment of conception, the human conceptus is the embodiment of unity: Two cells become one. And the body and soul are one with the entire cosmos. 

Aaaah, would that we could simply savor that unity for a languid, luxurious length of time. 

However... next, comes a cleaving.

With the very first bifurcation or splitting of the one cell into two, there is the forgetting: The not remembering the truth that there is only ONE. WE ARE PART of everything... but we forget that. Our purpose as humans seems to be to re-member the truth, that ONE is all there is. We are but drops in an ocean of consciousness. We occupy an individual vessel for an eye blink of time in the grand scheme of things, but always, we are still part of the vast ocean of bliss. Pure consciousness.

Therein is the whole journey of human existence. Knowing, forgetting, and remembering again (with any luck!) that we are all pure consciousness. That's all, folks.

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The ovum sits there in her vastness waiting for something. She's not sure what. When the ONE comes knocking and banging his head, the zona pellucid (a translucent membrane that surrounds her) allows in the one chosen sperm. She opens to be penetrated by the ONE. She is calm and centered within her entire and whole self.

When the sperm is released and begins his grand journey of exploration to the site, his destination, his destiny, he is filled with motion, the opposite of sitting in quietude. Sperm behavior: "I don't know where I'm going I only know I've got to get there fast and beat out all these fellow flagellates to get there FIRST! I'm gonna elbow outa the way any one who gets in my way." (Do sperm have elbows?) 

She waits. She is expansive, passive, patient. He runs all out toward the finish line. 

It happens in a flash. One head of one sperm breaks through or is allowed through the zona pellucida into the interior of the ovum. Suddenly his head is absorbed into the ONE CELL. The two become ONE. His tail falls by the wayside. His mode of transportation no longer needed. Sperm’s job is transformed from going as fast as he can to being completely absorbed, dissolved, to become part of something entirely different from what he was. Poor sperm. 

For her part, the ovum is blasted, penetrated, shattered, poor egg, or willingly opened to the concept of LIFE flowing through into her heart of hearts. "YOU are the ONE. You are my reason for being. YOU make me complete. Together we will start something beautiful and new in the cosmos - a singularly unique new being."

The state of ONENESS lasts for a brief time. Then the ONE divides into TWO. Two cells as yet undifferentiated into any specific organs, bones, system parts, or nerves. Two cells, alike as they can be. And then THEY divide and begin the doubling of the doubling at a terrific rate, but seen in every corner of the world, simply because Nature is generous. 

The doubling and doubling again proliferates into the most amazing differentiation of cell tasks and shapes and purposes. It's a higher calling to be sure - to build and become a single part of a new human floating in his mother's dark and quiet. Long before the new mother is aware she is pregnant, the cells have already been imbued by the Breath of Life with a SOUL. A new incarnation of some soul who needed to come back to Earth School for new lessons in the grab bag of lessons all humans must learn to become free at last of incarnations on the planet. 

My belief is that nothing is lost forever. Veteran Recycler that I am, I firmly believe that what makes us alive, and vibrantly so to one another, is an essence, a unique soul that carries with it the sum total of all we've done on this planet for lifetime after lifetime. That essence is wise to some extent, for experiences understood become wisdom. Our aim is perfection; our condition is human. We are perfectly imperfect beings.  We ARE divinity incarnate and we make mistakes so we can learn from them. To greater or lesser degrees, we attain perfection with each lifetime spent on earth and perhaps on other planets as well. 

Reader's Digest Version:

Once upon a time, there was a little egg whose beloved was rushing toward her at the speed of light. When he finally bumped into his chosen beloved, he lost his head and was swallowed whole by her plump round body. The two became one. The one split and became many cells rubbing and bumping up against one another with such ferocious friction that they warmed the space in which they were growing and soon the host womb experienced such JOY that she, (yes, she; the only gender to grow and give birth to new life even at this current state of technology on the third planet from the Sun, in this solar system that is part of a galaxy we call the Milky Way, in a corner of the Uni-verse that sang us all), SHE rejoiced and grew contemplative about all the possibilities this new life - this new lover of life could bring to the planet.  

For father's part, he went along for the ride. The giver of life went elsewhere, leaving her to complete the project on her own. Perhaps he stuck around for the winter, bringing her foods and roots and berries to help sustain the life inside. Perhaps he abandoned her. Perhaps he stayed the course and became an active part in the raising and nurturing of new life. In any case, the child usually survives and brings to the world gifts the world is sorely in need of. Perhaps the gifts are misunderstood and criticized and made fun of because they are too radically new for a world so steeped in xenophobia it cannot open itself to new and different kinds of life flowing into and through it. 

Kindness is all. Loving kindness and compassion are the missing links in our long historical line of perceiving new life askance and with distrust rather than welcoming it with wide open arms as if our lives depended upon it. We are in great need of New Ideas. New approaches to husbanding the planet and her resources. In fact, our ives do depend entirely on a paradigm shift. 

If we continue the metaphor of conception... Man on earth has penetrated Earth with such force that she has been shattered to the degree that she can no longer cope; cannot absorb that which has penetrated her, but has passed right through, shattering her core, devastating perhaps forever the harmony and beauty she once held for all. She now lies in between life and death - spinning out of control in the solar system in a corner of the galaxy and we're the only species with brains enough to save her. Let us hope our hubris gets reined in and that the tide is turned toward LIFE. 

Woe to him who regards not the divinity of nature, of Gaia, of our earth Mother. Woe to him whose hubris is larger than the Uni-verse that sang him into existence. Woe to him who has forgotten his origins lie in the One Ultimate Source. Remembering our unity is all that can save us. Remembering and LOVING the WHOLE will set us free. Unity wins. Divisiveness? Well, it divides us from ourselves, one another and from Source.

May 2020 bring us the capacity to see with clearer vision what our role must be going forward. May we come to see whether our daily actions contribute to Earth's demise or support our life boat Earth to turn back, to keep from tumbling into the abyss.