Beyond the bridge lies the ocean,
Majestic in its scope and depth,
Beyond the bridge lies the final step,
The creational freedom of our dreams,
And though I dance with you, with the waves,
Though I feel the salty spray on my burning lips,
I am also that which holds us, defines us,
In its all encompassing embrace,
Though I feel the movement of my earthly limbs,
I am also humming with the joy of the absolute,
I am that I am,
The Alpha, the Omega and all that's inbetween,
So with this choice we become the causal field,
The creator and the created,
The architects of our world,
With this choice we bless ourselves,
And let go the final threads,
And as we leap high above the waves,
With the glee of our evolution,
We mirror the steps of our predecessors,
Evolutionary strategists all,
The insect, the fish, the amphibian,
The reptile, the mammal, the human being,
Beyond the bridge lies the truth,
A new being waits to greet us,
It is you and I and them,
Beyond the bridge lies the truth,
The great homecoming of Man.
(A grand poem for sure. What could be grander than this vision for the human race? A vision that we will replace ourselves one day with that which will follow us, that which is to come. A 'beta' version, a better version. And that this will happen as an inevitable, thoughtless by-product of our consciousness rather than as part of some grandiose human plan. For that is what has always happened on the evolutionary trail. The poem is written from the perspective of being 'in the sea' with the fish at the time when the first one of these leapt out of the water and discovered a 'new world' - the world beyond the ocean that consisted of something we later decided to call 'air'. How strange that must have been for that first fish 'out of water', how freaky! And with only gills with which to 'breathe'. Not a world in which that fish could yet survive but a world that it would never forget having glimpsed. And how would it talk about that glimpse to its fellow fish in a watery way? With great difficulty I assume. Maybe through a fishy poem or two he/she had a go. But inside that fish and inside every fish, an evolutionary vision had been created and was stirring itself. The genie was out of the bottle, the fish was out of the water and the amphibian was already more than just a dream.....)
A comment from my friend Nick Turnbull:-
ReplyDeleteFrom the time of the spontaneous creation of matter and energy out of nothing, aka the Big Bang, a multitude of “camels” have, against all the odds, dragged the foundations of life and the forebears of humanity through a multitude of “eyes of needles” to bring us stumbling out of the gloom into the brilliant light that is the flowering of consciousness that our species has basked in during the past few tens of millennia. It is natural to speculate whether the bloom of consciousness is now at its zenith and about to whither like blossom or, as the poem optimistically suggests, is set to surge to ever greater heights, to perhaps behold the true essence of being beyond Plato’s “shadows” on the “cave wall”. There is abundant evidence that individuals throughout recorded history have achieved an advanced state of consciousness and wisdom, so it seems reasonable to suggest that we are all physiologically capable of breaking through to a higher state of being, which is possibly akin to humanity’s predisposition to develop speech, which just required the necessary evolutionary pressures to tip the balance and “release the genie”. (“I am also that which holds us, defines us”). However, whereas the linguistic “cashing in” was almost certainly driven by the overwhelming advantage brought about by communicating in a more precise way , it seems logical to suggest that breaking through to a higher level of consciousness would need to be driven from within and would require a far higher order of subtlety to comprehend the advantages. (“With this choice we become the causal field”). One of the most profound defining characteristics of humanity is our ability to make conscious choices. We often recognise the correct path but make the wrong choice in favour of short term benefits to our egos which lead us away from the divine “I am that I am” that lies within all of us. The way "beyond the bridge" no doubt demands sacrifices that may appear counter-intuitive. “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”