Stretch the analogy a bit, from the organic and material to the spiritual. Consider the many faces of consciousness that make up the beings in human bodies trundling around the face of Gaia; consider as well the many beings in and around non-human bodies. But see them all for a moment in their simplicity -- not attached inextricably to their carbon-oxygen credit cards and their flesh-and-blood amplifiers.
Consider the many linkages that function, acknowledged or not, between these many viewpoints of organic Reality between living creatures around here.
What motivates them? What are we, as a collection of beings pushing into the space-time continuum around this sector of the universe, trying to find out?
We may be peeking into an economic network of incredible magnitude. Assuming for a moment that the economy of Earth, like the hectic coming and going around an anthill, is co-ordinated in a way not easily visible to the individual organism. Examine the entire market-place of life-forms in and around this planet -- the hustles and bustles of growth, harvest, interchange, food chains, chemical trade-offs, toxins and vital ingredients, wastes and nutrients -- not from the material side of those interchanges but from the complex of impulses that is driving Awareness into Production and Exchange. What is this all about?
On the basis not of hard analysis but of a feel for what is going on, from the Everglades to the Hilton Himalayas, in all the bayous, forest floors, Arctic pools, vasty depths...there is a sense of unified quest. Not the evolution of species A over species B or the conquest of older rams by newer ones, or the passage of power from men to women and back again. There is a common ground that sings in the veins of those that have veins, that tweaks the chitin or the protoplasm or the nerves of every aspect of awareness from cockroaches to Congressmen.
It is difficult to put such a global, omnipresent counterpoint chorale into words. It is a little like trying to translate 60-cycle hum into English.
It is a debate, not a mission. It is a celebration of the First Law -- there will be a show. It is a scriptwriters' conference, a brainstorming session of incredible magnitude, coordinated by the nature of the aether through which it is conducted. It asks of the Universe, "What is it that is needed and wanted, that We may Produce it?" It is the song of Gaia, debating among herself: "We are here to create an effect. What is it?" As this question, and not any one species or organism, evolves, Gaia will find herself in the dangerous position of the just awakening -- awake enough to care but too asleep to handle well. Unless she is brought to the real necessity level of the moment, much is at risk. From finding out what is wanted of her, she will have to graduate to defending her right to deliver it. Once one, her commitment will be to flourish and progress in the production she has elected.
Tonight, step out into the world and listen. Hear your own contributions to the Song of Earth as she seeks to discover her way into Exchange with the Galaxy. Hear and understand the unfolding, unending unified, pan-species debate, groping for the New Thought: We are the Life here. What Effect Do We Choose to Create?