The living planet is in crisis. Our activity is tearing the web of life apart at the roots, and this means things we cannot imagine, since we know little or nothing about these matters. To complicate the situation, there are other problems we should be and are not attending because we are busy tearing everything apart.

We do not tend to think of the living beings of earth as a superposition of life and intelligence, but they are. We do not even have a word in English for the living beings of earth which indicates them as a relational unity. We do not think this way, in part, because science has demanded we think otherwise. Nonetheless, our world is a network of anciently evolved intelligences, both embodied as creatures and… those of nonordinary nature. They understand what is happening, and they know that the problem — and the solution — lie with us.

Because the whole planet is in crisis, and every living thing knows this, anyone who can or will act as an ally to and for them will become involved in forms of learning and activity that surpass our wildest dreams of beauty, nobility, and justice. I want you to think about the knowledge assets that a -living planet- commands and can distribute. The planet itself is calling. Those who can learn how to answer will be trained and endowed with developmental and relational assets of impossible sophistication and power.

It is as if an endless treasure-trove of new opportunities for learning, relation with nature, and “sudden evolution’ have arisen all around and within us — but we are blind to them because we see the world with the eyes and expectations of yesterday. Try to understand me: the world has transformed before our eyes, much faster than our ideas — precisely because of the crisis we have become. We now live in a field of otherwise impossible opportunity — but to take advantage of it we must begin to see with new eyes — eyes guided by purposes true and noble to our hearts and nature. We must now, together, begin to recognize our role in the biosphere and as living beings, and we must raise this role far above our cultures, commerce, and ideologies.

Now is a time of heroes. Listen, for nothing is as it was yesterday. We live in an entirely new moment. Do not use old eyes to read new ways. If you will become the ally of the living places and beings, they will introduce you to ‘the underground’.

I’ll meet you there.