Cataclysm: A Natural Power of the Universe
In one of his video courses, entitled, The Ten Powers of the Universe, cosmologist, Brian Swimme discusses these powers which include, synergy, emergence, transmutation, transformation among others.
They all sound pretty positive, but there is one he calls, “Cataclysm” that is especially relevant today, because as Swimme says, we are in the middle of one right now.
Cataclysms occur at regular intervals
These cataclysms, Swimme claims, arise roughly every 100 million years or so.
We can see them in the five great mass extinctions that have occurred since the beginning of life on the planet. Now, he points out, we are in the midst of the Sixth Great Mass Extinction.
The relevance of this was made clear in a landmark United Nations report that claims that dozens of species are going extinct everyday with as many as 30-50 percent of species going extinct by 2050. This means that up to a million species are threatened with extinction within decades. This is the fastest rate of extinction the modern world has ever witnessed.
The report also shows “how natural habitats are declining in rates ‘unprecedented in human history’ as species extinction is accelerating ‘with grave impacts on people around the world now likely’.
Sir Robert Watson, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services said,
“We are eroding the very foundation of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
Elizabeth Colbert wrote a book a few years ago called The Sixth Extinction, where she laid out the catastrophe occurring right before our very eyes, yet we barely blink.
Humans are not Immune to Cataclysms
We may want to believe that humans are exempt from this cataclysm because our population numbers continue to grow, but we are not as the recent U.N. report points out.
The modern worldview programs us to believe we are separate from all this. It is all happening out there, but it’s not a threat to me in my safe little world.
In reality we live in an interconnected web of life where what happens over there affects us right here. Particularly something of this magnitude.
We may choose to ignore the outward forms of our cataclysm, but inwardly it is affecting us unconsciously. Our bodies and emotions feel it even if our conscious minds are not yet aware of the cause.
Swimme includes cataclysm as one of the powers of the universe, not only to scare the bejeebers out of us, but also to show it is an integral part of the universe.
Cataclysms Play an Important Role
Nothing new can come into being until the old gets destroyed. That’s how evolution works, and it is this evolution that has lead all the way up to humans.
If we look back over our evolutionary history, we see lots of major or minor cataclysms without which we wouldn’t be here.
In my short book, The Magical Universe: Answering the Call of Climate Change for Personal and Global Transformation, I layout many instances in our evolutionary story where the universe had to overcome crisis after crisis to continue its journey forward, often, creating new entities in the process. That is exactly what is happening right now in our world.
We are the results of these cataclysms, so why would we think that just because humans have evolved, they would cease?
We might believe that humans are the crowning achievement of evolution, so what’s the point of the universe creating more mayhem and cataclysm? The apex has been reached. However, one look around at who humans really are, should dispel us of that notion.
Humans are Creating a Cataclysm
What other species has brought on its own extinction? Well, humans are clearly on the way to doing just that. Surely, modern humans aren’t the best the universe can do.
A growing number of humans are horrified at what they see. They know it can’t continue like this. We need to change.
Unfortunately, the overall message still has not penetrated into enough people to force change.
Just last week, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the biggest recipient of money from fossil fuel companies, nixed the last chance to pass a watered-down version of President Biden’s Build Back Better Bill. This makes it extremely difficult to keep the rise in global temperatures below the 1.5 degree Celsius increase climate scientists claim is necessary to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
Manchin and others of his ilk are the prime examples of how detached humans are from reality.
Our Cataclysm is Occurring to Wake Us Up
Swimme maintains that cataclysms are a part of the universe, but this is the first one brought on by a species itself, and not as part of the natural evolution of life. Cataclysms are the universe’s way of telling us to wake up or die. The choice can’t get any more stark.
However, looked at from another perspective, maybe it is reflective of the natural evolution of human consciousness. We need more people to evolve to the integral level if we are to survive. Again, if you are not familiar with the stages of evolutionary consciousness, I go through them in my book I mentioned earlier. There is a link for it at the end of this article.
Even if a large majority of people accept the need for fundamental change, they will then have to battle the powerful moneyed interests who will use that money and power to block them every step of the way.
Despite that, we are in this cataclysm and we can no longer ignore it.
What We can Learn From the Birth and Death of a Star
Swimme compares our situation to the birth and death of a star. A star is born when gravity draws a cloud of particles closer and closer together, creating tremendous pressure, raising the temperature in the center. When the temperature reaches 10 million degrees Celsius, hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium atoms, releasing huge amounts of light and energy, giving birth to a star.
After all the hydrogen atoms have fused together, the outward pressure stops and the star implodes raising the temperature in the center. When the temperature reaches 100 million degrees Celsius, helium starts to fuse creating carbon atoms, releasing even more light and energy than before.
If the star is massive enough, it will continue this process all the way to iron which can’t burn. The star will then collapse, creating so much pressure and heat that it will explode in a supernova, creating all the rest of the elements in the universe beyond the handful already mentioned.
This cataclysmic event is the seed for the massive creativity that ends up creating stars, planets and life.
No Cataclysms, No Us
Again, without these cataclysms, we wouldn’t be here.
Now we are in a similar condition. We feel that pressure, tension and heat building in ourselves, but we don’t know how to handle it.
We could run from the oncoming cataclysm, engaging ourselves in endless distraction. T.S. Eliot warned us against this saying,
“We are distracted from distraction by distraction.”
But the healthy way to deal with it is to feel that tension building up in ourselves, and then use it, like the Supernova, to explode into creative activity. If enough of us do this, we can create new worlds with new possibilities just as the exploding stars have done.
We need to understand that this cataclysm is part of a natural process that has been going on since the birth of the universe. We are being called on by the universe to respond creatively to it in order to bring about the next stage in cosmic and human evolution.
To learn more: Click this link: The Magical Universe.
