A Dream That Became Something Else

Written in 2018

It began as a dream.

I found myself somewhere beyond Earth, looking back at our planet from the silence of space.

As I watched, I could see energy flowing through it.

Then something unexpected became clear.

The Earth was aging.

Not so differently from the way our own bodies age.

Its energy moved like blood flowing through our veins.

Its rhythms felt familiar.

Alive.

The dream ended there.

But the questions had only just begun.

The more I thought about the dream, the more I began to notice the similarities.

As we grow older, our bodies change.

Cells renew themselves more slowly.

Our energy shifts.

Some systems become less efficient.

The balance we once took for granted begins to change.

We experience hot flashes.

Weight gain.

Fatigue.

Physical changes that can leave us feeling uncertain, vulnerable, or even afraid.

The Earth changes too.

Species disappear.

Forests shrink.

Deserts expand.

Storms grow stronger.

The landscape is constantly reshaping itself.

What if these changes are not so different from our own?

What if the Earth, like us, is moving through its own natural process of growth, aging, and renewal?

That thought stayed with me.

Not as a conclusion.

As a question.

If the Earth is changing, just as we are,

then perhaps not every change is meant to be resisted.

That thought challenged me.

We fight to preserve endangered species.

We work to protect what is disappearing.

We do it because we care.

But I couldn't help wondering...

Are there moments when we hold on simply because we are afraid to let go?

Do we sometimes mistake change for loss?

Or believe that every ending is something we must prevent?

Perhaps we carry more responsibility than truly belongs to us.

I cannot stop my own body from aging.

That is part of nature.

What I can do is care for it.

I can nourish it.

Respect it.

Support it.

Perhaps the same is true for the Earth.

We cannot stop change.

But we can choose how we live within it.

We already know that smoke and toxic chemicals harm our bodies.

They also harm the planet.

We know that clean air, plants, and healthy ecosystems support life.

Just as they support us.

The parallels were impossible for me to ignore.

What is good for us...

is good for the Earth.

And what harms the Earth...

Ultimately harms us.

As these questions stayed with me, another thought emerged.

What if the Earth is learning too?

We spend our lives studying the world around us.

We explore nature.

We map the oceans.

We study the stars.

We ask what we can learn from the Earth.

But what if the relationship goes both ways?

What if the Earth is also learning through us?

If life is energy,

and energy flows through everything,

then perhaps we are not separate from the planet at all.

Perhaps we are part of the same living process,

growing together.

Learning together.

Evolving together.

That thought led me somewhere even more unexpected.

If our inner world is reflected in our physical bodies,

could humanity be reflecting something within the Earth itself?

Our bodies fight infections.

Repair wounds.

Restore balance.

Could the conflicts we witness in the world be reflections of struggles taking place within a much larger living system?

And if the Earth belongs to something even greater...

what might its own mirror look like?

Could there be realities beyond our perception,

just as most of the island in my dream existed beneath the surface?

I don't know.

But I have learned not to dismiss questions simply because I cannot answer them.

Sometimes a question opens a door long before an answer arrives.

Something else became clear to me.

Perhaps every period of change reveals two very different forces at work.

One is driven by fear.

The other by love.

Fear closes the heart.

And a closed heart changes the way we see the world.

It becomes easier to separate children from their families.

Easier to force people from their homes.

Easier to destroy,

to deceive,

to manipulate,

or simply to stop caring.

Fear doesn't always appear as violence.

Sometimes it appears as indifference.

As control.

As the need to hold on to power.

But there is another force moving through humanity.

An open heart.

It inspires people to heal.

To discover.

To create.

To solve problems that once seemed impossible.

To find cleaner energy.

Better medicine.

New ways to communicate.

New ways to care for one another.

I began to wonder whether we were witnessing the end of one way of living...

and the birth of another.

Perhaps what looks like chaos is, in part, the old world struggling to survive.

Not because it is stronger—

but because it is coming to an end.

Every transformation begins this way.

Something must loosen its grip before something new can take its place.

​

A New Beginning

Perhaps this is what every period of change looks like.

The old resists.

The new quietly begins to emerge.

We often believe that compassion, integrity, and kindness are disappearing from the world.

I no longer think that's true.

Perhaps what we are witnessing is the final struggle of an old way of living—

one built on fear,

control,

and separation.

It fights to survive because it knows its time is coming to an end.

At the same time,

something else is growing.

People are searching for new ways to heal.

To care for one another.

To protect the Earth.

To share knowledge freely.

To create rather than compete.

Maybe this is what a new consciousness looks like as it is being born.

Not perfect.

Not peaceful.

But alive.

Still finding its way.

When I woke up, I thought I had dreamed about the Earth.

Now I think the dream was about us.

Perhaps the Earth and humanity have always been growing together.

Learning from one another.

Reflecting one another.

And if that is true,

Then every time we choose love over fear,

We are changing more than ourselves.

Perhaps we are changing the whole.