Soul's depth, Soul's sky

On September 26 Susanna Singer and I will be offering "The Heights and Depths of Soul," the first of a new series of "Expeditions" events. This event will focus on images of the deep sea and far reaches of space as presented in two IMAX films at the Tech Museum in San Jose.
    Psyche or Soul is not something found only in the individual person, or in humanity as a whole, but is as wide and deep as nature, as Cosmos itself.
    If you look into the eye of a squid from the deep sea, can you imagine the awareness of a place of extreme pressure, darkness, vibrations, currents, and strange chemical signals? What if our reflective consciousness had emerged not on an African savanna, but in such depths?

    When you gaze upon a cluster of unimaginably distant stars that were born not long after the incomprehensible beginning of things (the Big Bang), you are seeing light from alchemical fires that forged the elements that make your life--and consciousness--possible. Try to imagine the span of space and time between the potential for consciousness and its realization in creatures who could build a Hubble Space Telescope.

     If these or other images of nature grip you, let them come to you as in a dream--the compelling kind of dream you have no trouble remembering and writing down. Just as dreams bring images and emotions from beyond the ego and even from beyond the individual, let the sea and its creatures, the sky, storms, and the flaring light of deep space speak to you of what is within and beyond. Ask questions of what encounters you, and listen for answers. If strong emotion comes, let it ripen into image, reflect upon it, and offer your reflection as a service to Soul who seeks to know itself through you.
    And perhaps you can then take a moment to listen, in your imagination, for the faint signals of some extraterrestrial intelligence. Try to imagine what the moment of first contact with the alien Other might be like. Suppose Soul reflects upon itself not through a single kind of consciousness, but through two or more quite different kinds? Or suppose, after generations of searching, we conclude that we are alone in the cosmos as far as we can see? Would not either realization immeasurably widen our experience of Soul?