With the advances in communications technology and widespread travel, the Earth has indeed become smaller, more familiar, and more intimate. This is all the more amazing because we didn’t even know that the Earth was round or orbited around the sun until a few hundred years ago. However, with advances in science, we have acquired more and more knowledge about the Earth. We have all seen pictures of the Earth taken from outer space, and we are able to point out approximately where we live and were born on this cosmic sphere of beautiful colors, suspended in the magical darkness of the universe.

As children, we are taught that the Earth revolves around the sun as the third planet of the solar system, knowledge that Galileo had to risk his life to defend. As transportation has developed, we have further realized that what we hold to be true and inviolate in one part of the world is not necessarily true in another part. Humans have created a world of omnipresent relativity in everything from social values to cultural rituals. Studies in geology and biology have awakened us to the incredible history and living processes of Earth, from erupting volcanoes and sliding plates, to the mind numbing variety of life that she nurtures, creates, and destroys… only to create again with a love and patience that only a mother could have. But have we ever seen the Earth from the Earth’s point of view? Have we felt the Earth as she herself must feel?

Ilchi Lee articles on human brain.