Horror immobolizes us because it is made of contradictory feelings: fear and seduction, repulsion and attraction. Horror is a fascination...Horror is immobility, the great yawn of empty space, the womb and the hole in the earth, the universal Mother and the great garbage heap...With horror we cannot have recourse to flight or combat, there remains only Adoration or Exorcism.

The Earth was not dead. She had been sick, yes, weakened by an infestation. Now she was ridding herself of it. For those who remained alive the choice was a simple one, whether they realised it yet or not: Work with the land-- respect it and give back to it-- or die.

You must not forget that when you think of yourself as special__ou really are__ou should think of the other people in a similar way. Everybody is special you meet during your life, everyone who has lived and lives on Earth.

The Earth's health is the only standard that is all-encompassing enough to overcome the ethnic, cultural, religious, and national tensions that are rending the world asunder. Only the Earth can become the central axis around which which world peace can be spun, for no religion is more compelling, no single nation larger, and no peoples older than the Earth itself. For that to happen, the collective human consciousness must expand enough so that our highest identification is as Earth-Humans.

While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. "Blindsight" is a thought experiment, a game of "Just suppose" and "What if". Nothing more.On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used exactly the same argument to prove their own superioirity, a thousand years ago: "if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct?" Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven't yet lost.

A new heaven is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness. And A New Earth is it's direct reflection in the physical realm.