Numbers are not as significant as we generally imagine, nonetheless, they do have a role to play, and different numbers have different roles. Ten and twelve are the most important numbers for counting. Ten to the tenth power is a transitional number in our world, where quantity spills over into quality. We are 10 to the 10th souls.

Souls need not be elementary, they need not be conserved. There is both a divine spark and a divine image, all embedded in a more pantheistic background. Souls necessarily have histories and bodies. In an immaterial, monist world, there can be no sharp distinctions between body, soul, history and spirit, or between creature and creator. These are all complex, convoluted projections and extensions of the one in the other. Taken together we have just a polarity of cosmos and chaos in some infinite regress.

Ultimately there need be only one soul with infinite reflections. We are then just one soul, lost in a funhouse of mirrors. Becoming one with the Great Spirit is to overcome the distraction of our myriad reflections. Taken in this larger context, the impending local eschatological separation of humanity is but one of many large processes that we undergo on our spiritual trajectories. The distinct trajectories of Earth and Sky people do not reflect any distinction as to our ultimate identity and destiny.

It is very likely that we will experience the eschaton primarily in terms of our reintegration with the larger cosmos. The end of the scientifically defined cosmos is just the end of our isolation from the greater spirit. In the process of this reintegration there will be redifferentiation of our human identity, along lines that transcend the superficial cultural and gender differences that have preoccupied us up to this point.

The preponderance of us will follow the path into the sky. Those staying behind will be charged with the rejuvenation of the Earth in preparation for its next round of history. These ones may well segregate themselves back into tribal enclaves, as that seems to be a natural, aboriginal precursor to any global, linear historical development. The Earth people will be focussing on restoring the natural harmonies and balances, with an emphasis on a renewed diversity.

On the other hand, the differentiation of the Sky people will be based upon more functional lines, and it would be reasonable to suppose that the structuring of the sky people would necessarily be more hierarchical than for the Earth people.

What will differentiate the Earth from the Sky will be the naturalness of the former and the artificiality of the latter. Creativity will be at a premium in the Sky. There will be more emphasis on creatio ex nihilo, whereas, back on Earth, the creativity will more in the reworking of the preexisting forms and aspects of nature. New tunes will be built upon the old scales. Whereas in the Sky, new scales can be invented -- new genetics. So finally when there is a new beginning, when Earth and Sky reintegrate to start a new history, the Sky 'gods' will be bearing new seeds to plant in the old soil, thus completing one of the cosmic cycles.

Earth and Sky are not physical objects, nothing is. Earth and Sky are states of mind and being that define the primary cosmic polarity, the yin and yang. Human history is where these two gears mesh together. These two millstones grind exceedingly fine, and modern, atomistic, alienated humanity is the product, fine mixtures of yin and yang. Now all of that grinding is over. Now we have the sifting and the sorting out -- not into good and bad, not into us and them, but simply into us and more us -- into Earth and Sky.

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rev. 4/29/97