Brain Coral

i was reading an advertisement in Discover Magazine that said the following:

"Picture a society in which there is no conflict, no jealousy, no unkind words. A society in which people think, say, and do what is rational and honest, resulting in behavior that is trustworthy and productive. Enlarge that picture to include persons holding no grudges and nobody competing to exert control, as everybody's behavior conforms to a natural law."

It goes on to say there would be no fear, no punishments, no scolding, no stress, no locks on doors, no legal documents just fellowship.

Whew!

The add took up an entire page of the magazine and when i had finished reading it i thought to myself what a robotic society. How boring, all of us behaving and conforming to create this model society.

i thought about people all over the world trying to improve some segment of their nations. Their needs are not always ours but they need action and work on it. The priorities that are uppermost for them to accomplish their goals we might think are wasteful or unnecessary, but who are we to make those decisions for them. We might not even agree with the methods used to get to the end result, but their methods might just work more efficiently for that culture than our methods do. In striving to make things better for more people we could work on building a harmonious society instead of a model society.

The thing about harmony is that it can be discordant and still be unified. Harmony means coming together, unifying under a joint agreement but not necessarily sounding the same or even doing things the same. There are relationships between the different notes or pitches which can unite and work together and still remain separate.

There is a passage in Wikipedia that describes the tension that can result from a harmonious piece.

This description can also describe humanity.

"Typically, a dissonant chord (chord with a tension) will "resolve" to a consonant chord. A good harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs when there is a balance between "tension" and "relax" moments. Because of this reason, usually tensions are 'prepared' and then 'resolved'.

Preparing a tension means to place a series of consonant chords that lead smoothly to the dissonant chord. In this way the composer ensures to build up the tension of the piece smoothly, without disturbing the listener. Once the piece reaches its sub-climax, the listener needs a moment of relaxation to clear up the tension, which is obtained by playing a consonant chord that resolves the tensions of the previous chords. The clearing of this tension usually sounds pleasant to the listener."

Harmony can define a reworked view of humankind. We join together in our common humanity to relieve the tension. We link to each other, work together, but not always agree with each other and that is OK. We maintain our independence...and yet still realize that our basic needs and desires are similar so that even with the tension we can get to the harmonious result.

i got back from vacation the end of July and have been swimming almost every day since. The first day back i spotted a brain coral that appeared to be dying. It is dying and over the past month it has gone through many changes. i'm different(odd) i know it and i see signs in nature. It had a large C for a few weeks until a few days ago when it started to change rapidly. The whole coral began to turn bone white except for the middle section which is a capital T. i told my swimming buddies this morning it stands for truth but as i write this i'm thinking maybe it stands for Tension.

Maybe if you tip it around it is not a T at all but a Y.
WHY?
It could also stand for Consequences and Truth.
It may mean nothing but it has inspired me.

We humans have been stretching this world of ours in ways it may no longer be able to accept. There is a whole lot more coral out there that has turned blue which is the last phase before dying. The tension it is under could just tip so far negative that we can't put a bandaid on it. It is time to examine everything, how we relate to each other here around the world and how we relate to nature. It is not too late to start preparing the way to release the tension and start building a harmonious world for everyone and everything.