NOTES ON QUANTUM EVOLUTION
It turns out evolution doesn’t happen only gradually. Various simultaneous evolutions can happen at different tempi – just like many-voiced music can have one instrument playing slower chords while another simultaneously plays faster notes of a melody. The non-gradualness of some evolution has been identified by the scientist, Stephen Jay Gould with the wonderful term, “punctuated equilibrium” Earlier writers used the term “saltation” which derives from the Latin saltare "to hop, to dance," frequentative of salire "to leap." “Saltation” is, by the way, the name for the process by which nerve impulses leap, or dance if you will from one node to another, resulting in a higher velocity of conducted action potentials.
Quantum evolution?
This gives us an important metaphor for what is now needed in our world. Right now humans need to leap, to dance, to hop and hope for a higher velocity of change. We need to respond quickly compared to the normal pace of history, to the unique, challenging conditions that humans have created in their alienated treatment of nature and of the our community around the globe.
Each of us needs to find ways and places to leap in our lives; to accelerate our addressing the problems that we face. The more these new actions can be seen as a dance the better. The more we give up on the new normal and instead decide to punctuate the equilibrium of the money-changers running the temple – the better. Maybe the old extraordinary empowered by eternal truths will be more dependable than a new normal. Who wants to be normal? Oh you are so normal today! J
If you were to leap or see your life decisions now as punctuating your evolution what might you do? If you were to take a leap of faith, where might it take you?
Martin Luther King, a great punctuator of equilibrium, gave us some indication of method in his book, “Stride Toward Freedom” – “On the one hand, we must continue to resist the system . . . which is the basic cause of our lagging standards; on the other hand, we must work constructively to improve the standards themselves. There must be a rhythmic alternation between attacking the causes and healing the effects."
We do have the precedent of technological innovation which has proceeded with astonishing quickness. Now the ideal is to match or even exceed that pace with a quantum evolution of mind, heart and compassionate action in our individual and collective lives.
Let’s Leap!
Martin Luther King, a master of “salutatory” communication gave us hints as to how to speak up more powerfully.
https://www.quantifiedcommunications.com/blog/martin-luther-king-i-have-a-dream
for a little more technical explanation of “Quantum Evolution.”
In Zero Balancing a workshop “Alchemy of Touch” proposes that qualitative change often happens in a “jump” from one psychophysical state to another. We all know that there have been moments in our lives (birth itself!) which added sudden knowledge or manifested in a new sudden life direction. We can’t necessarily create or predict those moments but we can keep working at creating the conditions that make those punctuations in our life path more likely.
from the “Alchemy of Touch” manual
“…many transitions tend to occur in jumps. They seem suddenly to happen; they seem almost to come out of nowhere; they seem magical. Look to nature and the relationship of cold and heart and to the sudden transitions between ice, water and steam.” ~ Dr. Fritz Smith
Years ago I was asked to write a note to accompany an early Zero Balancing conference which was titled, the “Future of the Body.”
It ended up as a prose poem on “the body of the future” that captures some of quantum evolutionary spirit we are talking about.
“WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE BODY?
The future of the body naturally evokes the question, “What is the body of the future?” How will it glisten? Will the people of the world become like bones with the spaces between them like the joint spaces of the larger world? Will we then move together like a giant dancing body, our coordinated movements articulating the collective dreams of humanity?
The future is always a mystery. We lay awake wondering about the future, our dream. What will our dream be? What will come true? The future’s truth lies ever in dreamtime, like a tender love ever just out of reach.
We can’t touch it but we can prepare the way – as in every miraculous birth. Respect for the future draws us back meaningfully to the present moment. Each touch, each thought, each feeling is the gateway to the bright unknown. And the future rushes toward us – filling us with its inspiring mysteries, infinite promises, and awe. We shall awaken within the dreams we have prepared.”
