Biology's Dances

Biology's Dances
(from an article in GEOlution Magazine, published online from the Netherlands)

One way to begin visualizing one of Biology's dances is to start with the "Tree of Life" -- the schematic representation of life as it has evolved on Earth, with new species arising from already existing ones. The Tree of Life's trunk -- the first living thing -- branches, then those branches branch, and those branches rebranch, on and on. Through time some branches die but others proliferate explosively. Branch tips bear presently living species, like leaves. You can see a tiny part of the Tree of Life on my webpage at http://www.backyardnature.net/lifetree.htm and a much more complex presentation at the Tree of Life Website at http://tolweb.org/.

So, visualize the Tree of Life evolving through time and space, becoming more and more complex through time, with ever more mutual relationships among the many branches, ever more complex ideas being expressed among the species-leaves at branch tips, the overall branching ever more intricate, parts spiraling, parts exploding, parts dying out, the whole performance acquiring with time a certain feeling about it, a certain texture or mood.

This is the dance that's easy to imagine, the dance of the Tree of Life majestically realizing itself through time and space.

As many kinds of human dances exist, so are there many in Biology.

For instance, consider the dance whose performers are energy, molecules and electrochemistry. This is the dance of photosynthesis.

Like an interpretive dancer leaping onto stage, energy bursts from the sun and streams across empty space. Like a ballerina falling into open arms of her partner, reaching Earth the sun's energy lands on a blade of grass. In the partners' embrace there is warmth and deep chemistry. In the blade of grass that chemistry amounts to:

6CO2 + 12H2O + sunlight ---> 6O2 + C6 H12O6 + 6H2O

which is the formula for photosynthesis. Basically the formula says that the blade of grass stores sunlight energy among the chemical bonds of its C6 H12O6, which is its calorie-containing carbohydrate.

An insect eats some of the blade of grass, taking the carbohydrate's sun-energy into its own body. A bird eats the insect taking that energy for itself. Some of that energy is used by the bird but some falls back to the Earth as a bird-dropping, where bacteria and fungi take a little more of the sun's energy, which they use as they enrich the soil for more blades of grass. It is all a dance, an enormous, majestic dance, the dancers dancing the Web of Life.

Every dance has different meanings at different levels. Biology's dances become most meaningful when thought of in spiritual terms. For example, we sentient beings -- we plants and animals -- can be thought of as the Universal Creative Force's nerve endings. In fact, I'm beginning to think that the Universal Creative Force explores Her creation and learns about Herself through the sensations registered by us living things. The misery and joy we feel, our inspirations and our perversions -- maybe these are impulses metaphysically feeding to the Creator, just like sensations as electrical currents feed through our nervous systems to our brains.

Well, who knows what Biology's dances are really like, and what they mean? One thing I sense as correct is this: That Biology's dances, like all dances, arise as spontaneous reactions to moving, profound situations.

Biology's dances celebrate the sheer beauty of being alive, and feeling.