The Omega Point Project
and The Noosphere

This sequential depiction of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concepts of the Noosphere and Omega Point consists of 99 drawings in graphite each measuring 30"x 40". The scope of this project includes the formation and evolution of the Noosphere (the planetary layer of human thought), its convergence into a mass circuitry (global consciousness) and its eventual branching out to an energetic unification with God (the Omega Point).

The Omega Point Project and The Noosphere art project

Global Consciousness: 2012 and Beyond

The text and visual selections of the Omega Point Project below are meant to illustrate and hopefully animate the possibilities that lie before mankind at this juncture in our evolutionary development. By giving a name and a face to these possibilities, it is my intention to offer hope and focus to the reader looking for a path forward in a world that seems to be heading toward chaos. If we can keep in mind the fact that in its elaborate history, our world’s evolutionary development has always stopped short of chaos by a self-organizing principal, we can assuage the mounting fears caused by the growing complexity of our present day world affairs.

The lynchpin that is causing a “logjam” of divisiveness in our collective path forward is precisely that humankind cannot pull back far enough to clearly see the cause of the problem and what ‘all encompassing transcendence’ lies before us on our path toward a solution.

While our physical evolution seems to have leveled out, mankind continues to evolve socially, technologically and spiritually. Therefore, in order for the whole of humanity to advance to a higher level of global organization and harmonious industry, there must be a grounding foundation to harness the unbridled growth and energy of our current technological age. Ultimately it must be rooted in human values, namely love, in order to stabilize and focus this transformation. However, man’s harmonious future resulting from love of his fellow man is a premature notion.

While the global population is currently too large in number to harmonize, cultivating a love of Source (God) or the resonance from within each individual to the Source of all life, I suspect, would be enough of a coordinating element to actually untangle our chaotic worldwide dilemma. However, resistance and an inability to surrender to love, as well as to our innate connection to Source, keeps us both as individuals and as a collective whole from grasping the very mainspring of evolution.

What follows in this investigation of the concept of the Noosphere and Omega Point is evidence that our future solutions are inherently contained in our planetary and biological history. Understanding that the answer to our present day dilemma is slated to unravel by gaining perspective of mankind as a collective consciousness, as a child discovers its own individual ego, will help us to see the riches and possibilities that surround us and lie in our near future.

There is a mass global organism of humanity currently equipped with the luxury of instantaneous worldwide communication, yet we hobble along inefficiently and uncooperatively in divisiveness. There are the impoverished and the wealthy, where the few coordinate the many, and 70% of the world is struggling for survival when in fact there is abundance. There is propaganda of individual freedom being our ideal and our birth- right, when in fact the power structure is archaically set up in the same way as a beehive, where there are drones (consumers) instead of citizens (empowered men and women).

Man has however, evolved past the beehive, and is capable of confluence and convergence without enslavement. In the end it is only love (of Source) and of each other that will someday allow true freedom to create solutions and systems that resonate with our common good. Ultimately all must advance together, not just the few. In fact only the principles of love can manage the needs of a growing world and a polluted planet. Only principles of love can turn our gaze from commerce, sloth, addiction, judgment, illness, greed and fear. It is only alliances of love that can focus our powers of problem solving in relation to global housing, to world sharing, to population planning, and therefore facilitate the birth of a functioning global mind that is wise, mature, efficient and benevolent.

The earth is in a healing crisis, while mankind is at a crossroads between standing up or giving up. Each one of us has the ability to trust and exert his or her small, but effective internal voice to ask the creator or coordinator for assistance. Perhaps through daily individual worldwide prayer, we could focus this intention of love and global convergence, purposefully growing this relationship with Source, regardless of religious orientation, until we one-day wake to our collective identity.

To understand how we can awaken a worldwide awareness whose functioning does not lay prey to malevolence, selfishness and fear, we must look at the true nature of the Earth, its history, its evolution, as well as its directive: consciousness.

What follows is this history of cosmic consciousness born from the earth and co-existing above the planet’s surface, the Noosphere.

The Noospshere

The concept Noosphere, literally meaning, “mind sphere”, was introduced by a number of men, but most notably Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in 1926. It was the first time the concept of a thinking layer of our planet was ever presented scientifically. While conceptually similar to its present-day technological equivalent, the Internet, this planetary layer or telepathic web of thought, Chardin believed, was a bi-product or extension of the living layer of our planet, the biosphere. He believed the Noospehere would someday transform the biosphere in its evolution towards global consciousness into a unified super-consciousness. In Teilhard de Chardin’s investigation and presentation of the Noosphere, he not only mapped the evolution of its existence, but ventured further to show that the history and future of our planet, of mankind and of reflective consciousness, are all one unbroken process of cosmic evolution, and ultimately spiritual trust.

Chardin’s scientific observations as a paleontologist and Jesuit Priest traced the pre-life origins of the earth as it formed and developed. His un-precedented realization of the existence of “pre-conscious” matter first presented in his “Phenomenon of Man”, was truly ground breaking for science and cause for alarm within the Catholic Church.

For Chardin, the potential seeds of consciousness actually existing in inorganic matter, eventually evolving into cells, then to conscious living beings, and finally to a network of global consciousness, seem to point to a directive of evolution and to the earth itself. That is to say, it points to evolution serving to create, through man’s self-reflection and freedom of convergence, an organizational network of awareness that is destined to advance beyond matter. It is as if the earth’s inherent nature is to grow consciousness, unify it and ultimately draw this consciousness through the realization of love, to its Source, or as he termed it, Omega.

Chardin’s idea of innately “pre-conscious” inorganic matter evolving was explained by what he termed as a process of “involution” or growing complexity of all matter on earth turning-in on itself, in constant revolving motion, through time. This global growing process, he believed, ignited the pre-disposition of inorganic matter to consciousness over millions of years. By matter’s increasing complexity, he believed a leaping to higher organizational paradigms was possible. Most notably in man, this process of enfoldment or self-reflection is what allowed consciousness to be born. For Chardin, the sequence of evolution began with the elemental leap from in-organic matter to organic matter with the advent of super molecules, and then from cells to animals, and lastly to man and his eventual global dominance.

The Noosphere is evidence of earth and mankind’s current ‘psycho-biologic’ threshold where convergence of thought is the next vast region of evolutionary growth and is, in essence, the last stage of material evolution. From here, the growing complexity of socialization will eventually self-organize as in-folding does. The result will be a transformation beyond technology (or perhaps in tandem with technology) to engage this mental sheath in a blossoming outside its current material restrictions.

Chardin’s vision of the future of the Noosphere, although somewhat hard to envision, is as follows: the sum of every individual within the Noosphere will voluntarily be gathered through love and trust of Source into a unified whole, which will be drawn toward the Super-Christ or Omega waiting for us at time’s end. This Personal Entity, in unity with the sum of each individual together as well as with those who have ever lived, will transcend the earthly dimension and move as one super-conscious mass to explore the vastness of creation.

Using Graphite to Illustrate These Concepts

My method of drawing, using an eraser to rhythmically braid graphite line, creates a wide range from light to dark. While being extremely dark, graphite has an iridescent quality that reflects a spectrum of color. Its grey tones, a result of my eraser forcefully smearing the graphite line, has a unique quality of conveying spirit and dimension within its tonal range.

Carbon exists in two forms on earth: diamond and graphite. The behavioral dynamics of graphite-carbon stem from it being composed of essentially decomposing organic matter. The fourth most abundant element in the universe, carbon is thermodynamically stable, and its abundance and unique polymer-forming ability make this element the chemical basis of all known life.

My artistic-process of layering circles and their reverse with graphite and repeating those movements by cutting through the graphite with an eraser (like faceting a diamond) is how I extract images. As my process generates growing complexities of light and dark through rhythmic circular motion, the laws of complexity naturally allow the eventual attainment of equilibrium or self-organization and a new sense of order from what might have resulted in chaos.

By creating a maelstrom of tonal complexities in rhythmic response to music, I exact through mimicking the in-folding process referred to in Chardin’s description of evolution: concentrated scenarios or sequences of time, depth and space in motion.

The Omega Point Project

My process of creating art described above is in natural concert with Chardin’s description of the evolutionary process of involution through revolving motion that gives birth to consciousness.

I was able to visually display this process by my method of braiding line and erasure rhythmically, and as my work expanded in size, I witnessed the expansion of its visual vocabulary and its organizational capacity. It is this expansion that enabled me to display sequentially the evolution of the Noosphere to the Omega Point.

Simply put, the Omega-Point Project is an artistic display of one hundred drawings in graphite. The arc of these images sequentially map the growth of this planetary layer of thought, the Noosphere, from the birth of consciousness through its development in time to the present, and in the end, ushering us through its transcendence of the material plane into a unified mergence with our Source or Omega. In keeping with my process-driven approach to this subject these drawings, as a whole are an artistic expression that stand on their own.

The display of events depicted in the Omega-Point Project begins with the blackness of the void and then slowly proceed from pre-historic thought-orbs to man’s conscious development. At first the orbs, or spheres, are dense and depicted at close range. As the drawings continue to evolve they grow lighter within their individual orbs and increasingly are depicted at mid-range, revealing more orbital configurations. As the drawings progress new and smaller shapes appear and far-range constellations are formed. With the advent of many new arrivals and groupings of ‘string’ constellations, there comes a moment, a pause, when the 26,000 year cycle of earths half orbit moving away from the center of our galaxy begins its return, as witnessed by its astronomical alignment to our sun and the center of the galaxy, which occurred on December 21, 2012. This momentary pause gave way to the in-breath of a new cycle and thus began the convergence of separate bodies, as they returned to their source. At this point the individual thought-orbs that were separated by black, began to merge together. In an almost claustrophobic encasement this mass circuitry eventually worked its way free of inner restrictions. And in the end, the thought-orbs broke free of their mosaic structure with a blossoming of their interiors into a harmonious transcendence beyond separation.

Afterthoughts

It is anybody’s guess as to when this global transfiguration might occur. However, it is my belief from having been immersed in this subject matter for five or more years, and having been witness to how the process (my method of drawing the Omega-Point Project) of evolution advances, that we are in the last stage of my visual depiction of this process.

Whether it takes five or more years to start unraveling the mosaic of our current paradigm of separation from one another (under the name of ‘personal freedom’) or truly breaking free from separation by a global epiphany caused by a common worldwide phenomenon and then a long road of restructuring, I don’t really know.

While most would imagine our evolutionary transcendence going down the road of crashing and burning, I truly think that view is sadly short sighted. Looking at this global issue based on the old paradigm, or without the element of consciousness and spirituality to balance and make sense of our evolution, is basically refusing to consider that consciousness exists. Consciousness is by nature energy, and man is not made of clay.

When taken out of his routine and forced into having a shared experience, such as a delayed flight at an airport, or in a disaster scenario, people usually become cooperative and loving, showing a real proclivity for helping each other.

I think that as false structures fall (when given enough rope, greed undoes itself) man will find his way to a cohesive and functioning organization of smaller-unit local systems. These smaller systems seen in part or as a whole will reflect the same resonating structure of love and common sense and will increase in these qualities as we are drawn and approach the Source of our Identity.

One may ponder the nature of the personality of the conglomerate of souls assembled in this Identity, but suffice it to say that everyone and everything came from the same beginnings and shares the same evolutionary history, and so assembled or not, we all resonate with Source at our very foundation. Our personal freedoms will, as in life, be born from the expression of our true Self.

Plans for the Omega Point Project

This art project was completed and eventually stored in Santa Fe, New Mexico in September 2009. At that point, Wendy McEahern photographed it and I assembled those images into a book that is available for purchase.

My intention is to display this art installation in an appropriate venue where it can be seen in its entirety with proper lighting and protective frames. To date, I have not found the right circumstances for a show, but it is my intention, seeing the global nature of these concepts, to travel the Project throughout the world, especially to lands that are vastly different in philosophy before returning it to the United States.

It is my intention to show the one hundred drawings on a continuous coiling wall that would begin with the dark Noosphere drawings, coiling inward to the center, ending with the last twelve transcendent lighter Omega Point drawings. I would also like to feature an adjacent room where a projected film of my drawing process would be in play.

Lory Pollina

Artist

www.LoryPollina.com

November, 2013