We with our lives are like islands
in the seas, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to
each other with their leaves.... But the trees also commingle their roots in
the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the
ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against
which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our
several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our 'normal' consciousness
is circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the
fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the
otherwise unverifiable common connection.
-William James - the father of
modern psychology