When two strangers meet, their consciousness connects through qualia. They see each other. Sounds pass back and forth. Certainly, they judge each other, but good people (and all people have goodness in them), are searching for something they hold in common, some shared qualia. (Even a name – “that was my grandfather’s name!”)
When we accept another person into our landscape, for a moment or for a lifetime, we realize that they have a landscape, too. At first their landscape only intersects ours. We realize that the landmarks and pathways we each notice may be completely different. What makes the relationship endure, however, is that we are interested in the qualia that informs their landscape. Our participation consists of allowing them to guide us through their landmarks and pathways – and inviting them into ours.
No husband, for instance, can fully understand the participation mystique his wife has with all her landmarks and pathways; they speak to her in subtle, unique ways he could never sense, nor fully imagine. Nor could she grasp his, but their love will balance upon the qualia they do share, and with which they both evolve, together.
Shared qualia creates local consciousness, and therefore all consciousness is local. On a galactic level, we are conscious of the light from the stars. In that minuscule yet miraculous vision, we share consciousness. On our planet, we are conscious of other countries, their cultures, and their laws. We are conscious of the plant and animal kingdoms. Every being is conscious of every other being through the qualia they share.
Understanding ecosystems expands our consciousness. We can never learn everything there is to know about the interconnected consciousness of another person, much less the consilience of qualia in ecosystems. Even if we could, we couldn’t communicate it to anyone. The truth is, we can never even learn everything there is to know about our own self.
At a certain point, all that we know about our self, about anyone else, or even anything else, matters not at all. The faith that qualia will guide us transcends knowledge and landscape intelligence. Local consciousness has immense power over us. If our relationships are sick, with a person or a planet, we are sick. Yet their wholeness makes us better. Find the love, find the ecosystem, and we can find the center. The balance. That we can grok.