FRANK WHITE | Friend Nature: Artist D.A. Hartley

Please enlarge for better viewing.

Directed by Guy Reid

Concept: Guy Reid and Steve Kennedy

Features:

EDGAR MITCHELL, RON GARAN, NICOLE STOTT,

SHANE KIMBROUGH, JEFF HOFFMAN, FRANK WHITE,

DAVID BEAVER and DAVID LOY.

Link: http://vimeo.com/planetarycollective/overview

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This portrayal of planet Earth has effected me beyond words…

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Astronaut Edgar Mitchell sought to find a philosophy that would express

what he experienced viewing planet Earth from space.

After a search, with no results, he contacted an university to research this,

and they told him about a Hindu philosophy, Sankalpa Samati.

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Sankalpa Samati

“For the success of the sankalpa, certain conditions must be met.

The sankalpa is like a seed that will have tremendous power,

but only if it is sown in fertile ground, looked after and tended daily,

with the inner certainty that the seed will produce its fruit in its own time.

After the sankalpa is made, the mind nurtures it at deeper levels

as the roots of the seed go further down, the emotions express it as a

positive feeling that has power and strength, the body resonates with it,

and the intellect does not question it – ever.

Faith is where all the dimensions of the personality are in harmony,

undivided and moving in the same direction together. How can it not succeed?

Lastly, the sankalpa need not be influenced by words alone.

It may also be visualized symbolically as an image,

felt as a sensation; it may bring up certain feelings which have a recognizable force

or are just quietly known.

In the end the sankalpa is not just something nice you say three times twice in yoga nidra,

but it is a motivating force that you are living and moving toward

all the time, every day.”

Swami Anadakumar Saraswati

http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2005/ajan05/sanknat.shtml

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“I think you start out with this idea of what it’s going to be like…and then when you do finally look at the Earth for the first time…you’re overwhelmed by how much more beautiful it really is, when you see it for real.

It’s just like its this dynamic, alive place, ..that you see glowing all the time..”

-Nicole Stott, Shuttle, ISS Astronaut

“When we look down on the Earth from space, we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet, ..it looks like a living, breathing organism..”

– Ron Garan, Suttle, ISS Astronaut

Stewart Brand

About 40 years ago I wore a button that said, “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?” Then we finally saw the pictures. What did it do for us?

The shift that has happened in 40 years which mainly has to do with climate change. Forty years ago, I could say in the Whole Earth Catalog, “we are as gods, we might as well get good at it”. Photographs of earth from space had that god-like perspective.

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Kim Bhasin | Business Insider

A short film released by Planetary Collective called “OVERVIEW” has some fantastic interviews with astronauts who described their experience seeing Earth from space.

It’s something that can’t be replicated and it totally changes your perspective.

The “overview effect,” first described by author Frank White in 1987, is the sudden recognition that we live on a planet. The experience transforms a person’s perspective of Earth and mankind’s place upon it, and he or she begins to think of Earth as more of a “shared home” and have a strong feeling of awe.

From shuttle astronaut Jeff Hoffman:

“You do, from that perspective, see the Earth as a planet. You see the sun as a star – we see the sun in a blue sky, but up there, you see the sun in a black sky. So, yeah, you are seeing it from the cosmic perspective.”

Shuttle/ISS astronaut Nicole Stott:

“We have this connection to Earth. I mean, it’s our home. And I don’t know how you can come back and not, in some way, be changed. It may be subtle. You see difference in different people in their general response when they come back from space. But I think, collectively, everybody has that emblazoned on their memories, the way the planet looks. You can’t take that lightly.”

Shuttle/ISS astronaut Ron Garan:

“When we look down at the earth from space, we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet. It looks like a living, breathing organism. But it also, at the same time, looks extremely fragile.

… Anybody else who’s ever gone to space says the same thing because it really is striking and it’s really sobering to see this paper-thin layer and to realize that that little paper-thin layer is all that protects every living thing on Earth from death, basically. From the harshness of space.”