It is the manifest intelligence of the cosmic mind. Like the myriad forms it generates in the material world, it too is the expression of an unfolding pattern and is manifested in individual shape. This fleshly garment is continuously generated by our spirit. If we leave the material body, sever connections with it, it begins to disintegrate, to break down, and with the help of other life forms will soon return to the matrix of creation. Our ancestors were right to see all organised forms of matter as living beings, beings imbued with life force and generated by spirit.
Awareness appears to be a property of life itself.
Plants are seen to possess individuality, to respond to music, to make friends with people, to respond with joy when their friend returns home. Plants have been shown to die from loneliness. They are vital expressions of life-force and beings of spirit, generated by spirit even as we are. They do not appear to move or grow although crystal formation can be looked on as a kind of reproduction. Great boulders will lie on the hillside from century to century and never seem to move or breathe or show any signs of what we have been used to call life.