Something new is born. It is just now opening its eyes and becoming self-aware. It is the conscious community. It has seven billion minds, seven billion sets of eyes and seven billion different impressions of the taste of water, the meaning of water. Yet it is of one mind on some things. It prefers life to death, for example. Joy to sorrow and pleasure to pain. There's currently a surprising consensus on economics, government and war and political leaders, and its not good. It's as if there were a drawn breath, a pause to consider what to do. When this new thing is certain, when all the eventualities of the current state have played out, a solution will present itself, organically. All seven billion minds will achieve something new. The republic of inalienable rights and intelligences issuing from the free offering of concerted minds toward a common solution will stand up. In a quiet voice, someone will speak and it shall be so-- as much an observation as an improvisation. Thus it is, they will say, and thus it shall be. And the idea of grace, of something watching over you, of having entered some protected state of harmony and safety, and the quality of mercy will descend through the clouds of dissension and disgrace like sunbeams and rain falling on all alike. Seven billion hearts and lungs and mouths will say let there be peace, and let there be enough for all, and let not innocent lives be taken. And all the obstructive dialectic of the profit-takers will not resist. When the republic of minds,the united conscience, wakes up and sees itself and the world as it is, the burden of responsibility will be shouldered and soberly faced, for with knowledge comes responsibility. Yet the scamp of human ingenuity and dreams will not vanish, but be prized. And the republic of minds will breathe a sigh of relief at having come of age, at last, and embark upon the voyage beyond sunset, beyond all sunsets, beyond all borders and barriers, and be free.