On New Year’s Eve of 1999, artist Daniel Northcott and his friend scaled The Lions, an iconic pair of peaks that rise some 5400 feet above Vancouver, BC. As the first sunrise of the third millennium brightened the sky over Daniel’s beloved hometown, the twenty-year-old could see with prophetic clarity what he wanted to do with the third decade of his life: he would travel the world with a video camera and the intention to weave a story of global unity, cosmic interconnection, and wonder.
Along with video footage, he would collect stones, pottery shards, and other relics that reflected what he called “orbicularity,” his unique cosmology based upon circles within circles. You can read his article on that below this one.
A Journey Begins
Daniel’s wanderlust had recently been ignited by his first trip abroad. After defiantly leaving high school just one month before graduation, he had spent a semester teaching English in Taiwan with his older sister Erin, an experience that had drawn the siblings closer than they had been in years. Despite differences, Dan and Erin–son and daughter of Canadian folk singer Tom Northcott–shared a love of music, learning, and travel, along with a profound trust in each other that would prove to be fateful.
The Dreamer
Of the two, Dan had always been the dreamer. His mother remembers him as a gifted “star child” with an insatiable curiosity and a deep connection to the natural world that compelled him to roam barefoot through the forests and meadows surrounding his rural childhood home.
Even when his Y2K epiphany took him further afield to Egypt, Cambodia, Guatemala, Japan, and dozens of other countries, the self-described “tragic romantic nomad and existential documentarian” preferred to walk with the damp earth beneath his feet and the warm sand between his toes.
His greatest wish was to reconnect all of humanity with the Earth, and to expose the half-hidden patterns that permeate the universe and bind everything together.
Tempting Fate
So intense was Daniel’s fascination with symbolic forms that it led him to tempt fate and provoke the gods. After seven years of traveling and filming, Dan found himself on the Yucatan peninsula, in an ancient Mayan burial cave, amidst the remains of women and children who had been killed in ritual sacrifice.
“Those bones are charged with bad vibes,” his friend warned. “People who have taken these bones home…have gotten sick.” Unfortunately, Dan had already become captivated by a small, calcified sphere that represented his orbicular worldview. He couldn’t resist the urge to drop the bone into his pocket, surreptitiously.
It would be the last souvenir Daniel would collect. Months after returning from Mexico, he was diagnosed with leukemia–cancer of the bone marrow–and given three to six months to live. During that time his body grew weaker, but his spirit remained strong, as did his will to live and to find and return the bone on his way to finishing his epic film.
With characteristic openness and bravery, Dan documented in raw detail his struggle with mortality. His hope for recovery lasted until the end, which came on the summer solstice of 2009, eleven months after his diagnosis and six months before his 30th birthday. As per his request, he was given a green burial, wrapped in a simple cotton shroud.
A Legacy Mission
In his will, Daniel bequeathed over 1000 hours worth of unedited film footage to his sister, along with a request to finish his as-yet-untitled opus. Despite assurances from Dan that her intuition would direct her, Erin was so overwhelmed that nearly three years passed before she felt ready to take on the project. When she did, however, the pieces began to fall magically into place.
Through a producer friend in Los Angeles, Erin connected with Ojai-based Elevate Studios, whose founder Mikki Willis was moved to tears by what he saw and learned about Dan and his vision. Soon thereafter came the title, which had been hidden in plain sight at the end of Dan’s final film sketch and woven throughout his life: Be Brave.
It was a message that Erin herself needed to hear. In another synchronicity of the time, she found the mysterious bone that may have ended Dan’s mission and life. Instead of destroying it in turn, however, the family decided to honor Dan’s desire to return the bone to its initial resting place. Shortly after the long-awaited winter solstice of 2012, Erin left Vancouver for the land of the ancient Maya with a small film crew and a deep desire to finish what her beloved brother had started.
The rest of the story remains unwritten.
Before his passing, Dan predicted that “a bunch of allies would come together to complete his film.” Perhaps he foresaw the talented Elevate team, or maybe he imagined hundreds of like-minded people from all over the world. The project is now being crowd-funded through Indiegogo, where Erin and her family hope to raise $183,000 to edit and market the film. If you feel moved by Dan’s story and inspired by his message, please consider contributing to the campaign to turn the late filmmaker’s dream into a reality.
“The film I want to make in the future will speak every language, cross every country, all of time, and make the journey personal to anyone who watches it. Please help me… Join me and learn what you already know, once and for all. We are the same. We share the same origin. The same apparatus… flesh, bones, blood.”
Daniel Northcott
Orbicularity and the Secondary Evolution Theory
By Daniel Northcott
For those of you who don’t know, I was diagnosed with Leukemia on July 11th, 2008. After 3 rounds of failed chemo, I was not a candidate for a bone marrow transplant, and told that the average person would have around 3 to 6 months to live.
Now it’s over 3 months later, and I am thriving, not dying.
On January 23rd, 2009, at precisely 3:08 pm Pacific Standard Time, the Earth’s population was 6,742,537,118.
1,624,167,700 of those people use the Internet.
In the last 23 days, 8,631,961 people have been born.
3,222,381 cars and 6,765,425 bicycles have been produced.
2,144,306 cellular phones, and 17,732,870 computers have been sold.
$2,385,511,189 has been spent on the tools and execution of war.
698,252 hectares of forest have been lost, 919,010 hectares of new desert have formed, 607,133 tons of toxic chemicals have been released into the elements, and 8,603 species have gone extinct.
There have been 1,384,381,190 tons of carbon dioxide emitted, 9,577,122,735 cigarettes smoked, 66,482 suicides, 2,854,835 abortions, and 39,107 mothers have died during childbirth.
We have traveled 58,239,822 kilometers through space.
All this in the last 23 days since New Year’s 2009 began.
We have 152,253 days left until the end of coal, 61,083 days left until the end of gas, and 15,656 days until the end of oil.
Of the 28,249,105 kilowatts of energy consumed worldwide today, 2,146,904 kilowatts have been from renewable resources, and 26,102,201 kilowatts from non-renewable resources.
It takes 8 seconds for sunlight to reach the planet. Remember that.
The first law of the Universe and Thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
“Entropy” is the Second law of thermodynamics. It states, “In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state.”
Entropy is commonly understood as a measurement of disorder, and when translated into layman’s terms, it means that while Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only go from a useful to a non-useful form. Strike a match, you get smoke, gas becomes exhaust, carbohydrates fuel kinetics, etc. you can only create more entropy and disorder.
I disagree with this absolutely. It has bothered me since I was 16.
It is ignorant, shortsighted, and widely accepted. I believe it is the flaw underlying the basis of our global thesis statement: the bad seed in the great Garden. It is also the key to our Zeitgeist: that which will become known as the awakening of 2012, the moment we grasp Infinity.
In the current understanding of Entropy, we do not recognize the 207,607,216,341 kilowatts of solar energy that has struck the planet since midnight. We do not recognize the manure. We do not recognize our gametes.
We only recognize that which we have built into this equation. What we burn, what we emit. This law expresses a global egocentric truth, which blinds us to the unbearable lightness of being.
Here it is.
There have been two evolutions in our history, with two very different types of Entropy. But we are taught every day, both verbally and nonverbally, that they are one and the same. At the crux of the confusion is this: One creates us, one can destroy us, and both have the power to do so.
The First Evolution is that of the Universe, which needs nothing but itself to exist. Historically represented by the zero value, the shape of a circle, or the moment we call “now.” The signature state of the first Evolution is a ball of energy suspended within another.
Example given: a proton, in an atom, in a cell, on a planet, in a galaxy. Each one is suspended inside the other, and each level is equal in infinity’s eyes.
If you split an atom it can swallow a city. Stars and planets can be consumed by a black hole. If you believe in the “Big Bang Theory” everything began in something smaller than a fleck of dust.
Each one of these is an example of how something incredibly tiny or huge transcends size to become something else that is incredibly huge or tiny; in its own time, in its own space, using “now” and “the Universe” as its vessel and means of travel. This is possible because every level of Infinity is equal in the Universe.
If you grab a pen and draw 5 circles like a target, then label the smallest ring “proton”, the next “atom” then “cell”, then “planet” and the largest ring “galaxy”, then draw = signs in between each ring. You will have drawn the diagram that explains the evolutionary process of infinity.
I call it Orbicularity. Separate (but resulting) from this First Evolution, beginning as so vividly illustrated in the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey…
The Secondary Evolution is what we have carved, crushed, reformulated, developed, and built.
Its signature state is a box contained within another. Example: a microchip, in a computer, in a room, in a house, on a city block. Draw a diagram if you like.
I suspect that the more we manipulate the elements, if we don’t destroy ourselves in the process, we will be drawn inexorably closer to controlling and gaining access to the different levels of Infinity.
The pursuit of this Secondary Evolution is rooted in ancient civilization in the pyramids: a global phenomenon during a specific era that ended inexplicably and led directly to the modern world.
We may be about to undergo a similar change. This Secondary Evolution, which once picked up speed with the invention of the wheel and the shaping of metals and other materials, can only happen through the manipulation of elemental matter and the advancement of our understanding of that manipulation, including but not exclusive to the products of every science and most arts, with the exception of live dance or a cappella singing.
The Secondary Evolution, of Man’s making, needs a builder, composer, or creator.
From this position, it is easy to see why we commonly view the God Concept the way we do—another expression of the global egocentric. It is said that we are made in our Creator’s image. I agree with this completely, but I think it refers to eyes and testicles, not meaning that the Creator of the Universe has a chisel. Whatever God is, it is clearly intentional… and full of patterns. I only mean to recognize those.
When they say, “O my Holy Lord,”… I suspect that “Holy” is an adjective, “Lord” is a pronoun, and both words describe “O,” which is the noun in that sentence.
For millions of years, we knew things we’ve now forgotten. As long as the sun has been in the sky, as long as there have been eclipses, there have also been tribal elders teaching this truth behind our modern misunderstandings. We are not taught to identify with the elements, the sun, the moon, or the planets.
We are increasingly taught, both verbally and non-verbally, to identify with boxes and packaged products like computers. And now, we must all come of age, no matter how late, and return to the roots from which we came, preserving what we have learned along the way and charting a new course accordingly. This new path will include international laws to phase out crimes against creation while preserving personal liberties, raising social responsibility, and building respect for different cultures.
Einstein regarded Entropy as the premiere law of science, and the only law which could annihilate us. As far as the Secondary Evolution is concerned, Einstein was right. We see this currently expressed by global warming, or previously, the Atom Bomb.
As far as the First Evolution is concerned, Einstein was also right about Entropy, as expressed by a supernova or the jet streams from a black hole (but Einstein didn’t believe in black holes). Both types of Entropy share this one similarity, but the similarities end there.
The law of Entropy, as currently taught, states that these evolutions and their functions are one and the same. To add to this confusion, Entropy has become such a buzzword that in addition to its initial usage and resulting applications over the last 50 years, it has taken on a hundred new derivative applications, cementing its definition as “an increasingly disordered state” as in social entropy or ethical entropy.
This has buried our original misunderstanding of the Thermodynamic Concept. If we can change the way we understand this “one thing”…(which is everything), as “two distinguishable evolutions that co-create our reality”… then every single indisputable fact and effect will have a clear cause suddenly appear in our understanding of the world.
We will re-embrace the knowledge of the ancients in the modern world and move forward.
Racism, Homophobia, War, and Capitalism will all take on new meanings. This will become as obvious as the earth being round, which if you’re catching my drift, is deeply ironic and deft. This message is as old as history, and the story before that…We just forget we forget, and we learn the same lessons again and again throughout our lives and all of time. I can only hope to be as effective as Copernicus in my deliverance. The root of our ill-fated conclusions, oversights, and blind spots will rise from avoidance and ignorance to reinvent the seeds of our destruction as a blooming awareness.
We will take the next step in the evolution of human consciousness as this thought explodes exponentially over the winter solstice of 2012.
It will divide from here like healthy bacteria and begin to heal Cognation as a whole. My healing begins here as well. Democracy came from a rock on a beach, which attached to a meaning in one man’s mind and has shaped all of human civilization since. The distinction between these separate evolutions will eventually bring about increased world peace and lessening of cultural tension, as our very confused and heated global subconscious cools with a new clarity.
I understand that there is a logical defense mechanism that activates a rejection of this thought. It is a subconsciously threatening concept, attacking a clear understanding we hold fundamental to our current world paradigm.
I argued it throughout my teen years and have fielded every objection that would seek to make it irrelevant or diminutive.
One day we will see this, like we now see slavery. To identify solely with the Secondary Evolution, is modern global enslavement, whether you have ever heard of Entropy or not. I can assure you that our understanding of it has shaped every aspect of our existence on this planet falsely.
We forget… that it is the Entropy of the First Evolution, that of which We Ourselves are made, that of Orbicularity… which always begins in something smaller than a fleck of dust, and eventually becomes everything that it is, before re-entering infinity on different levels.
You, I, every plant and animal, even the Universe itself, came from something smaller than a fleck of dust, and to the same place, everything will return.
Every single thing that is living, is breathing, right now. And everything…. which is made of nothingness… goes back into itself eventually… whether it is a white light or a black hole. I offer this as “Orbicularity and The Secondary Evolution Theory.”
It is all I have ever really wanted to say, and it begins the completion of a prayer made by an 11-year-old me.
Thank you for reading.
D.
p.s. Tonight, January the 25th, 2009 at 11:55 pm, there will be a new moon in Aquarius and a Total Annular Solar Eclipse over Indonesia, that will form a ring of fire and spell “O” in the sky once more.
******
Editor’s Note: Almost 6 months after writing this essay, Daniel Northcott passed away on June 20, 2009. He left over 1000 hours of his unfinished film to his sister Erin Northcott, who crowdfunded an exceptional amount of money to bring the film to life. However, the project was held up in post-production and seemingly lost. More than a decade later, HBO picked up the project and gave Daniel’s story a new life. It was released in December, 2023.
