Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
The last to arrive in the emerging symbiosis were the chloroplasts, once free-living
photosynthetic bacteria that now live inside plant and algal cells as their photosynthetic
powerhouses. The host cell must originally have been an oxygen-breathing symbiotic
predator that probably derived a great deal of nourishment from eating the free-living,
sugar-rich photosynthesisers. But here too there was a possibility for the transmutation
of a predator-prey relationship into one of mutual benefit. For the predator, there were
clear advantages in consuming some of the sugars made by the photosynthesisers, which
in turn benefited from the protection and mobility of their host.
Journey to the Mitochondria
Find a quiet place to relax—your Gaia place perhaps—and spend some time
breathing quietly. When you are ready, tune into the feeling of your own body.
Dwell for a while in a sense of your body's warmth, of it resting on the chair or
the ground, of your breathing, your heartbeat. Be aware of what you see, hear,
taste and smell as you relax.
Now shrink yourself down smaller and smaller, until you become small enough
to pass easily through one of the pores in one the multitude of cells that make up
your liver. You are inside a liver cell, looking around at the stunning complexity
and intricacy of the structures surrounding you.
Now choose one of the many mitochondria that float in front of you and move to-
wards it. Touch it now, feeling its wondrous thrumming softness as it provides life-
giving energy to the rest of the cell by breaking food molecules apart with oxygen
brought to it from the air.
Sense the mitochondrion as an alien, as a being whose ancestors were once, thou-
sands of millions of years ago, voracious free-living predators.
Savour the recognition that, long ago, the ancestors of this very mitochondrion
tamed their aggressive instincts and began to cooperate with the very cells they
had once destroyed.
