We are very much closer to the animal kingdom of Planet Earth, and much closer connected to the great web of life, than we both hope, and fear.

That is the Garden of Eden, a paradise lost, something that we humans can no longer be a part of? as once we were.

I have noticed for a long time that deep inside all people, there exists a remembrance of what I call "The Time of Green"-- a time from before, when there was no conscious awareness, and life was lived in the moment, entirely connected to everyone, and everything around. When there was no loneliness, no heartache, no suffering and no pain -- at least not the kind that we humans experience today.

To some, this is a cause for amusement, others are simply horrified to be reminded of something that they would much rather forget.

There is a great longing, and a great homesickness for the time of green in all humans, but it important to understand that we can't turn back the clock.

Latest research shows that we share a staggering 98% of our genes with chimpanzees -- structurally, there is only a 2% difference between us and "the animals".

That too is totally doomed to failure.

Life is a journey into future's realms, always forward, never even looking back; we can't go back to Paradise or the time of green when we were innocently and unknowingly at one with the animal kingdom and all life on Earth.

Some spiritual approaches understand this and so they try and move us forward but too fast -- these religions try to make "angels" out of living people.

We can't "de-volve" and turn back into animals; that's not how Creation works, that's not how evolution works.

We are still very much animal, and we are still very much right here, and a part of this creation, this physical planet.

It is doomed because? we came from the animals, and we still share 98% of even the most evolved animal's DNA, and that tethers us firmly into the web of life on Planet Earth, even if often it doesn't feel like that.

We can try and think of ourselves as being "better" than animals but it is clear that we are far from better -- many think that our actions, thoughts and deeds make us a million times worse than the innocent animals who have no evil, have no capacity of free will, and do not seem to seek destruction like we do.

We cannot forget where we came from, because it is too much of who and what we are; and so the crazed monks may flagellate their genitals until the end of time, they can never achieve true enlightenment that way.

There are three states -- animal, human, and angel, and we're right in the middle, and that is hard.

But if we can learn to love it all -- animal, human, and angel just the same, it is then that a new state of grace comes into being, a harmony becomes.

The tension ends then, for all is love, past, future and present; and all is right, all is just, and all is just so as it should be.

It seems to me that one the greatest challenges of human spiritual development, and the human journey through life in general, is how we handle being here in the middle, with the past, the time of green, being so attractive and calling to us in so many ways, and the future on the other side, when humans once again come home to the web of all, but not as an animal would, but instead, as an angel, which is also incredibly attractive and also represents the cure for all our ills, and our ill doings.

To love the animals, to love just a single animal, perhaps just once in your lifetime, starts to make that connection happen. It is a precious, powerful thing and the love of the animals brings us back, reconnects us to where we came from, and it might start right there, that the love for all is planted, and begins to grow.

And so, and in a very real and practical sense, animals are our angels.

We -- each one of us -- are a part of this procession.

The great, triumphant procession of life goes on.

We are here, and we are now, and we are exactly what we are -- not animals, not angels, but humans.

We are loved by Creation just the same and once we remember how to love ourselves, the animals and angels just the same as well, and all is simply one love, then we come home into the web of all Creation, and the Garden of Eden, Paradise is no longer in the past or in the future, but right here and now, awaiting our footfalls.

If they are angels, then we must be angels too -- even though we are human beings, and have thought and done many things that were not strictly made from love, but from fear or anger, sadness or desperation, or simply because we didn't know any better and did the best we could.