So now, let us consider the Soul of nature. First of all, this is equivalent in meaning to the Soul of Earth. Also remember that the Soul of nature, Soul of Earth, is inclusive of humanity since humans too are of and from nature/Earth. Though in certain contexts we distinguish between humanity and 'nature' (or 'natural world') - due to our unique self-conscious relation with the rest of the nature/Earth.
The Soul of Earth is, in truth, the actual Being-Spirit of Earth. Thus, if we consider Who is the Earth, Who is our Earth Mother, or what is the essential Being of the Earth, the answer would be the Soul of Earth. This Soul is the essential seed intelligence of the Earth. It is the Potential Being in our Earth, which is working through the process of evolution to be realized and actualized.
Regular natural science has explicated the many processes of evolution; yet science does not yet understand that a Soul-Intelligence of Earth is urging forth this evolution and trying to actualize its inner Intelligence and Creativity. It is not directing everything in some exact manner, as religious traditions might claim. Instead, it is simply urging this creative process forward towards greater intelligence, harmony, and beauty.
Scientific theory is still applicable. Our creative evolution involves genetic mutations, adaptations, and species survival of the fit. Yet underlying these outwardly observable principles is, according to the belief of an Earth Soul Intelligence, an inward urging -- from the inner essence of all living things -- towards greater intelligence, harmony and beauty. This Soul guidance comes from within things; but this is a general guidance and urging, rather than an exact or specific instruction. And there is no pre-cognition in the Soul about what exactly shall come about from the creative evolutionary process.
So here is a visionary model about all this. The Soul/Being of our planet Earth has a creative urge. She desires to create, from Her own Being, a cornucopia of life diversity -- with the goal of manifesting over evolutionary time finer and finer beings of intelligence, harmony, and beauty. The goal, the desire, is to manifest abundant diversity of intelligence and beautiful harmony from Her Intelligence Potential. Remember that all souls in the cosmos are, essentially, potential intelligences and creative urges seeking to manifest.
Yet the Soul of Earth, just like the soul of ourselves, does not have an exact idea in mind about what to manifest, preconceived before the actual manifestation. For example, it does not have an exact blueprint and proportion of a modern horse and then proceed to make this happen. This kind of sculptor model of creative evolution is incorrect and misleading. There is no pre-conceived exact ideal of the perfect horse -- which evolution is in process of manifesting. There is no exact image or blueprint of the perfect table, the perfect man, nor of the perfect beauty. So it is not like God having an exact idea of what to create and then making it happen, as in most of Christian/Islamic thought; and neither is it that there are perfect ideal 'forms' in the Universal Mind to be manifested, as in Plato.
The actual evolutionary process is much more spontaneous and unexpected. Yet also it is not as chance-random and mindless as modern science is supposing. The Soul Intelligence of Earth is helping the evolutionary process along by giving to the process an inner urging Power to create, plus an Intelligence to learn. This is what true intelligence really is, a capacity to learn; it is not merely about having a set of information.
As well, the Earth Soul has spiritual Aims, which are to manifest diversity in harmony, and complexity in organization, and also love and beauty. These Aims are the directions that the Soul is giving to our evolutionary process. But these Aims do not direct life in an exact or specific manner. It would still be true to say that the Earth Soul has ideas for creation, but general ideas. Then, the specifics and diversity of creation come forth from these general Ideas and Aims.
To manifest diversity, the Earth Soul allows a maximum of freedom within the natural processes of creativity and evolution. Freedom and chance help evolution be more diverse, rather than uniform.
Harmony is also an aim of the Earth, but no exact kind of harmony is imposed by the Earth Soul. Instead, the aim of harmony (or will-to-harmony) has been seeded into the life essence of each living thing. This aim is in the core seed of everything from the very beginning of the evolutionary process, and thus all of life essentially seek harmony with the rest of life. But how this shall be achieved, in each area or situation, is itself a creative learning adventure that has to be worked out by the living processes themselves, rather than this harmony being “designed” from a top-down spiritual power. We each have to work out our harmony with one another and with the rest of nature.
So, this spiritual understanding is somewhat different from an average understanding of “intelligent design.” The basic belief of intelligent design is agreed, that there really is Consciousness and Intelligence pre-existing to the natural evolutionary process and also helping in the natural evolution. But not agreed is that a spiritual/higher Intelligence is exactly or specifically designing anything, nor setting forth all of the events of nature/world with Intelligent direction and design. In fact, there is no 'design' given to nature, nor to any events, in the sense of an exact blueprint.
Yet there is a 'design' given, in the sense of design principles and design parameters, and in that the whole natural creative scheme is “designed” in a general way to creatively, yet unpredictively, achieve the spiritual Aims of the Earth. All of what could be called, general design principles and ideas, are aims within the Earth Intelligence, which guide the evolutionary process in an overall general way, without imposing or implementing any specifics.
To reiterate and further elaborate, the spiritual factors helping along the [otherwise random accidental] evolutionary process are as follows. The creative urge (or will) of our Earth Soul (or Earth Spirit), is a force urging towards diversity and abundance, intelligence and integration, harmony and beauty. Exactly how this will happen, and exactly what will come about, is pre-undetermined and unspecific, because the details and specifics of the creative evolution depend on indeterminable genetic accidents, everchanging habitat conditions and survival probabilities. Each being of life is in a learning process -- learning, as it were, how to achieve the spiritual aims seeded within its own soul.
The second spiritual factor in natural evolution is the intelligence of our Earth Soul. This gives intelligent direction to the basic creative urge and general aims of the Earth, as discussed just above. Intelligence has two aspects.
One is a know-how. The Earth Intelligence begins with a general know-how about how life can be created, sustained and evolved. Then, over the evolutionary process, it learns more and more know-how, and it accumulates this in a memory storage, which in esoterica is known as the Earth's mental plane and akashic records. This intelligence is more specifically stored in the Deva Intelligences, which are earth oversouls for the different species and geographic spirits of land.
The second aspect of intelligence is the capacity to learn, which is the most important of all, since intelligent know-how depends on learning. Therefore, the capacity or ability to learn is the most essential foundation of intelligence. And it is the most essential meaning of intelligence, for he/she who can learn is truly intelligent. These aspects of intelligence are both important to understanding natural evolution, because the very process requires first the capacity to intelligently learn and, second, an accumulated memory of learned know-how.
In mythological or in religious understanding, the Earth is bringing forth the diversity and abundance of life from Her own Being; that is, from Her own will-to-life and intelligence. All of life on Earth is coming from Her own Being. This includes what we call natural life and also our human lives. She gives birth to all of us from Herself. That is, from Her physical body, Her emotional body, and Her mental/intelligence body.
So the final aspect of Herself (the Earth Soul) yet to mention is regarding the emotional aspect, which essentially is love. Love is an aspect that is part of the evolutionary process. In one sense, love is an ultimate Aim, in that living beings evolutionarily develop their inherent capacity to love; but in another sense, love is already involved throughout the whole process. Love is the mystery aspect in the evolutionary process that is most unrecognized. Simply consider how important to the whole evolutionary process is love and caring. For how would any species really survive without it? ... such as the survival need for mother's love and caring. Natural science calls this instinct, rather than love, but the emotional reality of love cannot really be dismissed or reduced to mere instinct. Certainly, there is something greatly missing in a scientific reductionism to instinct.
Then, besides love and caring being inherent in the soul essences of all life, (this love and caring passed on from the Earth Mother), there is also an inherent desire for enjoyment. The aim or urge or desire towards enjoyment is neglected in both scientific theory and most spiritual theories. Yet enjoyment is certainly a key fundamental aim and desire pervading through all life. Each living thing of life seeks some kind of enjoyment, and even more so with higher evolved lives. So we can rightly say that our Earth Soul, Mother Earth, seeks enjoyment, and in many possible diverse ways and on many levels from physical sensation to abstract intellectual. Her enjoyment is attained by our enjoyment, since She is the greater Body in which we live and enjoy. And our desires for enjoyment come from Hers.
See related chapter, Nature's will-to-harmony