How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I’ve gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career. – Jill Bolte Taylor

The right brain, totally present in the now, has holistic visions and wordless wisdom. It speaks in silence, images, intuition and dreams. It is a parallel processor and cares about emotional expression, context and synthesis. The right brain loves abstraction – it loves, in general. While the left brain is busy cutting the universe up into pieces, the right brain brings it all back together with open arms and a song. Whether we see a forest as a cash cow or a sacred sanctuary depends on which hemisphere we are using.

Actually, there is only one brain, with separate right and left hemispheres in the cerebral cortex, but to simplify things we say right brain or left brain. The left brain is the realm of language; it talks (incessantly), judges, lives in the past and future, thinks linearly and literally, makes lists and gets things done. It is a serial processor – logical, sequential, rational. The left brain gets good grades and all the rewards in our society.

Our left brains have been ruling the roost. We have become so left brained, so lopsided in our brain use, it’s amazing that we don’t limp and that our heads are still round! We have proven that the intelligence of the left brain is awesome. But it is a bit chatty, and doesn’t have a clue about context, peace, the meaning of life. While it keeps us busy, it doesn’t make us happy. As a result, collectively, we find ourselves in deep trouble. But simultaneously, we are on the verge of an evolutionary transformation, for the right brain has held its own and carried on quietly while being ignored. But times are changing.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s experience, for example, has inspired thousands of people. At 37-years-old, this young brain scientist suffered a stroke and watched the entire process, including a deep immersion in the realm of the right hemisphere of the brain. While the right and left hemispheres of the brain do work together, they do so with enough distinction that when Jill’s left brain shut down during her stroke, she experienced blissful silence, and had an awareness of the whole, of the one ocean of energy. She said it was Nirvana. View her right brain perspective in an-18 minute video at www.ted.com/speakers/view/id/203

Eckhart Tolle teaming up with Oprah to offer millions of viewers the opportunity to participate in free, online classes for A New Earth – totally right brain wisdom – is another powerful example of the shift that is occurring. And simple, but powerful, energy healing techniques like EFT and EMDR are healing people where Western medicine has failed. Pointing to the power of the right brain, when the famous chemist Kekulé was stumped about the molecular structure of benzene, in a dream he saw a snake biting its own tail. He awoke with the answer. Benzene was shaped like a ring. As Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

In an article entitled “The Revenge of the Right Brain,” published in Wired Magazine in 2005, Daniel Pink says that, in this new “Conceptual Age,” we would be wise to develop the right brain skills of meaning-making, empathizing and creativity because all the left brain jobs are being usurped by computers or sent overseas. His recommendation? “Go right young man and woman; go right.”

We’re in a bad situation, here on our small planet. The perfect storm. No mastery of the multiplication tables is going to see us through this crisis. We need a stroke of luck or a waterfall of grace, depending on which labels our left brain likes. We need things to go right. Not more information or clever antics; we need wisdom. And fortunately we can access greater wisdom by moving to the right of the left hemisphere. So how do we get there? Taylor says, “I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep, inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be.”

We can get there through silence, art, music or a walk in the woods. Meditation, yoga, tai chi, singing, dance. By authentic spiritual practices, imaginative play, energy work and holding a baby. Immersion in love. Being present, being quiet, watching – inside and out. Ask the right brain!

Mother Nature allotted 50% of the higher brain’s real estate to an unfathomable intelligence inside us that speaks nary a word, sees the whole picture and is intimately connected to the source of peace. As Jill Taylor said, we can “… purposely choose to step to the right of our left hemispheres and find this peace.”

This is earth shattering news to the left brain. But it isn’t the left brain that needs to hear it. Something else needs to. The awareness that recognizes we have a right and left brain. Who is it that has a right and left brain? That is the seat of consciousness.

How do we get there? Close your eyes, turn right, be silent and you’re there.

Joanne Sales is an organic blueberry farmer, writer and teacher in Qualicum Beach. joanne@glasswing.com, www.joannesales.com