As the ocean waves lapped upon the shore, lapped upon the shore, lapped upon the shore, lapped upon the shore, after life had its mysterious genesis in the oceans and eons had passed, it was time for life to come ashore to terra firma.

 The first life that crawled out of the ocean was not some big slimy spotted salamander strangely resembling a human or a Disney World Little Mermaid look-alike with long red hair. Almost certainly, it was some bacteria or algae that found itself rudely removed from the only ocean that it had ever known, finding itself in some niche neither ocean nor land, such as a pool removed from the ocean no more than a meter and regularly filled by the ocean. In such an alluvial plane, a unique ecosystem gradually came into being.

 Both bacteria and blue-green algae belong to the taxonomical classification Monera, also known as the Procaryotae, organisms in whose cells the nucleus is not enclosed by a membrane. Monera were likely the first sea life to venture on to land.

First Monera, or its ancestors, inhabited a shallow pool, and gradually the water receded, leaving only land and Monera, equally at home in its new surroundings. Change had come ever so slowly, minimally day-by-day; however, the evolutionary step was no less monumental. This relatively new thing called "life" was obviously intent on going places and doing things. Unlike the matter it had come from, this life was infused with an "elan vitale." There was an essence at its core that drove it to evolve, to improve its positioning, to overcome circumstance , whether by mastering or ignoring it. Such was the essence of life from its beginnings.

At some mysterious early juncture, life came to a proverbial fork in the road so consequential that its choices would define its orientation to circumstance. The life form at that time that we today call "plants" chose the path towards passivity, or the ignoring of circumstance. The life form at that time that we today call "animals" chose the path towards activity, or mastering circumstance.

Plants would diversify and grow, their stalks and leaves reaching upwards towards the sun, their roots towards the earth, their secret life and intelligence forever foreign to animals.

Animals would diversify and grow, their identities towards their dreams, their souls toward the earth. their secret life and intelligence forever foreign to plants.

With genetic variation and their secret ally, the virus, one-celled animals became many-celled animals. The worm gave us a quasi-common-denominator for all advanced animals and worms roamed the seas and soils where wet dirt becomes dry land and water on opposite sides undivided. Land animals turned back to the sea, and sea animals turned to land with cyclical experimentation.

And from the worms  came the fish and from the fish came the streamlined amphibians and from the amphibians came the reptiles and from the reptiles came the primitive mammals like the platypus, and from the primitive mammals came the more advanced mammals like the primates, and from the primates came the humanoids, and from the humanoids came the humans, and the humans are still becoming, and from the still becoming became the reason why.....

While every moment the plants secretly reflect upon their life and revel in their intelligence... the intelligence of passivity, of being one with the sun... 

Life's genesis was in the oceans, for it was well-suited for incubation. But the free air and the firm soil was better suited for life to evolve its intelligence beyond a certain point, and, long before that point was reached, life had the intelligence to seize its opportunity to populate the land. Life, synonymous with intelligence, has a mission, has a purpose, has a reason for becoming.... be it plant or animal, deep inside, all life knows the subtleties of space and time...