"Illuminations in the Dead of Night"

The following is an excerpt from Dan Millman's book "Sacred Journey of The Peaceful Warrior;" a passage which has brought me some solace in my recent troubling wave of my own awakening.

"I saw the beginnings of time and space, when Spirit became the "ten thousand things": the star forms, the planets, and the mountains, the seas, and the creatures great and small that spawned there.
But there were no humans. Before history, in a time of magic, when MIND allowed it, the legends were born. The animals evolved on earth, growing from all that preceded them. But no human souls existed on the planet. A wave of these souls came down to earth because they were curious about the material realm -- about the animal forms, and about creative-sexual energy -- about what it would be like in a body.
And so they overshawdowed the primitve forms of animals that roamed the earth; they entered them, saw through their eyes, felt through their skin, and experienced the material realm of life on earth. I saw them, I felt them, as they grew ready to leave their animal hosts, and return to their Source. But these souls misjudged the magnetic attraction of the material realm; they became trapped, identified with the animal consciousness. Thus began a great adventure on this planet.
These soul energies, and their humanlike higher consciousness within the animals, impacted the DNA structure, causing immediate and radical evolutionary leaps. The next generation of creatures provided the basis for Greek myths -- centaurs, mermaids, satyrs, and nymphs; half animal, half human, they were the source of legends, the Olympian gods cohabiting with animals and humans.
Time flashed by, centuries in an instant. A second rescue mission was sent; this time, only the most powerful souls made the attempt -- and very few escaped. They, too, remained, trapped by their own desire for power. They became the kings, the queens, the pharaohs, and the chiefs -- the rulers of the lands of earth. Some were like King Arthur; others, like Attila the Hun.
A third and final rescue mission was sent. These very special souls were the most courageous of all -- the peaceful warrior souls -- because they knew they weren't coming back; they knew they would be destined to live within a mortal body for aeons -- suffering, losing loved ones, in mortal pain and fear, until all souls were free.
They were a volunteer mission. And they came to remind all others who they are. They include carpenters, students, doctors, artists, athletes, musicians, and ne'er-do-wells -- geniuses and madmen, criminals and saints. Most have forgotten their mission, but an ember still glows within their hearts and memories of those who are destined to awaken to their heritage as the servants of humanity, and to awaken others.
These rescuers are not 'better' souls, unless LOVE makes them so. They may be lost, or found. But they are awakening, now. Hundreds of thousands of souls on the planet -- becoming a spiritual family."

I hope everyone enjoys this perspective as much as I have!!