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Gaia’s Blog

The Decline of the Green Heart

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Our hearts have countless life-affirming capacities. When we are in the force of the heart, we want to connect, to include, to praise, and to share. We can feel compassion, generosity and joy. We sense our deep intuition and responsive discernment. We know ourselves as one with all beings, human and non-human, material and spiritual.

The heart is our true center, so it also knows about dynamic equilibrium. It has the capacity to harmonize birth and death, creation and destruction, when they are in service to Life’s irresistible unfolding.

And, when fully in our hearts, we are empowered to say “No” when it must be said: No to cruelty and aggression, to arrogance, to greed, to selfishness. [Read more…] about The Decline of the Green Heart

The Justice of the Fire

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“My brothers and sisters, let’s all build a new world [based in]
The Green, the Peace of the Forest, and
The Red, the Justice of the Fire.”

Padrinho Alfredo, the leader of Brazil’s Santo Daime church, received a hymn 8 years ago that contained those lines. In the year 2020, when some of the worst forest fires ever recorded burned through the western and southwestern US, and are still burning in California as I write this, these words have taken on new significance. [Read more…] about The Justice of the Fire

Gaia in the Center

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A year or so ago I had a dream: I am in what seems to be a church, and the altar—the holy place that radiates spiritual force and blessings to the congregation—is in the center of the room, with space for the congregation all around it. But the “altar” is actually not a human-constructed altar—it is a vast virgin forest. In the mysterious way of dreams, an endless, verdant forest manages to also occupy a delimited area at the center of this church-like physical space. And symbolically it clearly shows that the forest is at the center of the spiritual work that takes place here.

I grew up irregularly attending the United Church of Christ until I was 10 or 11, when I lost interest. One thing I remember is the solemn layout of the church, with the pews fixed rigidly in place, lined up to face the altar and raised pulpit in front, where the minister delivered his weekly sermons. It didn’t feel much different from going to an assembly in the auditorium at school, with the authorities in front, standing above and removed from the “congregation” of us restless kids. [Read more…] about Gaia in the Center

Gaia-Centered Spiritual Practices–Part II–Smudging

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“Smudging” is using the smoke from burning herbs and resins to cleanse and purify oneself and one’s space, often as a prelude to spiritual practices or ceremonies. The burning of incense, flower petals, bark, resins and leaves for spiritual purposes is a universal ancestral practice, and indeed has an enduring tradition of being used even in mainstream religions around the world.

I recently read a disturbing article about people illegally harvesting white sage (Salvia apiana) to make smudge sticks. These are widely sold online and used all around the world, predominantly by people who have no idea where the plant comes from. As a result, wild white sage, which grows only in certain areas of California and Mexico, is dwindling, mainly due to depredation by poachers who then sell it to distributors. Local Native Americans quoted in the article say they themselves are the original users of white sage in smudging rituals. They bemoan the abuse and commodification of the plant; and also claim that the entire practice of smudging should only be done by Native people, and anyone else doing it is guilty of cultural appropriation. [Read more…] about Gaia-Centered Spiritual Practices–Part II–Smudging

Gaia-Centered Spiritual Practices—Part I

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What attitudes and practices can we cultivate in ourselves that will help us attune to our Gaia-nature? (Remembering that we already know deep within us that we belong to Gaia’s Green World.)

My sense is that the people reading this already lead a spiritual life of some kind. But let’s do a quick check to make sure our existing beliefs and practices are attuned with Gaia as well as they could be. (Read my previous posts to flesh out these ideas.)

Does your path/liturgy/doctrine focus solely on the direction Up, and disregard or even denigrate the direction Down? Hmmm…some adjustment may be called for here. [Read more…] about Gaia-Centered Spiritual Practices—Part I