Gaia Blog

Gaia’s Blog: Seeds for a Resilient, Earth-Centered Future

Deep Ecology and Earth-Centered Philosophy

In the 1970s, some out-of-the-box folks in the emerging field of ecology began to ask deeper questions about how to understand and restore the land. They began wondering about humans’ authentic place in the web of life, how we lost that, and how we might get it back. This led to the radical conviction that our thinking needs to become bio-centered, not human-centered. This shift in perspective opened the door to a new, “deeper” body of science and literature, of ideas and practices, that both challenge and inspire us to claim our true place in Gaia’s web.

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

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

Going With Gaia’s Grain–Part II

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A few posts ago I presented the idea that we can choose to go with Gaia’s grain, and therefore, against the grain of the currently dominant human-created world. We can attune ourselves with Gaia’s fundamental principles, which, right from the start, are in a totally different dimension from human-centeredness. The latter assumes that human beings are separate from and superior to the rest of creation. Gaia-centered thought begins by assuming that human beings, like all beings, exist within Gaia’s vast web and are interconnected with all physical and spiritual life on Earth. Therefore, if we study Gaia’s rhythms and patterns, we can get clues about ways to start going with Her grain.

One important clue is the circle, and its wilder sister, the spiral. We know that Nature works in circles and ever-returning cycles: the cycle of a day, of the seasons, the moon in a month, the sun in a year, and the ceaselessly-repeating cycle of Life, from birth to growth, to maturity, decline and death, followed by regeneration and rebirth. [Read more…] about Going With Gaia’s Grain–Part II

Gaia’s True Abundance–Part II

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About 15 years ago, some people I then knew were enthralled with a movie called “The Secret,” about how to achieve prosperity through the Law of Attraction. Drawing on supposedly ages-old esoteric spiritual principles, the movie claimed to reveal how to use your mind and ambition to visualize what you want, no matter what it is, and then draw that to yourself. The example that I recall most clearly was a boy who really, really wanted a new bicycle, and, it was implied, manifested it simply through the power of positive thinking.

When the movie was over, instead of being inspired, I felt a sense of unease. There is certainly something to be said for believing oneself to be worthy and deserving—indeed, many of us have had to overcome a deep inner sense of unworthiness, sometimes through years of counseling or therapy. But something seems to be missing in this picture. No matter how genuinely worthy I know myself to be, do I really, by definition, deserve to have anything I want?? [Read more…] about Gaia’s True Abundance–Part II

Gaia’s True Abundance

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Visualize a beautiful earth, untouched by human greed. Imagine crystal clear skies everywhere, wild waters pure enough to drink, and vast, clean, undisturbed wild forests, deserts and seacoasts. It’s almost impossible for us to imagine, even those of us fortunate enough to live in fairly intact, semi-wild areas. In other, less fortunate places—in the cities, in the fossil fuel extraction zones, and the industrial agriculture zones—clean air, land and waters have been not only unattainable but almost unimaginable for generations. And humanity is in a constant state of deep grief because of this, whether we know it consciously or not. [Read more…] about Gaia’s True Abundance