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.

Our Deepest, Greenest Spiritual Task

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What is necessary for us humans to cultivate a sustainable, creative, optimistic relationship with all life on our Mother Earth?

The underpinning of this task is our inborn but often disregarded love for Nature, for the Green World. Inhabiting this love requires our hearts to get bigger, to hold more, and to expand into the infinite, living field of love that originates in the Earth herself. In this field, we each know our own heart as a welcoming, caring container for all beings and places on our beautiful planet, and not as a discriminatory tool for sorting out who we love and who we don’t or can’t or shouldn’t love. [Read more…] about Our Deepest, Greenest Spiritual Task

Nature Magic for Everyone

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That’s the name of the book I’ve been writing since last summer!

Here’s the subtitle: Ways to Become Wiser, Happier and More Useful to the Sacred Land.

In these times when it’s hard to know how to even face what’s happening on our planet—much less have any faith that we can really help—this book offers a unique and optimistic perspective.

It’s partly a compendium of the basics of Earth-Centered Spirituality, based on my decades of study of both Native American and Celtic/Western practices; partly a primer on Deep Ecology, the contemporary discipline that challenges us humans to change ourselves rather than “fix” outer things, by, first, recognizing the inherent value of all living beings and ecosystems; partly a Memoir of my profound, illuminating, sometimes delightfully shocking encounters with the more-than-human world and its inhabitants; and partly a no-punches-pulled Critique of the modern world’s catastrophically destructive, human-centered, patriarchal beliefs, values and actions. [Read more…] about Nature Magic for Everyone

Green Hearts, Green Love

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When I was about 9 years old, another girl and I were discussing what our favorite color was. My little friend, in a burst of childish patriotism, dramatically declaimed that her favorite colors were red, white and blue. I replied unhesitatingly that my favorite color was green—and that it was “underneath” all the other colors. We wouldn’t even have red, white and blue, I declared, if we didn’t have green.

Recalling this conversation more than 60 years later, I’m amazed that my 9-year-old self knew this. Yet it’s something I’ve always believed: The color Green gives meaning, grounding and life to everything—from the sustaining, microscopic green of plants’ chlorophyll, which, directly or indirectly, feeds all planetary life; to Gaia’s vast, exuberant, ever-ramifying life-web that exists around and within us, and gifts our hearts, souls, and senses with endless beauty and vitality. [Read more…] about Green Hearts, Green Love

The Path of Gaia

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garden pathAfter writing Gaia’s Blog for over a year, I’m circling back to the most central questions: Who is Gaia? How can we understand and unite with Her as fully as possible?

In mythology, “Gaia” typically refers to the Goddess of the Earth, the ancestral Mother. Indeed, another way to refer to Gaia might be as Mother Earth, the entirety of the physical planet—the waters and forests and prairies, and more fine-grained manifestations like the plants and animals.

To the visionary scientists who developed the Gaia Hypothesis 50 years ago, “Gaia” means the total, measurable physical/chemical/biological level of the planet, which, they proposed, is an intelligent, self-regulating system perpetually seeking homeostasis—even, or especially, in response to the ongoing breakdown of the biosphere. [Read more…] about The Path of Gaia

Becoming “Woke” on Behalf of Gaia

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These days we’re being confronted on all sides with a wide variety of human grievances. We’re even being urged to re-examine the very words we use, to become more “woke” to systemic discrimination and oppression.

As a relatively privileged white woman, I can’t imagine the trauma of centuries of oppression and mistreatment of Native and Black people, and their justified outrage about that. But one way I can get close to understanding it is when I contemplate the violence and aggression long perpetrated by men on women and girls. I can certainly resonate at times with the temptation to dismiss all men as arrogant, destructive, and hopelessly ignorant, if not downright complacent, about the vast male-supremacist ocean in which we all swim. (This despite the fact that in my own life, I enjoy close and respectful friendships with men who honor the Feminine in the world and themselves.) [Read more…] about Becoming “Woke” on Behalf of Gaia