• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Gaia Blog

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

  • HOME
  • GAIA’S BLOG
  • ABOUT MARY JANET
  • CONTACT

Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies

Humans are innately part of Gaia’s enduring, ever-changing life-web. When affirming and celebrating this truth becomes central to our spiritual path, we can participate in a living harmony with the Sacred Land and with one another. Our practices and prayers, ceremonies and songs, are co-created organically with and for the great being of Gaia. Instead of resonating with the depleting vibration of the human-created world, we regain our capacity to attune with the rhythms and patterns of Nature.

Whose Heart Is It?

May 4, 2021 by Fowler

We normally think of our hearts as “belonging” to us. And yes, our heart is undeniably part of our physical body, as a muscle ceaselessly pumping our blood around, and literally keeping us alive.

On the emotional level, we are told early and often that our hearts “belong” to romantic love.
This begins as the simple, adolescent love of infatuation, which, ideally, matures into more nuanced, balanced love for a partner and for families and friends. [Read more…] about Whose Heart Is It?

Filed Under: Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies, Home Featured Left

Creating Spiritual Hope Spots in Nature

November 25, 2020 by Fowler

For some years now, renowned marine biologist and oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle has been promoting the idea of “hope spots” in the world’s oceans.

A hope spot is a relatively intact area in the ocean that has been scientifically identified as critical to overall ocean health. Once a hope spot is recognized, it is championed by local conservationists, with logistical and scientific assistance from Mission Blue, Sylvia’s organization. The overall idea is that if we can work to support the resilience and diversity of places in the ocean where things are still working well, this resilience can gradually expand into less healthy areas, promoting ever-widening ocean recovery and regeneration. [Read more…] about Creating Spiritual Hope Spots in Nature

Filed Under: Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies, Home Featured Right

Our Kids’ Green Hearts

November 10, 2020 by Fowler

A few years ago, on a late summer’s day, I was hiking in the nearby mountains. The multitude of wildflowers that had been blooming all summer were now going to seed, and all the seed-eating birds were taking full advantage. At the edge of a meadow, I caught sight of some gawky young house finches. They were flying around, sampling seeds and displaying the general goofiness typical of recently-fledged birds. Suddenly one of them left its perch and flew briskly toward a tall, upright flower stalk crowned with a big puffy seed head. When it landed, the entire stalk bent over to the ground, and the surprised bird literally fell off, upside down onto the grass. Flailing its little wings, it righted itself and indignantly flew away. And I practically fell on the ground too, from laughing so hard. [Read more…] about Our Kids’ Green Hearts

Filed Under: Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies, Home Featured Left

Grounding Our Green Heart

October 28, 2020 by Fowler

How can we humans live fully in our hearts? From a Gaia-centered perspective, what we need to relearn is this: Our heart is completely linked with the natural world. Thus it has a built-in propensity to connect and ally with all life, not just other humans.

The heart chakra isn’t green by accident. Our heart resonates not only with human beings, but also with the Earth’s forests, mountains, oceans and rivers, and the material and spiritual beings who live there. Our hearts are nourished by relationship, connection and generosity toward humans and equally toward the entire more-than-human world. This makes it very important to keep our hearts healthy, robust and grounded in Gaia’s totality. [Read more…] about Grounding Our Green Heart

Filed Under: Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies, Home Featured Right

Gaia-Centered Spiritual Practices–Part II–Smudging

September 30, 2020 by Fowler

“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

Filed Under: Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies, Home Featured Right

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

The Latest from Gaia’s Blog

Green Hearts, Green Love

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 … [Read More...] about Green Hearts, Green Love

Acting Like We Have Relatives

I’ve been told that the Dineh people of the desert southwest describe someone who has gotten grievously off-track in his life and behavior by saying: “He’s acting like he doesn’t have any … [Read More...] about Acting Like We Have Relatives

garden path

The Path of Gaia

After 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” … [Read More...] about The Path of Gaia

Becoming “Woke” on Behalf of Gaia

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 … [Read More...] about Becoming “Woke” on Behalf of Gaia

Standing Firm in Gaia

Back in the 1990s I participated in a weekly psycho-spiritual therapy group. During one session, while sobbing in despair about all the human assaults on the natural world, I let it slip that I … [Read More...] about Standing Firm in Gaia

Blog Topics

  • Ancestral Spirituality
  • Deep Ecology and Earth-Centered Philosophy
  • Earth-Centered Practices and Ceremonies
  • Gaia and the Divine Feminine
  • The Sacred Land’s Wisdom

ENews Sign Up

Join my mailing list and receive an occasional short email from me with my latest blog writings.
—Mary Janet

Gaia-Blog.com • ©Copyright Mary Janet Fowler, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
Reproduction of this material in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without written permission.
Web development: EJ Communications