 | What is Gaia? And Why Does it Matter? by Susan Meeker-Lowryposted by Susan Meeker-Lowry, Exclusive AccessTuesday, September 1st 2009 @ 3:14 PM (not yet rated) |
Free of birth or destruction, of time or space, of form or condition, is the Void. From the eternal Void, Gaia danced forth and rolled Herself into a spinning ball. She molded mountains along Her spine, valleys in the hollows of Her flesh. A rhythm of hills and stretching plains followed Her contours. From Her warm moisture She bore a flow of gentle rain that fed Her surface and brought life. Wriggling creatures spawned in tidal pools, while tiny green shoots pushed upward through Her pores. She filled oceans and ponds and set rivers flowing through deep furrows. Gaia watched Her plants and animals grow. In time she brought forth from her womb six women and six men . . .- Charlene Spretnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of pre-Hellenic Myths, Beacon Press, 1981
Gaia is the name the ancient Greeks gave to the Mother Goddess who gave birth to all creation. A temple in Athens adjoining the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, was dedicated to her. Today Gaia, the Earth aspect of the Great Goddess, is reemerging in human consciousness. Whether we believe that the Earth IS the body of the Goddess or simply think of Gaia as a metaphor, an ancient myth with modern implications, isn’t important. What is important is the impact of Gaian consciousness on how we see and feel the world.
In the 1960s and 1970s, James Lovelock was researching the possibility of life on Mars for NASA. His assumption was that the requirements for life on Mars would be the same as for life on Earth so experiments were designed to test Martian soils “for chemicals whose presence would indicate life at work. . .” After a while, Lovelock questioned his basic assumption. He wondered whether life on Mars would reveal itself to tests based on life on Earth, to say nothing of more basic questions like, what is life, and how should it be recognized?
“I expected to discover somewhere in the scientific literature a comprehensive definition of life as a physical process, on which one could base the design of life-detection experiments,” he recalled, “. . . but in the whole vast encyclopedia of facts the crux of the matter, life itself, was almost totally ignored.” Designing a universal “life-detection experiment” was a lot more complicated than Lovelock thought it would be. Eventually he became intrigued by a colleague’s notion of “life detection by atmospheric analysis” and they began working together. “Our results convinced us that the only feasible explanation of the Earth’s highly improbably atmosphere was that it was being manipulated on a day-to-day basis . . . and the manipulator was life itself.”
Lovelock then made the leap, which is still considered controversial among many scientists, that because the Earth acts like a living organism then it must in fact be a living organism. “The entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, and from oaks to algae,” he explained, “could be regarded as constituting a single living entity, capable of manipulating the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with the faculties and powers far beyond those if its constituent parts”. Lovelock’s contemporary, the novelist William Golding, suggested that he call the living Earth, Gaia and with the help of colleagues, especially Lynn Margulis, Lovelock’s inquiry evolved into the Gaia Hypothesis. “When I first saw Gaia in my mind, I felt as an astronaut must have done as he stood on the Moon, gazing back at our home, the Earth. . . . Thinking of the Earth as alive makes it seem, on happy days, in the right places, as if the whole planet were celebrating a sacred ceremony.”
My personal introduction to Earth as Gaia was in November 1985. It was my second visit to the Chinook Learning Center, an intentional community and educational center on Whidbey Island in Washington State founded by former residents of Findhorn. My first visit a year earlier had been absolutely magical and I had high expectations.Catalyst, the journal I published until the early 1990s, was in its second year. Its focus was “creating an economy for the living Earth” and it looked at small-scale, community based alternatives to business-as-usual. I was participating Chinook’s conference, “For the Life of the Earth”, to learn about new projects and to share ideas.
I arrived a bit late for the first gathering on Friday evening and Thomas Berry, author, priest, and cultural historian, had just started speaking. His eyes twinkled with good humor and he was full of energy and passion as he spoke of the importance of integrating ecology and spirit into politics, economics . . . and everything else. His wasn’t simply an intellectual understanding of the topic. I could tell he felt the magic of the Earth in every cell of his body. It wasn’t just what he said, it was how he said it. I was entranced.
One of the topics he discussed was James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, which proposes that since the Earth acts like a living organism, then it must in fact be a living organism. My heart immediately embraced the idea. As Thomas spoke, the pieces fell into place. He put words on what I’d known intuitively all my life. Tears came to my eyes, hope grew in my heart, and my mind reeled with the implications. I thought about the role love plays in the healing process, how it works miracles, speeding recovery from illness and nourishing the spirits of people and animals alike. “Healing the Earth” was a common phrase, but it seemed so arrogant. How could we possibly heal the Earth? But if the Earth is alive, and if love is part of the healing process, then we can make a difference. What we do and how we do it matters. We may be David acting against a powerful Goliath, but we have Gaia, a living being, on our side! Nothing has been the same for me since.
To me, Gaia is the life force that flows through all of us, that connects us to and makes us one with trees, rivers, mountains, bees, ants, moose. . . everything. Gaia is the process of creation and manifestation -- and we are participants whether we are aware of it or not. It is my belief, based on my personal experiences, that it is not only possible but our birthright as human beings to have an intimate and participatory relationship with nature, with Gaia. Further, I will state without hesitation that this relationship is primary. In a practical sense this is obvious -- our lives depend on clean air, water, and food. We wouldn’t survive long without trees, plants, and animals for clothing, shelter, food, companionship. But our relationship with the Earth is more than physical. It is emotional and spiritual as well. Sadly, our culture does not honor or recognize these deeper connections that, until fairly recently (in the grand scheme of things), were intrinsic to daily life. Every one of us, regardless of nationality or race, is a descendant of an Earth-centered culture. This connection to the Earth is in every one of our cells (what Thomas Berry calls “biocellular knowing”). Our hearts and our spirits understand what our minds have been trained to forget or ignore. If you doubt this, take some time to hang out in the woods or by the ocean or with a favorite tree or rock or river. Watch cloud formations or gaze into a star-filled sky. Just BE there for a while, let go of feelings of anxiety or needing to be somewhere else. Close your eyes and breathe. This is food for your soul, nourishment for your spirit. It will make a difference, I promise.
The implications of Gaia are immense and touch every aspect of human behavior, from science to politics, from economics and trade, to education and social services. Nothing is exempt. This is reality, not an abstract way of seeing the planet. We’re coming full circle. In the beginning, gods and goddesses reigned and myth and stories explained the meaning of life and guided human behavior. As our knowledge of nature and the human body expanded, life was reduced to its material parts and the magic, the undefinable essence of being alive, was discounted and even feared. Science became the new god and the goddess was banished. Gaia helps us integrate the stories of the ancients with the stories of modern science into a cohesive whole and restores wonder and magic and mystery to our lives.
The path to the Gaia Hypothesis may have been scientific inquiry, but the path to Gaia is through the heart.
