Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I hope all of you celebrating enjoy time with family and friends, and remember and recognize Gaia’s role in providing this bounty: the food that sun, soil, air, and water grew; and the energy—mostly drawn from Earth’s crust—that was used to process, ship, and cook that food, and to get your family and friends near enough to you to share it together.
Following the way—whether karate-do or the Gaian Way—without energy will not sustain its power—whether its power to transform oneself, one’s community, or one’s culture, and especially will not sustain its power to transform humanity’s relationship with Gaia.
So even while there were beautiful reminders of our connection to nature at this conference—talks, posters, and so on—there was, and will continue to be, far more reminders of our broken relationship, which Gaians and other ecologically spiritually minded folk should, and I hope will, continue to work toward healing.
It’s tempting to equate Gaia with the Living Earth, or Mother Earth, and in fact I often say exactly that. Such constructions place emphasis on the element of earth beneath us, but Gaia is also constituted by the air around us, and the rivers and oceans, and all life — including us.
Holonically, we are inside Earth, which includes and transcends, includes and dissolves. We are part of Gaia, and “going Green”, for me, was the first step to “going Gaian”.
Though as legitimate as sending money (or non-fungible tokens) to the Ukrainian government or charities, is bringing Russians and Ukrainians together; is supporting local businesses by both; is using less oil so the Russian petrostate (and all other dictatorial resource-cursed nations) are weakened, and we move to a more ecocentric, less unsustainable civilization.
Perhaps the question that demands living with simply requires me (and others who feel a sacred bond with Gaia) to keep living with it and trying to share it with the world—and encouraging others in the Gaian community to do the same.
Some thrive at the local, others the global, others at the regional, and others, still, do great bouncing from one to the other to the other. But I think there is value in considering this honestly, and better understanding at what level you want to enact change, and then focusing there.
I am Gaia. So are you. It’s just a matter of remembering. And strangely enough it felt like remembering was a little easier during the power outage.
And there is no shame in leaving the marked trail of the race you started to follow a better course. There is only shame at not running your best race. For yourself and for Gaia.
This is the pathway forward: cultivating nature in ways that heal both the landscape and provide for people. Gaian Guilds can mimic those holistic interactions to cultivate a restorative community: working to heal social ills in ways that also heal the Earth.
This is at the heart of the Gaian philosophy. The hope is to develop local communities of those who understand our utter dependence on the Earth, as well as the moment in time we’re living through
