The Gaia Principle

When faced with overwhelming oppositional force I do what I can. At this time of our culture of death, of war and corporate greed, of an unresponsive government by and for the rich, I choose to connect with those close to me. I walk my precinct. Last night I met a group that also chooses to focus on the present and close. These were transition and sustainability and resiliency movement folks with much more optimism than me. They gave me some hope. I watched the movie DIRT with them at a church, where the only god spoken of was Gaia.

For this last month I have been struggling with images of our earth and life on it coming to an end as a result of human nonsensical activity, specifically from the Gusher in the Gulf but also in anticipation of a renewed nuclear energy plants. In its arrogance the Obama administration believes in the mostly male driven theory that everything can be done even stepping close to the edge of disaster because the men in charge intend to be in control.

The movie was of the opinion that if humans choose life for the dirt beneath our feet, if we nurture it by avoiding chemical farming, that the earth, or Gaia, in response will heal itself from the ravages we have inflicted upon it for the last 15,000 years. Well maybe, but there was a lack of conversation about the other 70 percent of the earth’s surface, our oceans, and of our atmosphere. We are consuming fossil fuels, ancient sunshine from tens of millions of years ago, pumping carbon into the atmosphere but also into the oceans. The source of the majority of our breathable oxygen, the oceans have filled themselves to capacity, absorbing of as much carbon dioxide and excess heat as they can. They are acidifying and like the dirt, the living part of our land, are dying.

I am a believer in modern day myths, stories taught us that come from our science. As a species we claim to know what happened as far back as the birth of the universe. I think it was a Pope Pius that attributed to the theory of the Big Bang the creationist theory of the separation of light and darkness. In a real way it is only the scientists that do the experiments and work with the results that can claim the knowledge of our modern life. The rest of us are either believers in their work or believers in some alternative story. My beliefs include the story of the meteor that struck down most living organisms about 65 million years ago. Like the pope’s view of the Big Bang, myths can generate great power when their stories of ancient periods combine with current events. That meteor struck just a few miles from where the Deepwater Horizon well is spewing the fossilized remains of million year old life.

See the movie DIRT, and buy organic.