We are all part of the Gaean Conspiracy. Based on the scientific and
thealogicali premise that the Earth is an enormous multi-systemic
creature--a planetary deity we call Gaea--the Gaean Conspiracy is a
movement to reconnect our social, economic, scienti fic, religious and
political systems into harmonious co-creation with the larger, lang
standing bio-geological Gaean system. It is a recognition of the
evolutionary process that must take place as our planetary being awakens
to a more integrated, self-re flexive state of global consciousness. The
coordination of this planetary harmony is the next evolutionary step that
we face as a species and as a planet.
The Gaean Conspiracy is based on the following major premise:
The Earth is a single living being, whose rocks, plants, animals, air,
oceans and oozing mantle are all interdependent systems in a giant
biological superorganism.
A scientific principle with religious overtones, this hypothesis states
what ancient Paleo-Pagans knew instinctively: that the Earth and all life
upon it are an interpenetrating system of divine proportoin. Earth's
ability to resist entropy and to regul ate temperature, oxygen, ocean
salinity, and other qualities necessary for life indicates that She is a
biological superorganism having consciousness. This dynamic Homeostasis
(self-regulation) of living organisms and their environment is the
interface t hat human beings are constantly threatening.
Over two decades ago, an article by Otter Zell entitled "Theagenesis: The
Birth of the Goddess" (Green Egg, Vol V. #40) contained the first
puclished description of the Earth as a living Goddess. Otter's vision
was basedon the fact that all life in the biosphere began with a single
organism, which has divided infinitely to form the incredible diversity of
life that has evolved thus far. Much as a fertilized ovum divides again
and again to make up the many organs of the human body, all life in the
biosp here is part of a single living organism, of which we and the plants
and animals are like cells and perhaps, collectively, organs.
The Gaia Hypothesis has been popularized by James Lovelock, an atmospheric
scientist, and Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist. Through his observations
of atmospheric fluctuations, Lovelock discovered that the atmosphere of
Gaea maintains a consistent compos tion, defying the behavior of reactive
gases. Such a homeostatic balance of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide
is an anamoly in our solar system. Oxygen, highly reactive, should
combine with the reducing gas of methane or react with the 78% nitrogen
and fall to the ground. Instead, oxygen remains at a constant 21%. In addition, despite a 25% warming of the sun over geological time, there are homeostatics balances of world temperature and of the constant salinitiy of the ocean, which, logically sh
ould get saltier as it evaporates. In the word sof Lovelock, "It must take a lot of work to keep up such a wild disequilibrium."
And who is doing the work? It is our bioshpere, that arose over 3.5
billion years ago: the microbes and the plants and animals which interact
with the seeminly solic organ of Gaea's crust. This as a spider's web,
this delicate mirable of life is the ch emical and climatic thermostat of
the Goddess.
But Gaea is not the bioshpere alone. Just as a living redwood tree is
ninety-seven percent inanimate matter, just as a snail includes its shell,
so Gaea is a total organism, comprising Her crust, Her flowing mantle and
Her radioactive metallic core. Her
changing biosphere is a thin layer of expresson on Her beautiful
face--the visage of the Onw of Whom we are a part and upon Whom we depend
to survive.
Gaea is not only alive, She is conscious.
An organism that is alive changes. As a thing changes it either moves
towards entropy, increasing disorder, or towards organization and greater
complexity. We see in every untouched wilderness that Gaea keeps Her
house beautiful and balanced. We know by the proliferation of species and
the perfection of untampered exosystems that Gaea resists entropy.
The ability ot resist the natural entropy of open systems implies the
influence of consciousness or intelligence. Gaea's ability to sutain the
wild disequilibrium of which Lovelock speaks is indicative of a feedback
process that elicits a self-correcting
response. She is able to sense and to change accordingly to maintain the
exact conditions needed for life--operative intelligence at work.
While Lovelock was strongly criticized for implying that Gaea's
intelligence had purpose, by definitaion a thing that is moving toward
greater organization is evolving . Since She is alive and evolving, we
watch of the pattern and ask the questions, "Wh at is She evolving into?"
and "How can we help?"
The basic evolutionary pattern in biological organisms is movement toward
greater consciousness. Since the animals with the largest brains are the
most recent additions, this progression is called _cephalization_. Simple
homeostasis does not require a g reat deal of consciousness--our bodies
maintain their inner temperatures and chemical balance with little if any
attention from our conscious mind. But a circumstances require greater
effort to maintain balance, greater consciousness is also required: w hen
it gets really cold, we put a coat on or make a fire.
Teilhard de Chardin, apocalyptic theologian, spoke of the Earth growing a
new organ of consciousness which he called the _noosphere_. The noosphere
which is about two days old in Gaean time,ii is made up of creatures who
are capable of sharing and spread ing consciousness. It can be thought of
as Gaea's cerebral cortex. Humans and animals may be the neurons of Gaea,
growing neural networks via our wondrous communications systems, which are
themselves only seconds old. This means Her consciousness is growing
very rapidly.
What does a being do as it becomes conscious? Many spiritual systems,
especially the older ones, have risen from the cery fabric of this world.
Gaea's evolutionary thrust is reflected in the spiritual goals of
_self-realization_.
To realize one's self means to awaken to whom you are in your entirety, to
hamroniously integrate your inner parts. Based on models of modern
psychology, systems thinking and spritual enlightenment, the next stage of
planetary evolution will involve a re clamation of lost and severed parts;
a reintegration and increased functionality of interdependent systems; and
a continual self-examination and self-correction aiming toward complete
identity as part of a planetary being.
Realization on a planetary scale means that a critical mass of the
conscious aspects of Gaea realize the absolute importance of all the other
Gaean components and unite with them. To come to understand that there is
no "other," only a very large self tha t is highly diversified within, is
a global process of epc proportions which will extend far beyong our
lifetimes.
Put simply, this means:
GAEA IS TRYING TO WAKE UP!
The noosphere is all sentient creatures as well as the interconnecting
nerve fibers of the media and telecommunications networkds. Even animals
are part of this network: as we watch movies and documentaries about
them, we bring them into our consciousn ess. In the same way that the
occipital nerve of our central nervous system influences our consciousness
by bringing visual information to the brain, the international
communications medium is a neural network that affects our global
consciousness.
While we sleep, we are unaware of external visual input and instead dwell
in the archetypal realm. The process of awakening from sleep is reflected
in an increasing ability to connect quickly and directly with what is
going on around us.
So, too, is the planet awakening through the development of the noosphere.
Once upon a time, war could occur in Europe without anyone in North
America having any knowledge of it. Then the noosphere grew and we could
know, but with a time lag, a bufferin g separation between the reality of
the war and our consciousness of it. Now the planetary nervous system is
awakening ever more and information about significant events reached a
much larger body of consciousness more quickly. The experience is also a
fuller one of sight and sound together. The noosphere is evolving, its
body of consciousness self-organizing into an elaborate neural network.
When an injured person falls into unconsciousness, they cease to be aware
of their wounds. As they come to, they first become aware of sensations
and sounds. Then they open their eyes to their surroundings and next try
to sit up, only to find their body
racked with pain. Working toward awareness of the situation as a whole,
they attempt to connect the sensory information impacting their groggy
consciousness; they begin to remember who they are, where they are, and
what happened.
Gaea is awakening now, as Her various members realize that they are part
of a larger divine system. She got a look at Her face in the mirror when
the pictures of Earth from space were broadcast into the minds of Her
children. When all the part of Gaea r ecognize each other as participants
in parallel growth heading for an Omega point of coalescence and
integrative harmony, then the global consciousness of this planet will
have awakened to a realization of identity as a global being.
We who are aware of this process are priveleged to have a ringside seat.
We are Her eyes and ears. Her voice and hands. Human beings, with our
instruments of science and global communication, are ina unique position
to understand the direction of this
change and help it or thwart it--at our own liberation or peril. Asking
and perhaps discovering in what direction Her evolutionary thrust is
moving, in answering, we become partners in it.
Teilhard de Chardin observed: "Man is not the center of the universe, as
once we thought in our simpleiicty, but something much more
wonderful--that arrow pointing the way to the final unification of the
world in terms of life."iii
But what expression is being carved on the
face of the Goddess Gaea. In our rush towards planetary realization, we
are creating the paralysis of _greedlock_.iv Since everything on this
planet is part of Gaea, what in the world is She doing to Herself? Is
destruction or o ur own habitat part of Her plan? Is She trying to get
rid of us because we are a failed experiment? Or are we an innoculation
hurrying Her own awakening? If we are She, and we are also destroying the
most living aspect of Her, does that mean She is invo lved in
self-destruction? If so, _why_?
GAEA IS REACTING TO A DEEP PSYCHIC WOUND
I return again to human beings as a model. People come to me in my
healing practice to deal with self-destructive activities that they are
unable to stop: drinking, eatin, scratching themselves raw, ruining their
relationships, hurting their children. They don't want to be doing these
things and they aren't fully conscious of why they do. Our culture is
full of this kind of addiictive self-destruction.
In every case, the behavior was the result of one wound or several that
had been glossed over, forgotten, discounted or distorted. An unhealed
wound of any magnitude is an event that thwarts the evolutionary progress
of the afflicted. Until the wound is healed, the organism cannot go on to
become what it is meant to be.
Human addictive destruction of the bioshpere can be understood as a
systemic reaction on the part of Gaea to escape from a wound. It is a sign
of something having gone awry, of a negative conspiracy , a self sabotage
reflex, a circuit breaker. If this i s, then _what is the wound?_
The wound that Gaea sustained is the wound of Her children turning away
from Her. If her children were to be the arrow pointing the way to
unification, then we are surely missing the mark. Instead of unity, our
separation from Nature has resulted in a f ragmentation of Her energy.
Culture is severed from planet, much as mind is "severed" from body, the
ongoing condition from wounds suffered. As a result, we are living with a
biospheric amnesia and Gaea is living in a state of partial dissociation.
The noosphere has become what Theodore Roszak calls the _neurosisphere._
The imposition of patriarchal dominator values, which destroyed the
religions and cultural models that revered the Earth, was the original
infliction of this wound. It has been a 6,000 year process of separation
of human beings from Nature (long for us, but moments to Gaea). In this
time we have moved away from biological models for our cultural structure,
replacing them with mechanistic ones. Powerful, but out of step with
Gaea, they take us away from Her and from ourselves as biological beings.
But in reality this separation is not actually possible--we are utterly
dependent upon Gaea. Our separation is an illusion that unfortunately has
us firmly in its grip. Joanna Macy points out:
"Trying to escape from something that we are dependent on breeds a
love-hate relationship with it. This love-hate relationship with matter
permeates our culure and inflames a twofole desire--to destroy and to
possess. These two impuses , craving and ave rsion inflame each other in
a kind of vicious circle." So our culture compulsively seeks to possess
and destroy the very deity that gives us life. We are each part of Gaea.
Her wound is our own wound. As we are separated from Mother Nature, we
are s imultaneously separated from our own nature. Our self-destruction
is her destruction. As the face of our planet breaks out in biospheric
acne, our social systems break down, our economic systems decline, our
political systems wage war and our immune sys tems fail. Our despair is
Her despair. Her pain is our doom.
But as we are microcosmic reflection of Her, so is our visions and our
hope. Herein lies the good news.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Get rid of the illusion of separateness between
yourself and other parts of the planet--"us and them" thinking. Look to
heal the wounds within yourself and others--even your enemies are part of
Gaea. Connect again with Nature, walk in the wilderness, im merse your
consciousness in places where She is still whole and healthy. Help others
to recognize the vision of global consciousness. Promote awareness of the
Earth as awareness of our very selves and of our purpose in this amazing
cosmic creation story.
Conduct rituals that strengthen the connection of human and Gaean
consciousness. Recycle. Pray. Give money to environmental
organizations. Write letters to your newspaper. Learn to love each other
and appreciate the beauty and diversity She has creat ed. Help to bring
about the critical mass that can carry us on to global awakening. *Wake
up!*
Ben Franklin once said that his greatest invention was the word "American"
to describe the melting pot of cultures that were froming this country.
It erased the differences emphasized by such labels as "Dutch," "Italian,"
"French," "Virginian," "New Yor ker," "Catholic," "Jewish," or
"Protestant." Otter Zell has suggested we being to think of ourselves as
"Gaeans," a word that further transcends our races, religions, or
nationalities. As Gaeans we can join together in this global conspiracy
to awaken o ur Mother and thank her for the miraculous gift of life she
gives us.
Humanity stands on the brink of a quantum leap in evolution. The effects
of a global change in consciousness are truly cosmic, shrinking by
comparison the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the
advent of computers. We have an enormous
opportunity if we can recognize it before we destroy our chance. The
Gaean Conspiracy is based on the belief that planetary awakening will
occur through the mutual recognition and coordination of _all_ our major
systems; from individuals and families t o cities and continents; from
politics and economics to religion and science. As Al Gore stated at the
Democratic Convention,"The environment must be the central organizing
principle for civilization."
As we balance our mechanistic models by integrating them with spiritual
and biological models, we make the first steps in the transformation.
This process extends beyond our lifetime. For this reason, it is
difficult for us to conceive and implement it . But if _homo sapiens_ is
indeed the animal priveleged to point the arrow, let us reflect deeply
upon its direction.
i Theaological, spelled with an " refers to the feminine aspect of
theology.
ii Two days old is derived by setting the dawning of the
noosphere at about one million years ago, the first use of fire. Figuring
that Gaea may be one third of the way through h er life of 15 billion
years, one million years is about two days in our lifetimes.
iii Teilhard
de Chardin, _Phenomenon of Man_, translated by Bernard Wall, Harper Torch
Books, 1959 pp. 154-15
iv A term coined by Theodore Roszak, _Voice of the
Earth_, Simon and Schuster, 1992
v Joanna Macy, _World as Lover, World as
Self_, Parallax Pre ss, 1991 p. 7.
Reprinted with permission from Green Egg, #100, Spring 1993, pp 16-18
