Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 23:07:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joy Williams 
Subject: Gaian conspiracy part I
To: cawpagan-l@netcom.com

THE GAIAN CONSPIRACY, by ANODEA JUDITH
reprinted with permission from The Green Egg and Anodea Judith, 1993.

We are all part of the Gaean Conspiracy.  Based on the scientific and
thealogical 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, scientific, religious and
political systems into harmonious co-creation with the larger, long
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-reflexive 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 regulate
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 that 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 biosphere 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 compostion, 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 should 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 chemical 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 One
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, "What 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 great 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: when 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 spreading 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 reclamation 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 that 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 consciousness.  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 buffering 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 recognize 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 simplicity, 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 our 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
involved 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 is, 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 fragmentation 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 twofold desire--to destroy
and to possess.  These two impuses , craving and aversion 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 simultaneously 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 systems 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, immerse 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 created.  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 forming
this country.  It erased the differences emphasized by such labels as
"Dutch," "Italian," "French," "Virginian," "New Yorker," "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 our 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 to 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 "a" 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 her 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. 154-157

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 Press, 1991
p. 7.

{all typos and errors are mine-- joy]