Earth Day - 2024

Earth is a wondrous planet. For eons, she has been home for all earthling life, flora and fauna. She has nurtured the rise of biological life, the diversity of species and the rise of sentient intelligence within many earthling species. With a diameter of less than 8,000 miles, she has accomplished all these wonders as a tiny speck of earth, air, fire and water… in transit around Sol, our home world’s shining star… careening through the vastness of space.

Mother Earth, or Gaia as we call her, is also a very mysterious planet. Almost beyond human comprehension, she possesses a planetary sentience whose consciousness operates on a geologic timescale that is all but unfathomable to humanity. In antiquity, she was known as Sophia… the ancient Greek word for wisdom. Sophia was said to be the feminine aspect of God, and the holy spirit of a pre-biblical movement known as Gnosticism. Sophia was known to be the creatrix of the world and dwells within our home planet as the Great Earth Mother.

 

In this day and age, human endeavor has become critically consequential to Gaia and her continued survival. In these strange days, she reawakens. Ancient, Sophic energies are ascending… Gaia is alive and Magick is afoot. It is within this context that we must envision and embrace our perilous predicament, as we prepare to embark on a strange and wonderous examination of our curious, contemporary world.

 The times in which we live continue to quicken… to morph and transform, at an ever-increasing pace. This quickening is being driven by real-world factors that, even ten years ago, would have been laughed off or dismissed as dystopian science fictional fantasy. Who could have predicted a planet so impacted by environmental catastrophe as to require a complete reimagining of civilization?

We begin by stressing the importance of where we are located, physically, in space and time. Each of us have a deep connection to place… to the terrain from which we issue and operate. We take on a certain personality characteristic, vibe or energy from the greater character of our city, our region, our continent, our planet. This could be described as: Being of the World. As with all things in our wondrous, dualistic universe, there are negative, as well as positive connotations associated with this phrase.

In certain religious traditions, being of the world can hold the negative connotation of only adhering to worldly concerns or desires. In this context, certain carnal impulses are seen as hedonistic or wicked. Being of the world is seen as an impediment to, ignorance of, or disregard for, higher spiritual aspirations. However, being of the world also carries a polar opposite, positive implication.

   

This is the sense of belonging, of being an integral part of our environment. In this regard, being of the world indicates a knowledge of the interconnectedness of the web of life, and our place within it. Such understanding of our role within the deep ecology of the planet, radiates the highest vibration of place. Being in tune with nature, as an active, sentient element of her unfolding, is the most profound, evolutionary experience of belonging. Such deep, ecological understanding, carries with it a responsibility to our home world. As we have seen over the last fifty years, our home planet has undergone and continues to undergo increasingly severe, climatic fluctuation.   

It is now clear that climate change is accelerating at a greater pace than previously projected. Earth's circulatory systems are increasingly being severely impacted, at rates greater than anticipated by 20th century science. In the northern hemisphere, the rapidly melting Arctic ice reflects less of the sun’s rays, causing a warming disruption in the persistent, low-pressure area circulating above the north pole, known as the polar vortex. This in turn, disrupts the jet stream, which circulates around the polar vortex.

The jet stream acts as a separating air current that flows between the cold, polar air mass and the warm, tropical air mass. Disruption to the polar vortex causes the jet stream to meander, bringing more frequent bouts of severe weather to mid-latitudes. As a result, the climate-change-driven warming of our planet, can cause frigid cold weather to dip down to mid-latitude environs, such as the freezing storm that hit Texas in 2021. The resulting power-outages in the Texas power grid caused massive disruption to communities throughout the Gulf States.

Even more powerful, disruptive changes can be anticipated, regarding other planetary circulatory systems. The Gulf Stream, one of Earth's major climate-regulating ocean currents, is moving slower than it has in thousands of years, recent studies suggest. Research indicates this unprecedented slowdown could impact weather patterns and sea levels on both sides of the Atlantic.

Global warming increases annual rainfall and accelerates the melting of ice sheets, including the Greenland Ice Sheet in the North Atlantic. Both of these factors dump ever greater amounts of freshwater into the ocean, reducing the density and salinity of the surface water at the northern end of the Gulf Stream. According to  research, this fresh water inhibits how quickly the water can sink and begin its journey back south, weakening the overall flow of the Gulf Stream.

The slowing ocean current will only worsen over the coming decades if climate change continues unabated. If global warming persists at its current pace, the Gulf Stream could pass a critical tipping point by the year 2100, CE.

It is vitally important to remember that Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Sophia, Gaia… is our greatest ally in our struggle against the prevailing predator/dominator paradigm. The successful transition to a partnership paradigm is reliant upon the recognition of the feminine as a source of receptive energy that is not subservient to, but equal to active, masculine energy.

Like other great traditions of the trinity, feminine goddess energy manifests within earth women as the maiden… the Madonna… and the crone. Being the sacred reflection of mother earth, throughout the course of their life, women transform from the beautiful, intuitive and alluring maiden… to the child-bearing, nurturing Madonna… and finally to the powerful, wise, witchy, matriarchal crone.

Little wonder that most ancient, pre-desert-religious cultures were matrilineal. They understood and honored the profound procreative nature of the feminine trinity. Little wonder these archaic cultures considered (rightly, in your author’s consideration) our planet to be feminine in nature. That Earth is the great mother, and we her children.

Mother Earth is a wise, welcoming, wonderous manifestation of the universal creation… the receptive “Yin” principal of universe. It is vitally important to recognize and honor the great mother, in who’s creative energies we seek favor… in hope of activating our magical thought experiment. Any survivable, conducive path forward for humanity is reliant upon our gratitude to mother earth.

(excerpts from my upcoming new book... Brave Noö World)