Recognising the Living World: Deep Ecology Practice

Who is Gaia?

In Greek myth, Gaia is goddess of the Earth, one of the first deities, and the mother of life. She is one form of Mother Earth, who is found across human cultures. For example, the goddess may be connected to the earliest Eurasian prehistoric art, in the form of the small goddess statues carved from stone in the Paleolithic age, which may have been connected with a female creator within nature.

In the 1970s environmental scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis developed the Gaia Hypothesis to describe the Earth as a self-regulating system, where living organisms and the Earth evolve together in a way that sustains life. We see this process in the atmosphere, where the proportions of different gases are not in stable equilibrium. They are maintained through the processes of life. Oxygen levels, global temperatures and ocean salinity are all major aspects of Earth’s biosphere that are affected by the planet’s living beings, and upon which life depends.

Lovelock chose to name their theory Gaia, following novelist William Golding’s suggestion. Lovelock has always been careful to state that the theory does not claim that Earth is a sentient being, nor that the Earth has a purpose, a will to maintain life. What he sought to do was explore how life itself maintains the conditions for life, at the level of local ecosystems and within the planet as a whole.

We can easily think of the Earth as alive in that it is covered in interconnected life. It breathes, creates, digests and evolves. Thought of as a living being, it is the most astonishing and valuable one that humans have ever encountered. Yet humans are working hard, with resolution and ingenuity, at killing it. Yesterday I saw a photo of a mangrove swamp covered in plastic rubbish — wrappers, bottles, flip-flops, lighters. I have never seen a mangrove swamp, but imagine them to be vividly alive places, where forest meets water, liminal, like the places where ocean life first came out onto the land. And like the coral reefs and the rainforests, humans are killing them.

The reasons why this is happening are complex and political. But fundamentally, they relate to a misunderstanding about the Earth. Too many people think of the Earth and the natural world — in so far as they think of them at all — as dead matter. People speak of ‘natural resources’ and ‘ecosystems services’ as though the function of the natural world is to provide for humans. What is inanimate, is just stuff, and what is animate but not human, is scarcely of more account. Charles Eisenstein writes, ‘The reason our current system of material production kills the world is that it starts by seeing the world as dead. What then is there to love?’ (Climate, 153). Believing in a dead world, that is what those with power create.

The antidote to this destruction of life is twofold. First, many of us need to strengthen our ability to recognize the Earth as alive, and to feel loving Earth kinship. The practices in this series explore this work of reviving our biophilia — our instinctive love of what lives.

Secondly, it is essential to reanimate our world. This means halting the damage and wherever possible preserving the life that remains — for its own glorious sake, not for ours — as well as healing where necessary, through rewilding or regenerative agriculture, for example.

Although the second task is where the most visible action takes place, the first is also essential. When our actions arise from love of the living Earth they are joyful and self-sustaining. Perhaps the tasks are inseparable. Recognizing the Earth as alive and sacred in the way that a loved one is sacred means protecting and nourishing it. At the same time, acts of healing support that recognition.

Practice 1: Attending to the living world

As you move through your day, begin to notice what is alive around you: trees and birds, other people, perhaps insects and the occasional mammal, mosses and lichens, simply notice whatever you come across that lives.

Practice this noticing for a few days, then expand your attention to the parts of the Earth that support life, but are not biological organisms, such as the wind, the rocks, the sunlight and bodies of water. Notice their dynamism and expressive qualities.

Practice 2: Five elements meditation

Feeling into the dynamic, living quality of the world can be supported through a meditation on the traditional five elements: air, fire, water, earth and spirit or space. The elements are found in many spiritual and shamanic traditions around the world, such as European Wicca or Tibetan Bon. They are a powerful structure for experiencing the Earth as a creative, integrated whole, and feeling connected with this whole wherever we may be.

You can meditate with each of the elements separately, perhaps in a place where you feel them strongly, or you can meditate with each of the elements in turn, as described below.

Find a comfortable seated position and settle into stillness in your preferred way, for example through a body scan, or listening to sounds.

Begin to explore air. Bring your attention to the sensations of breathing, noticing the flow of the air in and out of your lungs. Feel how this air brings lightness and vibrancy to all the cells of your body. Call to mind all the beings in the world creating and sharing this air that you breath: the trees and oceans, other animals, birds flying upon the wind, all the plants who grow near you. With the air, allow yourself to feel free and light.

Shift your meditation now to the fire element. Notice the heat within your body, within your heart and belly, and the warmth generated by your metabolism. Feel into this warm energy within you. Bring to mind the warmth within the other living beings of this world, created in the bodies of animals, and how the plants soak up the warmth of the sun to bring life into the world. Think of the sun, its heat and life-giving light, which is purifying and healing. In your imagination, bathe in the warm, golden light of the sun and feel yourself renewed.

Next call upon water. Notice the flow of water through your body, in your bloodstream and in all of your living cells. Sense this flow through you, which is easy, peaceful and gently cleansing. Think of how water flows through all living beings, and all around the Earth, in the clouds, the rivers, lakes and oceans. Feel your connection with this water bringing life and comfort to this world.

Turn your attention to the element of earth. Feel the stability of your body upon the ground or whatever is supporting you. Feel how the ground is holding you steady and safe. Notice the stability of earth within you, in your strong bones. As you sense the support of the earth beneath you, bring it into your body, merging your own sensation of being with that of the earth, which is strong, grounded and creative.

Become aware of your own awareness, like an observer of your own sensations and attention. Allow this awareness to bring a sense of spaciousness, allowing your awareness to discover the space of your body, the space around you, and to spread through the vast sky above you. You might bring to mind the sky as it is where you are — perhaps cloudy and windswept, or blue and open — and then the vast night sky, opening to the moon and the stars, the depths of our galaxy and beyond. Rest in this feeling of spaciousness. Release any anxieties or negativity into this space, which is within you and beyond you, infinitely vast.

To close the meditation, if you wish you might offer thanks to the elements and to the Earth, to Gaia. Allow love and compassion to grow in your heart for all the beings who experience and share these elements. In your own way, wish happiness and freedom to all the beings of this world.

More deep ecology practices are listed at the end of this article. Follow me on Medium for updates.