I would like to add a few additional
insights to my last blog, ‘The New Icons or the Appearance of Particulars.’
The pictures from space I discussed convey
a layer of meaning that is often missed, as does the name Gaia. The name of the
Greek goddess is often equated with Mother Earth. But Gaia is not Mother Earth.
In the Greek pantheon this role was assigned to the goddess Demeter. She was
the earth goddess, ruling life, cycles, seasons and fertility. Demeter is a
younger, third generation goddess, and like the earth, a child of Chronos
(Time).
Gaia is more primal. She is the first
divinity and precedes other gods and hence creation. She is the mother of all. ‘Nature’
would be a better translation than Mother Earth, if by nature we understand not
just the earth, but also all that surrounds her: the sun, the moon, the
wandering planets and the steady stars.
For all this is Gaia’s domain and creation.
The same applies to her iconic predecessors such the Egyptian Isis, the Gnostic
Sophia and the medieval Madonna. A last, comprehensive version of these
conceptions appeared in Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy.’ In his metaphoric journey from
hell to heaven the Italian poet maps the earth as part of an all-encompassing
cosmic system. His ‘earth’ is still embedded in the planetary spheres and
inseparably related to them. His ‘ecosystem’ includes the visible universe and
its invisible causes. Grand conceptions like Dante’s faded in the age of
particulars.
Today we have again begun to think terms of
wholeness. The earth is emerging as a living totality. And somehow we have come
to imagine this life unique and therefore separate from our cosmic
surroundings. There are historic reasons for this:
The idea of a living earth began with James
Lovelock investigating the possibility of life on Mars. This led him to two
brilliant insights. He deduced from the chemical composition of the planet’s
atmosphere that it held no life. Mars exhibit a chemical stasis antithetic to
life.
The earth on the other hand is in a dynamic
chemical state, conducive to life. And not only that: it is able to maintain
this ‘lively’ state in spite of greatly changing conditions of sunlight over
long periods of time. In other words, the earth maintains its own immune
system, and acts as a living organism.
However, seeing earth as the only spot of
life in an otherwise lifeless universe, promotes a kind of artificial
separation that neither corresponds with the facts nor with the meanings
implied in the iconic pictures from space. It belongs to the mindset of
particulars, the paradigm of separation. The result is that we see life on
earth as an exception, a cosmic fluke inside a hostile environment. The planet
becomes an endangered species, battling for survival.
While the earth holds its own against the sun,
it cannot exist without it. Planetary life remains linked to its solar source. The
moon not only tugs the tides of the oceans but exerts its influence on every
body of water, even the tea in a teacup. What other planets may or may not do we
can leave to a future science. The fact remains that the earth is what it is
because of its surroundings. It has coevolved with its neighbors. And what has
coevolved remains related.
It may be time to extend the notion of a
living earth and include the totality of its environment. Life on the earth then
becomes a particular manifestation of the life of the solar system: it holds
its own with, rather than against, its surrounding. This, at any rate, is what the name Gaia
implies, as do the pictures of a bright-lit planet in the velvet embrace of
black. Black here represents space and all it contains: the rest of the
universe.
Seen from this perspective the earth is not
the mother but the child. The mother is what surrounds the earth, the cosmic
environment. The immediate impact of the image supports this conjecture. The
picture of the fresh, clear, brightly-lit, blue-tinged earth does not convey
the mood of motherhood. The warm, dark, comforting embrace of space, however,
does. The earth that is a mother to us is a child to the cosmos. And a lively
one at that. This liveliness too is an immediate, aesthetic experience. Gazing
at the blue planet, we experience potential, promise, hope. We see a
countenance continuously alive with fleeting clouds, winds, weather. We gaze at
the lively child of the solar system, the cosmos, the offspring of Gaia, and
are emotionally called to a gesture of care, protection, love.
2 comments:
Coming to the end of the article, I felt a surge of recognition at the mother/child image that I never felt for any previous metaphor for the earth. Bright earth floating in a sea of blackness is not figure of mother but a figure of a bright lost child - unless the surroundings are the mother. This imagery destroys the coldness and distance of space and replaces it with welcome nurture. Relationships click into place and I feel happier in my skin.
Thanks Pat
I am so glad this i meaningful to you. I believe we have to unravel the our contemporary mythology (such as the image of the earth from space) to come to a more satisfying relationship with the world we live in.
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