ILLUMINATION SPECIAL PROJECT

Gaia Needs Our Action

And this is what we can do. All of us!

Love for nature is something a lot of people have. They enjoy the birdsong. They love to walk with bare feet on the grass. Or they enjoy the colors and shapes of wonderful flowers.

Nature is amazing!

Well, Dr John Rose recently started a special project within the publication Illumination. We will be sharing our love for Gaia, our home, and share practical actions to make our planet a better place to live.

I love this project and will be sharing tips and views and inspiration regularly to make this project a huge success. Gaia deserves it. And we humans deserve it. Because if we don’t find ways to feel ourselves really part of Gaia and start to live within her boundaries, Gaia will live on without us.

The dinosaurs have come and gone. It’s not like she doesn’t know how to kick some annoying humans off her surface if we destroy her beauty irreparably.

Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Gaia. She goes by different names, but to me, it’s perfectly clear that she’s a living being. The rainforests are one lung, the oceans are her other lung. The rivers are her veins. The soil is her skin.

And the ecosystems are her cells. All different but working perfectly together if we let them operate with her laws.

She’s perfectly capable of repairing herself. But she needs time for that. We don’t give her time. We rush on and on and on with our polluting, destructive, industrial ways and she can hardly breathe anymore…

Nature is abundant. Nature knows no good or bad. Nature knows just circumstances. Local places in which something thrives or not. It’s time we get to know her better.

And learn how to live in line with her laws. Taking up our rightful space but also being humble enough to leave enough space for the other species.

“Nature doesn’t need people, people need nature”

— Gaia with the voice of Julia Roberts

Thanks, Julia Roberts, for giving Gaia a voice.

There is Gaia Theory in science as well. Chemist James Lovelock and biologist Lynn Margulis did tonnes of research on this topic and many other scientists have followed since the theory was first developed in the 1970s.

In my first story, I elaborate on the Gaia Theory for the people who never heard of it. In this worldview, people are part of nature, not separate from it. We are one. And if we really want to remain on this earth, we need to adopt actions that work with nature’s laws instead of go against it.

Here’s my first story about the systemic view that Gaia needs.

Well, there’s lots to know about all of this, but I won’t make it difficult. If anyone has questions, you can always ask in the comments. And for all of you, just enjoy your journey! Connect to nature, feel the connection to Gaia, and do what you feel inclined to do. No push. Just inspiration.

No Quick Fixes

I haven’t been aware of what I’m going to tell you for a big part of my life. In the 1970s I was very young and later, I was just busy with life and work. I was far in my 40s when my worldview changed big time.

I had become interested in sustainability and wanted to know more about the holistic view of the subject. I studied Cradle to Cradle, The Natural Step, and Circular Economy. And in 2013, I went to Blue Economy Summer School at the Unversity of Pecs.

Wow! Everything turned upside down. My first lightbulb switched on. And there was so much more to come. There are just no quick fixes. We have to rethink all we have come to understand as ‘normal’ and become aware of our own pitfalls. Our ingrained patterns. And transform them.

It’s a journey.

So don’t think you have to know it all in one go, I didn’t! Take your steps. Learn, enjoy, and realize that it’s not at all easy in our current, money-driven, ego-centered world. But every step counts. And finding your voice and tell others about your journey counts too.

How Our Products Are Made

In this story, I want to make you aware of how our products are made. And how we can play a role in doing things differently.

Here’s a longer version on the subject.

In short:

• Currently, we produce our products in a linear way: we take resources, produce, consume and in the end everything is waste
• Nature does it differently. There is no waste in nature. Waste is always a resource for the next product. And the next. And the next.
• Nature adds value upon value upon value, and we can redesign our economy in this way
• We will create local economies adapted to local ecosystems and local cultures that are collaborating fiercely and producing everything that a local community needs

So What Can We Do?

The transition that’s happening right now needs all of us. So what can we do as consumers to play a role in the transition?

• We can become aware. Learn, experiment, and share
• We can simplify our lives. If we all concentrated on basic needs. If we all stopped buying unnecessary stuff and build big houses to store it all, the world would look completely different
• Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Trista Ainsworth, Livia Dabs, maybe you want to share in The Gaia Project your experiences of making your lives more simple?
• We can buy local. The big multinationals are sucking money out of our local economies to end up in anonymous shareholder’s pockets. Moreover, local products don’t have to be shipped from far
• We can buy organic food. The soil needs to be repaired if we want to have enough resources in the future to make our products sustainably. Biobased waste streams can only be a resource for new products if they are not polluted with chemicals. Additionally, it prevents us from eating pesticides
• If we don’t have money for organic foods (I know, the business models to make organic food the cheaper option are not adopted yet), we can grow our own food
• We can green our gardens. Every bit of restored soil helps. Get active in the permaculture movement, process your organic waste as local compost, grown food, become active in a community garden, etc.
• We can connect to nature. It helps us relax, it helps us feel the connection to the bigger picture and motivates us to make changes in our own life

And most important of all, we can make daily choices in favor of LIFE. All life. Human life and the lives of all other species. Care and responsibility are the tools we have for making this choice.

And let’s fiercely support each other on this journey. It’s needed. There’s a lot of fear in people. And resistance because of fear. Let’s not be afraid to face reality. Yes, we made a mess. But when the stone is lifted, love and light can enter. And we can make new choices.

Gaia applauds us all.

I tag some people who have shown interest in my work on Gaia before. If you want out of the tag, let me know. If you want to be added, just tell me.

Dr John Rose, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Amy Marley, Lanu Pitan, Carlotta Manzoni, Chris Hedges, Henery X (long), Agnes Laurens, Maria Antoanela Ionita, Infiniti, Livia Dabs, Eli Snow, Robert Nelson, Martine Weber, Christyl Rivers, Phd., Supriya Verma, Elisabeth Khan, Keno Ogbo, Ann K Frailey, Eliot Kersgaard, Francesca Brandani, Kayli Kunkel, Lets Save Earth, Chowa Sekai, Suntonu Bhadra, Mathias Barra, FILZA CHAUDHRY, Nomanono Isaacs, Jhon Munoz, Mike Alexander, Selma, Paul Myers MBA, Sylvia Love Johnson, Joe Luca, Rasheed Hooda, Bob Jasper, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Tree Langdon ♾️, Isabela Vasiliu, Tim Maudlin, Trista Ainsworth, Aurora Eliam, CMP, B. A. Cumberlidge. Blaine Coleman.

Please don’t hesitate to ask questions, if you have any. I will answer as best I can. If you want to share stories on Gaia, or reshare mine, don’t forget to tag me so I can promote your work for Gaia fiercely. We’re in this together. And all our voices count.

For the people who want to get deeper in, here’s some more reading

about food and healthy soil

about materials for new products

about large scale ecosystem restoration

And if you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn or join me in our own food forest having fun with the grandchildren. Children of the ReGeneration…