Reply #93: Gaia reframes native american religion for western thought

[RainDog]

Gaia, as you know, is the mythological/anthropomorphic earth from Greek myth. Lovelock uses this underpinning of western culture history to discuss something others lived for centuries.

I don't think nuclear power is the answer... I think France has shown that such an investment is not the future.. I'd have to find the articles, so just take that with a grain and maybe google since I'm lazy right now.

however, the idea that humans are one part of a living earth/universe is the basic concept of most native american religious/life practice (before the rez, I guess you should say.)

The Hopi have a story about the end of this current age on earth too, and it is strange but also strangely resonant. They've been saying to live in the mtns b/c of floods, to learn their way of argriculture (very small scale, like square foot gardening in a way, mixing diff. plants in a "teepee" structure to save water... they said that the "hippies" would align with them among the whites and work to help them to help others understand that life as it is lived is killing the earth and our children and children's children. (That's part of the idea of ... what are the possible outcomes for my present decision for seven generations beyond me.)

modern capitalism can't think beyond the next fiscal year, or the next stockholder's meeting.

Koyaanisqatsi, or life out of balance is the hopi way of defining industrial and post-industrial life. They also predict some dire things for the future... their apocalyptic vision is directed at turtle island (here) not the middle east, though the whole world is affected and brought into the "5th world." The thing with native american prophecy is that it is not absolute. The stories are always framed as "this is the future unless you do something different to change the path you are now on."

I'm not a religious person, but Hopi and other native american views resonate deeply in my soul or mind or epigenetic memory or whatever it is.