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The Living Earth: (Gaia).
Our
relationship with, and our perception of the world has undoubtedly
changed considerably over time. Evidence suggests that our primitive concepts
of religion and magic are tied in with a belief that the Earth
itself was a living being. In Greek mythology, Gaia was the
primordial Earth-Goddess from whom all life sprang, similar
Earth Goddess figures are found in most cultures around the
ancient world.
In the 1970's James Lovelock
re-introduced the Earth-mother concept through the medium of
Ecology. He proposed that all living things are interrelated
within the self-regulating systems of the earth, which provides
the optimal conditions to support life itself. The 'Gaia' theory
has struck a chord in the modern mind and has become a
philosophy. In 2008 Lovelock made public his belief that human
behaviour has already tipped the scales, and that we are now
fast approaching
an unprecedented global catastrophe. (1)
Featured Articles:
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- Tree-Lore (Sacred Trees):
According to Jung, trees are a symbolic
reference to the self. They are entwined into
some of the earliest mythologies we have such as
the World-Tree, or Tree-of-life; which are
amongst the most common motif's from the ancient
world. Regardless of any metaphysical
connections, we depend on trees for our
survival, but what more we can learn from them.
(Tree-Lore
- Sacred Trees) |
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Images and Ancient cultures around the world have
attested to a belief in a 'female' earth-mother. The
earliest human burials placed the bodies back into
the ground in a foetal position, and covered the
bones in red ochre, supporting the idea of a belief
system that considered us as 'returning' to the
earth-mother in death.
(Earth-mother-earth) |
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The Oracles of the ancient world were seen as a
direct link between mortals and the Gods. The
earliest, such as that at Per-Wadjet in Egypt,
was portrayed as a woman with a snakes head, an
image which persisted into Greece through the
female Pythona or 'Oracles', who offered
divination from the underworld and echoed the
earlier beliefs in an earth-mother.
(The
Oracles) |
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- Simulacrum (Faces in the
Stones):
From
the discovery of the small Jasper pebble in the 2.5
million year old Makapansgat cave to the numerous
faces in Neolithic megaliths and identification
of hills to 'Sleeping Giants' and 'Paps of Anu'
etc, there seems little doubt that natural
anthropomorphic imagery was seen as being part of a
living landscape endowed with the physical
spirit-force of the earth mother.
(Simulacrum) |
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The prehistoric landscape was fashioned to meet
the developing perceptions of the Neolithic
mind. Levelled hilltops, primal mounds and a
desire to connect the landscape through
alignments and images formed the basis of the
realisation that we are all part of the same
integral living system.
(Altered
Landscapes) |
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The
Shaman has played an important role in the psychic
development of humans acting as a bridge between the
known and the unknown. Recent interpretations of
Palaeolithic art suggest that many were Shamanic in
nature, perhaps explaining why so much is found in
the deepest and most isolated places within the the
earth itself.
(Shamanism) |
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What is now
essentially a primitive idea of a 'Living Earth' can
still be seen in the narratives and mythologies of
ancient tribes and cultures. For example, the native
American Indian, Chief Seattle, in his famous speech of
1854, remarked that:
'Even
the rocks, which seem to be dumb as they swelter in
the sun along a silent shore, thrill with memories
of stirring events connected with the lives of my
people (2).
Similarly, the Australian Aborigines who have inherited
a 40,000 year old history, the oldest unsevered culture
the world has ever known felt that 'to wound the
earth was to wound himself', and in an article to
the National Geographic, one of the remaining Gagudji
elders told the authors:
'Earth
our mother, Eagle our cousin. Tree, he is pumping
our blood. Grass is growing. And water. and we are
all one'...Aboriginals have a special connection
with everything that is natural... We see all things
natural as part of us. all things on Earth we see as
part human'
(3).
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Other
Articles: |
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(Sacred
Places: What Makes a Place Sacred)
(Stone
Selectivity: Pieces of Places)
(Landscape
Zodiacs/Mandalas)
(Earth-Mother-Earth)
(Earth
Energies)
(Tree-Lore)
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