Page 46 - ECOlogic Book

“Do you begin to sense the nonverbal language of the earth as a living
organism?” asks Elizabeth Dodson Gray. “It is a symphony of diversity, a
great chorale of life-energy. It is an intricate fugue of interconnection.
Within it everything has its function and nothing is ranked above or better
than another, for such a system lives and develops through its celebration of
diversity. Large and small, tangible and intangible, physical, chemical and
biological, solid and liquid and vapor – like the individual notes in a complex
musical piece, each and all have a special place and an equal creation-based
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value.

In The Reimagination of the World, David Spangler speaks of the planet as a
“condition” (not just a place), “that supports diversity, because each unique
member of the community offers an irreplaceable contribution and
perspective. It also,” he says, “promotes communion and cooperation or
symbiosis within that field of diversity, so that wholeness is manifested as
well as the power of emergence.” He concludes, “To me, Gaia means the
challenge to learn to think and act the way the spirit of the planet does – in
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a manner that empowers and sustains life and its unfoldment.”

Much larger than simply learning to think like a mountain or a whale or an
opossum (which, to some extent we must also do,) ours is a time when we
must learn, as Spangler suggests, to think like a planet, this planet, Earth.

Can we be sure that the human is the only species that prays? Perhaps the
first day of the New Creation will be, not just when we understand what the
whales are saying to each other or to us, but when we begin to pray
together, cats and whales and humans and opossums and sunflowers, our
common prayer – our great ECOmenical prayer of celebration and gratitude
for our lives in Earth together. As more and more we align our own thinking
with the “mind of Gaia”, out sprits will be aligned as well, with the planet,
with other species, with other humans, and with ourselves. The glass wall
will disappear as we continue to contemplate this marvelous unfolding
creation of which we are a part.

45 Dodson Gray, Elizabeth, “the Parable of the Sandhill Cranes: Women, Men, and the Earth,” Nov./Dec.,
1991 Expressions
46 Spangler, David, & Thomas, William Irwin, the Reimagination of the World, (Bear & Company, Santa Fe,
NM, 1991).

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