Over the recent year, the concept of Gaia as formalized by James Lovelock & Lynn Margulis has become very important to me.
It is not a new idea, tapping roots from countless cultures and truly it's rather funny that it's something I had to encounter at all.
It comes down to the perspetive that Gaia, our planet, is one interconnected organism: and us the cells and the soil its skin and the rocks its bones.


So it becomes natural to ask what is our purpose then in this giant body. Could we be the self-absorbed neurons,
the healers, the philosophers, the engineers? And what do we even know / can we even hope to know
about the joys and goals of our collective being? I posit that we are as alien to Gaia's needs as the epithelial cells on my pinky
are to mine. What does pinky cell know about my love for banana ice cream? my respect of good pottery?
But remote as they are to me, they are still me and the distinction between component and whole is a blurry line


Which brings me to the final point. That I think as humans we've over indexed on categories - nature knows no delination.
If you ask Gaia, there is no such entity as a "wing" or verb as "fly". The manta rays jumping from the water have as much claim to these titles
as any eagle or plane or rock for that matter. All aspects emergent properties from the hot chaos of every connection. The history of our planet shows that complexity
breeds further complexity. And our love of language & category of naming impells us to constantly push the impossible and fruitless task
to disentangle from the next, all without teleonomy, in symbiosis & competition, the ultimate holobiont, us & our home at the same time.


Knowing this fills me up with good cheer. I get to be part of something larger, something that has been around for 4 billion years
and will be around long after we're gone. My purpose is to bring my own views and actions upon this collective emergent beauty.
To shape Gaia not as a human but as a seed in the mess. To bask in the presence of our singular conscious for a little while.



Stay tuned as I get around to uploading all of my Gaia related art here! Tonsil art, language with the grammar of chemistry, etc. I also try to host little nature meditation walks with discussion around Gaia if you're interested in joining. please contact me!