Gaia's Grief

Share thoughts and ideas regarding what can be done to meet contemporary humanity's need for rites of initiation and passage.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

How will humankind address the global environmental problem in this century?

a.) We will find a satisfactory way to address each environmental problem without too much trauma to the environment or to humankind.
6
16%
b.) We will fail miserably; war, famine, and pestilence will triumph in this century, causing not only the senseless destruction of the environment, but unnecessary suffering and deaths of billions of people.
15
41%
c.) Other
16
43%
 
Total votes: 37

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Donna in Arizona wrote: When all of the recent "natural disasters" began domino-ing I thought of that story and wondered; is it possible that Earth really is a sentient being? Has she finally decided it is time to trot us down to the river and rid herself of a few parasites?

Any thoughts?
Earth does not need to be sentient to be natural, and it is the immutable predictables of nature that respond to insults with proper defenses. Dominoes may be the more factually accurate analogy, but the sentient being idea is easier to understand. The natural condition of our planet is a lot more complex than one of us, and when she is viewed in a holistic way, she's the mother of all our home planets.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

boringguy
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Post by boringguy »

Hi Donna, CarmelaBear,

From wiki;
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think ("reason") from the ability to feel ("sentience"). In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences (described by some thinkers as "qualia"). For Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that requires respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights, because sentience implies the ability to suffer, which entails certain rights.
Bold mine.

I recall Campbell saying that his feeling had become, that energy and consciousness really were the same thing. From that point there are really only facets of the one thing right? Not that I disagree with CB's assessment, but still i'm not sure how much of the above I personally would say couldn't apply.


bg
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hear the silence?

captsunshine
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Post by captsunshine »

When all of the recent "natural disasters" began domino-ing I thought of that story and wondered; is it possible that Earth really is a sentient being? Has she finally decided it is time to trot us down to the river and rid herself of a few parasites?

Any thoughts
I submit that that if nature is a 'sentient being' she could never do that- she would never shake herself clean off us.
J.C says that we are the eyes of Earth. If ever there is a soul of the Earth it resides in all of us.
I do not see a dichotomy in the existence of Earth and all the beings/nonbeings in it

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Post by Neoplato »

I do not see a dichotomy in the existence of Earth and all the beings/nonbeings in it-Capt
I'm kind of concerned that the Earth doesn't really care if we are corpoarte or incorporate. Send us back to the recycle bin; who knows what the form we'll come back as?

I just hope for four arms next time. But then again, that may have already been tried before. :wink:
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

Donna in Arizona
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Post by Donna in Arizona »

Maybe we are making a comeback, one soul at a time... as those brain-consuming ameoba that have infected some young people on the east coast? Okay, that was really warped humor, I know :roll: I somehow became fascinated over that story because it sounded so unutterably sci-fi.

Meditating on the sentient earth topic -- there really is no difference between the animate beings on the planet and the inanimate. At an atomic level, we are made of the same atoms with the same amount of space between nuclei and the energetic fields surrounding them. All is one. If there is chaos between the tectonic plates beneath the planets surface, there will be chaos on top -- with the weather and all that walk, fly and swim.

Wasn't it Jung who predicted WW II based on intensified dreams his patients were reporting?

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

Wasn't it Jung who predicted WW II based on intensified dreams his patients were reporting?-Donna
I haven't read that yet. But I had a similar discussion about two years ago that if negative energy is on the rise, it surfaces in both the inner and the outer.
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Part of the reason people live longer these days is that positive thoughts and dreams are becoming more common, not less.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

jonsjourney
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Post by jonsjourney »

I am increasingly of the mindset that the earth, indeed the cosmos, is simply indifferent to life. And even that thought anthropomorphizes the process. The causes and conditions for our existence, and the existence of all the life on this rock and water oasis, are likely to be a perfect storm in a random universe. Perhaps even the rarest of all gems.

Remove our moon, everything changes. Move our orbit out or in a few miles and everything changes. Our human minds appear to make meaning out of every experience and then attempt to attach that meaning so that things make "sense". It is also worth noting that we continue to place ourselves at the apex of this world even though we know almost nothing about what or who we are. Ego is as Ego desires.

While there is very good reason to believe that we have altered this environment of ours in great, and probably extremely destructive ways, the processes that gave rise to all of this does not require our presence any more than it requires the presence of the spotted owl in the forest. We become attached to our selves and the owls, but nature is detached (more anthropomorphizing because that is how we communicate) like the buddha who watches the egret snatch up and consume the fish who had just eaten the mosquito larvae, which had just eaten the....

Carpe Diem!
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

captsunshine
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Post by captsunshine »

The moment we stop believing that this universe has been structured around us- and for us; everything would start making sense. :)
Hi Carmela!.Cmon you ve got to give Medical science some credit.
Somehow i feel that the idea is a little farfetched.
Probably because I am a Jung-illiterate

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

What makes our sentience so interesting is that it is neither unique nor without it's downside. We may have created our spider's webs and our mud dauber homes out of massively long fiberglass cables and giant steel structures, but our systems are now so endangered that our continued existence as a species is on a path that may lead to self-destruction. Our success as commercial wizards may destroy our habitat and mark us for extinction.

It's not clear to me that our belief in the shortcuts and comforts provided by financial enrichment is not capable of overwhelming our capacity for common sense.

I am particularly concerned with warring mythologies that obscure concrete and accurate observation of how our behavior is affecting the planet's atmosphere and climate.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Ercan2121 wrote:Don’t you think that arsenic-metabolizing bacteria gives an idea how
Mother Nature can redefine everything? :)


Two new reports show that a bacterium, known as GFAJ-1, requires small amounts of
phosphate to grow—and that it cannot substitute arsenic for phosphorus to survive,
as a 2010 report in Science had suggested;
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2012/ ... enic.shtml
Corrigendum, my friends, so sorry for misinformation :D

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

:cry:
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

captsunshine
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Post by captsunshine »

Hello every one.
Hey there Carmela!!
So whats going on?
Non-violence ... requires greater heroism than of brave soldiers ... The world does not accept today the idea of loving the enemy. Even in Christian Europe the principle of non-violence is ridiculed ... Christians do not understand the message of Jesus. It is necessary to deliver it over again in the way we can understand ...

- Gandhi - speech -1925

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

captsunshine wrote:Hello every one.
Hey there Carmela!!
So whats going on?
Hey Cap! We're as crazy and confused as ever. So great to hear your voice again. My ears were burning.

Why don't you come up and see me some time over at www.carmela-chavez.com? I'm making corrections to the galley on my new book, and my to-do's include arranging some kind of local event to kick off the release of my from-the-heart.

Please bring us up to speed on your latest hero quest.

:D
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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