The Gaia hypothesis is the idea that Earth is a living organism and can regulate its own environment. This idea argues that Earth is able to maintain conditions that are favorable for life to survive on it, and that it is the living things on Earth that give the planet this ability and that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system maintain the conditions for life on the planet.
Mother Earth
The idea that Earth and its atmosphere are some sort of “superorganism” was actually first proposed by Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726–1797), although this was not one of his more accepted and popular ideas. As a result, no one really pursued this notion until some 200 years later, when the English chemist James Lovelock (1919– ) put forth a similar idea in his 1979 book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Gaia is the name of the Greek goddess of Earth and mother of the Titans. In modern times, the name has come to symbolize “Earth Mother” or “Living Earth.” In this book, Lovelock proposed that Earth’s biosphere (all the parts of Earth that make up the living world) acts as a single living system that if left alone, can regulate itself.
As to the name Gaia, the story goes that Lovelock was walking in the countryside surrounding his home in Wilshire, England, and met his neighbor, English novelist William Golding (1911–1993), author of Lord of the Flies and several other books. Telling Golding of his new theory, he then asked his advice about choosing a suitable name for it, and the result of this meeting was that the term “Gaia” was chosen because of its real connection to the Greek goddess who pulled the living world together out of chaos or complete disorder.
Origin of Earth’s atmosphere
Lovelock arrived at this hypothesis by studying Earth’s neighboring planets, Mars and Venus. Suggesting that chemistry and physics seemed to argue that these barren and hostile planets should have an atmosphere just like that of Earth, Lovelock stated that Earth’s atmosphere is different because it has life on it. Both Mars and Venus have an atmosphere with about 95 percent carbon dioxide, while Earth’s is about 79 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen. He explained this dramatic difference by saying that Earth’s atmosphere was probably very much like that of its neighbors at first, and that it was a world with hardly any life on it. The only form that did exist was what many consider to be the first forms of life—anaerobic (pronounced ANN-ay-roe-bik) bacteria that lived in the ocean. This type of bacteria cannot live in an oxygen environment, and its only job is to convert nitrates to nitrogen gas. This accounts for the beginnings of a nitrogen build-up in Earth’s atmosphere.
The oxygen essential to life as we know it did not start to accumulate in the atmosphere until organisms that were capable of photosynthesis evolved. Photosynthesis is the process that some algae and all plants use to convert chemically the Sun’s light into food. This process uses carbon dioxide and water to make energy-packed glucose, and it gives off oxygen as a by-product. These very first photosynthesizers were a blue green algae called cyanobacteria that live in water. Eventually, these organisms produced so much oxygen that they put the older anaerobic bacteria out of business. As a result, the only place that anaerobic bacteria could survive was on the deep-sea floor (as well as in heavily water-logged soil and in our own intestines). Love-lock’s basic point was that the existence of life (bacteria) eventually made Earth a very different place by giving it an atmosphere.
Lovelock eventually went beyond the notion that life can change the environment and proposed the controversial Gaia hypothesis. He said that Gaia is the “Living Earth” and that Earth itself should be viewed as being alive. Like any living thing, it always strives to maintain constant or stable conditions for itself, called homeostasis In the Gaia hypothesis, it is the presence and activities of life that keep Earth in homeostasis and allow it to regulate its systems and maintain steady-state conditions.
Cooperation over competition
Lovelock was supported in his hypothesis by American microbiologist Lynn Margulis (1918– ) who became his principal collaborator. Margulis not only provided support, but she brought her own scientific ability and achievements to the Gaia hypothesis. In her 1981 book, Symbiosis in Cell Evolution , Margulis had put forth the then-unheard of theory that life as we know it today evolved more from cooperation than from competition. She argued that the cellular ancestors of today’s plants and animals were groups of primitive, formless bacteria cells called prokaryotes (pronounced pro-KAR-ee-oats). She stated that these simplest of bacteria formed symbiotic relationships—relationships that benefitted both organisms—which eventually led to the evolution of new lifeforms. Her theory is called endosymbiosis and is based on the fact that bacteria routinely take and transfer bits of genetic material from each other.
Margulis then argued that simple bacteria eventually evolved into more complex eukaryotic cells or cells with a nucleus. These types of cells form the basic structure of plants and animals. Her then-radical but now-accepted idea was that life evolved more out of cooperation (which is what symbiosis is all about) than it did out of competition (in which only the strong survive and reproduce). The simple prokaryotes did this by getting together and forming symbiotic groups or systems that increased their chances of survival. According to Margulis then, symbiosis, or the way different organisms adapt to living together to the benefit of each, was the major mechanism for change on Earth.
Most scientists now agree with her thesis that oxygen-using bacteria joined together with fermenting bacteria to form the basis of a type of new cell that eventually evolved into complex eukaryotes. For the Gaia hypothesis, the Margulis concept of symbiosis has proven to be a useful explanatory tool. Since it explains the origin and the evolution of life on Earth (by stating that symbiosis is the mechanism of change), it applies also to what continues to happen as the process of evolution goes on and on.
Gaia Explained
The main idea behind the Gaia hypothesis can be both simple and complex. Often, several similar examples or analogies concerning the bodies of living organisms are used to make the Gaia concept easier to understand. One of these states that we could visualize Earth’s rain forests as the lungs of the planet since they exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. Earth’s atmosphere could be thought of as its respiratory system, and its streams of moving water and larger rivers like its circulatory system, since they bring in clean water and flush out the system. Some say that the planet actually “breathes” because it contracts and expands with the Moon’s gravitational pull, and the seasonal changes we all experience are said to reflect our own rhythmic bodily cycles.
Many of these analogies are useful in trying to explain the general idea behind the Gaia hypothesis, although they should not be taken literally. Lovelock, however, has stated that Earth is very much like the human body in that both can be viewed as a system of interacting components. He argues that just as our bodies are made up of billions of cells working together as a single living being, so too are the billions of different lifeforms on Earth working together (although unconsciously) to form a single, living “superorganism.” Further, just as the processes or physiology of our bodies has its major systems (such as the nervous system, circulatory system, respiratory system, etc.), so, says Lovelock, Earth has its own “geophysiology.” This geo-physiology is made up of four main components: atmosphere (air), biosphere (all lifeforms), geosphere (soil and rock), and hydrosphere (water). Finally, just as our own physiological health depends on all of our systems being in good working condition and, above all, working together well, so, too, does Earth’s geo-physiology depend on its systems working in harmony.
Life is the Regulating Mechanism
Lovelock claims that all of the living things on Earth provide it with this necessary harmony. He states that these living things, altogether, control the physical and chemical conditions of the environment, and therefore it is life itself that provides the feedback that is so necessary to regulating something. Feedback mechanisms can detect and reverse any unwanted changes. A typical example of feedback is the thermostat in most homes. We set it to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature, usually somewhere in the range between 65°F (18°C) and 70°F (21°C). The thermostat is designed so that when the temperature falls below a certain setting, the furnace is turned on and begins to heat the house. When that temperature is reached and the thermostat senses it, the furnace is switched off. Our own bodies have several of these feedback mechanisms, all of which are geared to maintaining conditions within a certain proper and balanced range.
For Earth’s critical balance, Lovelock says that it is the biosphere, or all of life on Earth, that functions as our thermostat or regulator. He says that the atmosphere, the oceans, the climate, and even the crust of Earth are regulated at a state that is comfortable for life because of the behavior of living organisms . This is the revolutionary lesson that the Gaia hypothesis wants to teach. It says that all of Earth’s major components, such as the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the saltiness of the oceans, and the temperature of our surface is regulated or kept in proper balance by the activities of the life it supports. He also states that this feedback system is self-regulating and that it happens automatically. As evidence that, if left alone, Earth can regulate itself, he asserts that it is the activity of living organisms that maintain the delicate balance between atmospheric carbon dioxide and oxygen. In a way, Love-lock argues that it is life itself that maintains the conditions favorable for the continuation of life. For example, he contends that it is no accident that the level of oxygen is kept remarkably constant in the atmosphere at 21 percent. Lovelock further offers several examples of cycles in the environment that work to keep things on an even keel.
Lovelock also warns that since Earth has the natural capacity to keep things in a stable range, human tampering with Earth’s environmental balancing mechanisms places everyone at great risk. While environmentalists insist that human activity (such as industrial policies that result in harming Earth’s ozone layer) is upsetting Earth’s ability to regulate itself, others who feel differently argue that Earth can continue to survive very well no matter what humans do exactly because of its built-in adaptability.
Earth as Seen From Space
An important aspect about the Gaia hypothesis is that it offers scientists a new model to consider. Most agree that such a different type of model was probably not possible to consider seriously until humans went into space. However, once people could travel beyond the atmosphere of Earth and put enough distance between them and their planet, then they could view their home from an extra-terrestrial viewpoint. No doubt that the 1960s photographs of the blue, green, and white ball of life floating in the total darkness of outer space made both scientists and the public think of their home planet a little differently than they ever had before. These pictures of Earth must have brought to mind the notion that it resembled a single organism.
Although the Gaia hypothesis is still very controversial and has not been established scientifically (by being tested and proven quantitatively), it has already shown us the valuable notion of just how interdependent everything is on Earth. We now recognize that Earth’s biological, physical, and chemical components or major parts regularly interact with and mutually affect one another, whether by accident or on purpose. Finally, it places great emphasis on what promises to be the planet’s greatest future problem—the quality of Earth’s environment and the role humans will play in Earth’s destiny.
For many, a spirituality of the Earth has quickly become equated with Gaia worship – but this, suggests well-known writer and holistic thinker David Spangler, may be a serious wrong turn. Gaia is the name of the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth, and as a name it was recently revived to refer to the hypothesis formed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, who postulate that the whole biosphere may be alive in that the Earth’s life forms are themselves responsible for regulating the conditions that make life on the planet possible. Spangler questions whether those who would also revive the goddess have considered the possible consequences, and he sketches out a way of thinking about Gaia that might best serve both humans and the planet.
The idea of a “Spirit of Gaia” is definitely alien to the original Gaia Hypothesis as developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Though it does conceive of the earth as a living entity, such a being, if conscious at all, has (in the words of Margulis) the sentiency “of an amoeba” – hardly the stuff of myth and spiritual invocation. On the other hand, the idea of a world soul, an anima mundi, a planetary Logos, is an ancient one found in both Eastern and Western culture. This world soul is usually conceived as a “formative force,” an active, intelligent, purposeful spiritual presence at work in the material world to guide and guard the course of planetary evolution. It is generally not accorded the status of being the ultimate source or Creator but might be looked upon as a great angelic or archangelic being presiding over the wellbeing of the world, or as the gestalt, the wholeness of all the lives and patterns that manifest upon, and as, the earth.
It is this tradition that Gaia reinvokes in our culture. However, a reinvocation is not the same as a reincarnation. The sense of a living earth enjoyed and practiced by earlier, non-industrial cultures grew out of living experience and a closeness to nature that our culture has set aside. It was woven into the fabric of life and culture. This is not true for us. Furthermore, the Judeo-Christian tradition arises from the semitic spiritual perspective of God and creation being separate and distinct, as well as from patriarchal social structures. In such a context, sacredness has overtones of authority, power, distance, and maleness that would have been alien to the spirituality of, for instance, the ancient Celts or the Native Americans, two cultures that incorporated a sense of the living earth. This means that when we strive to imagine the sacredness of the earth, we do so in a very different cultural context than did those who took for granted an immanent, accessible sacred presence pervading all things.
Can we simply adopt and graft on their notion of a living, sacred earth? I don’t think so, at least not without distortion. We have to deeply think into and live out this idea in a modern context. Until we do, Gaia, the spirit of the living earth, is an idea to think about rather than an idea to think with. It is a novelty rather than a tacit assumption, and as a spiritual idea it can be superficial. It lacks the overtones and undertones, the deeper connections with our everyday life and with the mysteries of creation, that it possessed in earlier cultures. As an idea, it becomes a suit to try on, rather than a body to inhabit and live through. In this respect, some current images of Gaia are to the ancient mythic idea of the living earth what a Disney cartoon version of a fairy tale, such as Sleeping Beauty or the current hit, The Little Mermaid, is to the original folk story. The cartoon is witty, bright, colorful, delightful, fun, and very superficial. It lacks the depth, the resonances, the hidden meanings and undertones of the original. The appearance, the skin of the story is there, but the bones and muscle have been removed.
THE “TOP LINE”
When we talk about the spirit of Gaia, the spirit of a living earth, or even of the earth as being alive, just what do we mean in our time? Do we even have the same sense of life, of what being an entity means, as did our ancestors? We are the products of a materialistic, technological, rational, male-oriented culture that over two hundred years ago set aside the medieval notions of the Great Chain of Being in which each and every life had a purpose, a place, and a meaning. The importance of the bottom line has made us forget that there is also a “top line” that gives the spiritual value, the holistic value, of a person, a plant, an animal, or a place. If at worst the bottom line represents how entities can be exploited and used for profit, the top line represents how entities can empower and must be empowered for the good of the whole. It is this sense of the whole as a component of life and of the individual as an expression of the whole that we do not have. We have a sense of incarnation but not of co-incarnation, of the many ways in which the fabric of our identities are interwoven and interdependent in ways extending far beyond just the human milieu. Thus our definitions of life become very reductionist, individualized, and utilitarian. What, then, does it mean to us to speak of the earth as a living being, not in a biological sense but in a metaphysical sense? Accepting Gaia simply as a “return of the Goddess” or jumping on the bandwagon of a new planetary animism, without thinking through the implications of just what Gaia might mean in our culture, can lead to sentimentality rather than spirituality. It leads to what William Irwin Thompson’s daughter Hilary calls “the Gooey-Gaia Syndrome.”
If Gaia is an important spiritual idea for our time, then we must remember that a spiritual idea is not something we think about but something that inhabits and shapes us. It is like a strand of DNA, organizing and energizing our lives. A spiritual idea is not just another bit of data to be filed away. It is incarnational in a profound way, coming alive only when incorporated (made flesh) in our lives through work, practice, effort, skill, and reflection. It becomes part of the foundation and the architecture of our lives. Being a new icon for worship is not enough. Invoking the spirit of Gaia is insufficient unless we understand just how we shape and participate in that spirit, and how we in turn are shaped and participated in by it.
DO WE REALLY NEED GAIA?
However, a deeper question is whether we really need Gaia as a spiritual image. Do we need another spiritual source, another presence to invoke? If there is a true Spirit of the Earth, a Planetary Logos, is it hierarchically superior to humanity? That is, does it stand somewhere between ourselves and God? If so, we run the risk of interposing yet another image between ourselves and divinity. Or if the earth is seen as sacred, just what does that mean? Why should the earth be conceived of as sacred simply because it is alive? Do we extend the same privilege to other living things? Is life alone the criterion for sacredness? Or does something become sacred when it is living and powerful, big and capable of doing us either harm or good? Does Gaia become a substitute for God? What would such a substitution mean? Does it bring God closer to us, or does it further muddy the meaning and nature of God, making it yet more difficult to clearly determine just what the sacred is and what our relationship is to it?
These are important questions, and unfortunately, exploring them in the manner they deserve would far exceed the space I have in this article. Still, they need to be raised. There is a strong tendency as new planetary and religious paradigms emerge in our time to affirm the sacredness of all life and of the earth as a whole. However, the object of this exercise, it seems to me, is not to come up with new images of divinity, but to affect behavior. What we really want is to relate to ourselves, to each other, and to the world as a whole as if we all have ultimate value apart from utilitarian considerations. If something is sacred, it is assumed to have value beyond its form, usefulness, duration, and products. It is valuable; it is precious. It is worthy of respect and honor, love and compassion; it is worth entering into communion with. Its very being is its only justification; it needs no other.
As things stand, before we can manipulate or exploit something or someone, we must first devalue it, making it lower than ourselves. That which is sacred cannot be devalued, and by naming the earth and all upon it as sacred, we seek to protect it and ourselves from ourselves. Yet, if we must call something “sacred” before we can extend ourselves to it with love, empathy, communion, honor, and compassion – if something must be alive and have spirit before we can relate to it as having value – then we dishonor and devalue the spirit within us that sets no such preconditions. We devalue the meaning of the sacred itself, which is not a status but a function: it manifests when there is a sharing of love and being in order to empower, uplift and liberate that to which the sharing is directed. The sacred does not pick and choose what it shall love. It is love given freely and unconditionally, just as in the Christmas celebration, Christians honor the mystery of a God who “so loved the world” (even though, in traditional Christianity, that world is not “sacred”) that He made the ultimate sacrifice of Himself through His only Son on that world’s behalf.
Paradoxically then, we seem to need to call something sacred in order to make it worthy of receiving our highest values and noblest relationships, while in the Judeo-Christian tradition God appears under no such constraint, giving Himself freely and totally to creation whether it is seen as “sacred” or not. To bring sacredness into the world, should we not be more like the God many of us worship? We should not need to make either ourselves or the earth “sacred” in order to love it and ourselves and to get on with doing what needs to be done to heal and protect the biosphere.
Turning Gaia into a mythic or spiritual idea may be inappropriate or premature, leading both to misplaced concreteness and misplaced spirituality. On the other hand, Gaia can be an inspirational idea. Such an idea, to me, is like an enzyme. It is not important in itself except as it catalyzes a process. An enzyme is a means towards something else, a component of a larger emergence. In this context, Gaia would be an enzyme of consciousness, promoting and aiding a process of expanding our awareness in at least five areas important to our time. The first of these is the most obvious: the idea of Gaia heightens our awareness of ecological and environmental necessities and responsibilities. It inspires us to translate theory and concern into practical strategies to preserve the environment and to meet ecological crises.
The second area of awareness follows from the first: Gaia focuses our attention on issues of life. It shifts our operating paradigm from a mechanical one based on classical physics to an ecological one based on biology. It puts the phenomenon of life itself back into center stage in our culture. It inspires us towards a reformation that produces a culture that is truly life-affirming and life-centered.
Third, because the phenomenon of life as expressed through organisms and ecologies of organisms manifests more than the sum of its parts, it cannot be understood using solely analytical and reductionist techniques or modes of thought. Thus, Gaia represents an epistemology as well, a way of learning, seeing, and knowing. It inspires us to develop modes of thinking and acting that are holistic, systemic, symbiotic, connective, and participatory. We must learn to see the world in terms of patterns and not just positions and points; in terms of networks and lattices, not just centers and peripheries; in terms of processes, not just objects and things. We are encouraged to develop and practice an “ecology of mindfulness,” to paraphrase Bateson, as well as a mindful ecological practice. It inspires us to act towards each other as well as towards the environment in ways that serve and nourish the whole of which we are all participants – in ways that are compassionate and co-creative, cooperative and co-incarnational.
Fourth, Gaia does inspire us to think of the spirituality of the earth and to explore an “eco-theology.” Such a spirituality is important, for beyond ecology and conservation lies a deeper dimension of spiritual interaction and communion with our environment that is mutually important for ourselves and for nature. Within that dimension we will also find new insights into the meaning of the divine that cannot help but aid us in the emergence of a healthy and whole planetary culture.
My earlier comments are not meant to belittle or discourage this search, only to suggest that its importance warrants the best of our thinking and contemplation. We cannot simply take up the mindsets of our ancestors nor wear their myths as if we have not changed in the interim between their world and time and ours. We cannot assume the sacredness nor spiritual livingness of the earth or accept it as a new ideology or as a sentimentally pleasing idea. We must experience that life and sacredness, if it is there, in relationship to our own and to that ultimate mystery we call God. We must experience it in our lives, in our practice, in the flesh of our cultural creativity. We must allow it to shape us, as great spiritual ideas have always shaped those who entertain them, and not expect that we can simply use the image of Gaia to meet emotional, religious, political, or even commercial needs without allowing it to transform us in unexpected and radical ways. The spirituality of the earth is more than a slogan. It is an invitation to initiation, to the death of what we have been and the birth of something new.
Finally, Gaia provides a mirror in which to see ourselves anew. It inspires us to reflect on our own natures, on the meaning and destiny of humanity. Lovelock paved the way for this in his book Gaia in which he first presented the Gaia Hypothesis. In the last chapter, he suggested that humanity might be the evolving nervous system of the earth, the means by which Gaia achieves self-awareness. At a time when our society seems motivated by no higher purpose than endless expansion and the making of money and when humanity seems to have no purpose beyond itself, this image is striking and refreshing. It would seem to suggest a direction, a connection, a role that we can play in a world that is more than just the sum total of human desires.
Paradoxically, this image of humanity as nervous system is itself very “un-Gaian” in that it is not systemic enough. If by nervous system we mean the wiring that carries the sensations and thoughts of a larger being, then that is not a very participatory image, reducing humanity to being simply the instrumentality for the transmission and execution of the thoughts of the earth.
On the other hand, if by nervous system we mean the whole system that governs, guides, and controls the organism through reception and integration of sensation and the transmission of thought, then such a nervous system is more than just wiring. As modern medicine and biochemistry increasingly show, the whole body is an integrated sensing/directing organism. Glands, hormones, blood, circulation, physical structure, and interrelationships between organs play as much a role in structuring and transmitting “thought” as does the nervous system itself. Thus, to be the “nervous system” of the earth really means to be integrated with all the systems of the earth, from wind and weather to tidal flows and the growth of plants, from the ecology of watersheds to the migration of birds and insects from one bioregion to another, and so on. It means being Gaia in a way that transcends and enlarges our humanity. Just what that really involves is what we have to discover, but surely it goes beyond accepting without reflection pat slogans about Gaia and the sacredness of the earth.
I do not see Gaia itself as an image of human destiny, but it enlarges our vision of human purpose and activity beyond the personal and the local and puts it into a planetary and cosmic context. At the same time, the actions of Gaia are very local and specific, so that we are made more aware, not less, of our interactions with the particular places we inhabit. This is an important shift in our time.
Gaia is an important idea, both as a scientific hypothesis and as a spiritual image. However, I see it as a transitional idea. It is not so much a revelation in itself as a precursor to revelation or to new insights that can come when that idea is examined and lived with and given a chance to settle into our bones. Its meaning now lies in what it can inspire us to discover about ourselves and the nature of life, in rallying our energies to meet the needs of our environment, and through these processes of discovery and healing, to become a truly planetary species, blessed in ways we can now only imagine.
