Seeking and Finding Wholeness

Happy Earth Day, Today And Every Day

I’m writing today to wish Earth a happy Earth day.
I’m writing to wish you a happy Earth day.
May every day be Earth Day.

If you follow this blog, you know that I have little time to write these days. But I had to write to wish you all a belated happy Earth Day Earth day was on April 22nd 2009.

I am keeping this article short and simple. I would like to briefly mention a couple words that come to mind on an occasion like this.

Are you familiar with the word Gaia? I’d guess 50% of the people reading this have heard the word Gaia before. If you know this word, congrats for your knowledge of Greek Mythology.

How about this word: Pantheism ?

If you didn’t recognize these words, no worries. I will briefly discuss what these terms mean here, in the future I will dedicate an article to each term.

Gaia

Also spelled Gaea or Ge, is a word from Greek mythology. Gaia is the goddess of the earth and mother of Cronus and the Titans in ancient mythology. In other words Gaia is the mother of all things, including the Titans, as well as Zeus and all other gods.

The term Gaia is also found in philosophy. You guessed it, Gaia philosophy or the Gaia theory was named after Gaia the Greek Goddess. There are some mystical, scientific and religious predecessors to the Gaia philosophy. Many religious mythologies had a view of Earth as being a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts (e.g. some Native American religions and various forms of shamanism).

Gaia Theory is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for life.

Gaia is also the name of a hypothesis. The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis that deals with the concept of homeostasis, and claims the resident life forms of a host planet coupled with their environment have acted and act as a single, self-regulating system. This system includes the near-surface rocks, the soil, and the atmosphere. This hypothesis proposes that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth (atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis.

On to the next term,

Pantheism

Pantheism is made of off two words, ‘pan’ is Greek for ‘all’ and ‘theos’ means ‘God’. It literally means “God is All” and “All is God”.

Pantheism refers to the belief that the universe is divine and should be revered. Pantheism identifies the universe with God but denies any personality or transcendence of such a God

A pantheist is someone who believes that everything is God and God is all. Since God is everything and everything is God, everything is sacred and interconnected. In other words, God and the universe are the same.

There are a few types of pantheism:  Classical pantheism,  Biblical pantheism, Naturalistic pantheism and Pantheist mysticism.

Can’t wait for my next articles discussing these terms further?  You can read about them here:

Pantheism

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pantheism
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
www.crossroad.to/glossary/religious.htm

Gaia

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gaia
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gaea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(mythology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_philosophy