The Earth as Gaia—Is a Living Earth the Cause of All the Recent Tornadoes?

The tornadoes that have wreaked havoc in the South—and more recently, Joplin, MO—killing hundreds and leaving a debris field akin to a battlefield, have people wondering what is going on.

The highly controversial global warming theory has been brought up and put to rest by most scientists. Yet there is the question of just why the earth is throwing its fury.

There could be many reasons, from the El Niño and La Niña climate cycle to other seasonal and global shifts that just happen to be occurring at a maximum this year.   Yet there is another equally controversial theory that has been spoken about throughout history. The ancient Greeks looked at the earth as a living being called Gaia.

Mother of All Forces

Gaia is the mother, or generating force, that enables the planet to bring about and sustain life. In mythology, Earth, trees, planets and stars all had a spirit that resided within them and interacted with everything else. To many today, this of course is rubbish. Earth is no more alive than are the chairs they are sitting in.   However, many indigenous people through history up until today have seen Earth as a living entity.

Their views were a part of their spirituality and a way of revering the being … Earth, which sustained them. Their survival was connected with a good rain, a successful hunt or abundant harvest. They looked at the earth with honor and in such treated it with much more respect than is done today.  

John Pope, or "Rolling Thunder," was a famous Native American shaman. He was the subject of Doug Boyd’s book Rolling Thunder Speaks A Message for Turtle Island. Rolling Thunder’s basic belief was that “the earth is a living organism that gets sick from pollution and mistreatment just as the human body does."

He believed that the earth had a higher mind and a will with a desire to maintain itself. It reacted to our actions upon it, and natural disasters are a result of the earth being sick with how it is being treated.  

The Gaia theory speaks about relatively the same thing in more scientific terms. This theory was developed in the 1970s by environmentalist James Lovelock. Its premise is that Earth is a giant living organism composed of all the interconnecting organisms on the planet into a giant living cohesive body. The larger body Earth became or becomes a self-regulating organism in its own right.

Therefore, Earth as a living being could seek to regulate and protect itself by certain actions that would be seen to us as living organisms on the larger body as natural disasters, such as the tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis. A part of me is connected to a Native American viewpoint, and I must say that I do feel the earth is a living entity whether you want to see it as science or spirituality.

A Pulse

When you stand barefoot, looking out at the horizon, there is a pulse and an interconnectivity that at once lets you feel the pulse of the planet. This is my view.  In looking at what it means, questions once again arise. If Earth is a collected group of organisms and is reacting right now, what is it reacting about? Is it spiritual or physical? Perhaps it is many things.

Clearly, the planet's people are out of balance, with stress, fear and intense emotional reactions to each other. Earth is polluted, and the recent BP oil spill has thrown it further off kilter. Furthermore, do we simply take our world for granted? Do we stop and connect to it or honor it for our sustenance? What would happen if we did?   To many it is a stretch to consider that the earth is causing all the natural disasters occurring now on purpose.

Yet it is not a stretch to think of a poked or prodded microbe or lab animal reacting to the discomfort by flailing about. It is a potent point to consider that the earth, whether sentient or not, is reacting to something.