threads of the spiderwoman: unsustainability

Sunday, November 4, 2012

The New Atlantis: Gaia Casts Her Vote

On the brink of a presidential election (and the end of the world at the Winter Solstice, according to the 2012 prophecy enthusiasts), as our not-so-visionary leaders argue about economics, war, whether health care should be only available to the rich and privileged, and other domestic issues, everyone seems to be ignoring the very large elephant in the middle of the room.

That's right, CLIMATE CHANGE. An Inconvenient Truth. What one of the climatologists in a recent interview with Amy Goodman*** called the "Voldemort of our time". Only we don't have a Harry Potter, or a Frodo Baggins, to fight the Dark Lord. We're all in this together, and the "Dark Lord" is the dark side of humanity that denies the almost inconceivable, that sacrifices the future of all children for greed and an insatiable lust for power, that trivializes the tragedy of the 6th Extinction into dancing Polar Bears that sell Coca Cola.

Earth scientist James Lovelock (Interesting name, if you think about it, considering the situation) originated the now highly accepted premise that the Earth is a complex, interdependent, self-regulating bio-system, a living being - "Gaia Theory".

As New York and the East Coast try to recover from the unprecedented "Frankenstorm" Sandy, it looks like GAIA cast her vote. PACHAMAMA made a political comment.

Gaia by Esther Johnson

She reminds us "Hello, this is another wake-up call. "

We're not the first unsustainable civilization, as Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond pointed out in his book Collapse, but we are (to the best of our knowledge) the first global civilization, the most environmentally lethal, and with the greatest consequences. Even in the face of massive overpopulation, and some pretty clear evolutionary indicators that women should have equal rights with the other half of the human race, Biblical patriarchs living in the 21st century, but making conclusions from books written sometime around the 2nd century, continue to insist that they shouldn't even have birth control. And although it's been 6 years former Vice President Al Gore released his definitive movie "An Inconvenient Truth", nothing much has changed. How about "Fracking", and genetically modifying the food sources ("Frankenfoods")? "Geoengineering"? HAARP and chem trails? Nuclear waste? Deforestation?..........

Are we the New Atlantis?

What is the myth? According to Edger Cayce, Atlantis was a great civilization with wonderful inventions, including flying machines and the ability to move great stones to build their temples and their great pyramids. But as they grew in power, their magicians became too proud, too arrogant. Cayce's readings say they had great crystals (so do we, Silicone, the stuff that makes computers work) that could do miraculous things, but they were so powerful that they could break the very fabric of nature and the veils between the worlds. Atlanteans became divided, and at the end, warring Atlanteans broke the balance of the world, and the great continent sank below the ocean. This tale is also one of the sources for Tolkien's "Silmarillion", the mythos from which he created the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Can we change the story?