Love the Earth!

The Real Thing is simply to feel, think and act with respect to the earth, to whole system in which we live, and on which we depend. Anytime! It’s lovely to get a habit of remembering, say every time you go outside, look around, feel the quality of the air and feel deep appreciation. Anyone can work their favourite ways to love Gaia.

I have tried to look through the mists of time and human development, what went so wrong that we are on the verge of destroying Gaia’ ecosystem that we rely upon? When did it happen? Perhaps it was when we started farming. We were no longer limited by our surroundings. Formerly if we ate up everything we like in an area, we moved on to fresh pastures, returning when Gaia had replenished that locality.
When we grew our crops we had more food, more children, possession of land and more cultural objects, things we could keep, not needing to carry everything as we moved on. We ploughed up the ecosystem, replacing it with monoculture. There is evidence that from 7,000 years ago forest destruction for farming started the increase of atmospheric CO2.
I suspect before humanity came to cultivation of wheat, corn, rice and potatoes, plants were sown and planted at the favourite seasonal bases. The trees and plants we found useful we encouraged and helped along a bit. That in some places we learned not to ravage the land but to develop it favourably for ourselves. We tweaked the ecosystem gently and gradually. I like to think that what we now call Permaculture was once what the wandering tribes were doing to increase their standard of living.