What Exactly is The Dream of the Earth?
What exactly is the Dream of the Earth? How are we as dreamweavers connected into this Dream? How do herbs help us connect into the Dream of the Earth?
The following excerpt is from my book Seasonal Herbalism explains…
“Scholar Thomas Berry gave the name Dream of the Earth to the holy force that is the interconnected web of life. As people, it’s high time we re-focused our intentions and prayers on a plea to be reconnected to this Dream of the Earth. To let the dreams of the Earth catch us, mold us, and reconnect us, to be blessed enough to remember the dreams we are sent and weave them into waking life on behalf of all things. This might, after all, be the original design for us humans. Numerous ancient cultures, including the Celts of the British Isles and the Maori of New Zealand, use the term “dreamers” as the name for the people and their purpose on the planet.
…
Somewhere deep inside of us, we all can feel something is off with the way things are— and have been for many generations. For those whose ancestors left their indigenous lifeways in the more distant past, it can feel bewildering to know where to look for examples of Earth-honoring culture. Ancient Greece is one example of a Western civilization that understood and culturally implemented an awareness of the aliveness of the Earth.
In the ancient Greek world, there was a sacred site known as Delphi, home of the famed Oracles of Delphi, holy priestesses who delivered prophecies to the people that traveled far and wide to seek their counsel. For millennia, the holy site at Delphi was considered sacred to the ancient Greek goddess Gaia, their name for Mother Earth. These oracles spoke on behalf of Gaia when giving their prophecy. They spoke for the Earth.
Let’s take a moment to imagine this reality. Let’s say I am a farmer in the ancient Greek world. I make the long journey to visit the Oracles at Delphi for advice on building a new home for my family. The oracles respond on behalf of Mother Earth. Through them, Mother Earth foretells the ripple effects the clearing and construction of the new home will have upon the land’s web of life if I choose my desired location. They prophesize that the project will impact my great-great-grandchildren’s ability to farm the land. They see that the project will affect the animal populations and thus our ability to hunt. They share the opinions of the nature spirits who reside and govern the land and foretell what their wrath might look like if the project is undertaken. They suggest that instead I consider rebuilding my home in a slightly different location. Through the oracles, Mother Earth shares that this new site will be less disruptive to the harmony of the land’s web of life. The proper and necessary rituals to appease the nature spirits who will be displaced by the project are shared. I give great thanks to Mother Earth and to these holy women attuned to speak for her. I return to my land to begin my necessary project in alignment with the dream of the Earth.
This is the way it was at Delphi for millennia—women speaking for the Earth on behalf of all of life. Around 5,000 years ago, a shift occurred worldwide, including in Greece. This shift marked the takeover of female gods by male gods. In other words, this was the dawn of the patriarchal era. At Delphi, the young male god Apollo arrived wanting the power of the holy land and oracles for himself. To accomplish this feat, Apollo slayed the great python, who was the guardian protector of the site. With this slaying, Apollo usurped Gaia’s throne at Delphi and the site became sacred to him. Moving forward, the priestesses no longer spoke on behalf of Gaia; they no longer spoke for Earth mother and the web of life. They were now made to speak on behalf of the ambitious young male god Apollo. We can imagine how Apollo’s prophecy might sound compared to Gaia’s. It could be said that Apollo’s voice still governs the direction that the people are marching.
In modern times, the name Gaia Theory has been adopted to describe this consciousness of the Earth. The term, coined by chemist James Lovelock, posits that the Earth and its biological systems behave as a huge single entity. Lovelock borrowed the term from the Greek tradition and its name for the deified Earth mother: Gaia. This hypothesis is nothing new. In fact, some would argue it’s as old as the Earth herself. For Earth-centered indigenous peoples all over the world, it is not a metaphor, symbolic, or just good manners to say “Mother Earth.” It is quite literal.
If this Gaia Theory feels like a new concept, here is a metaphor that may be helpful. Let’s imagine a human body, a body known as Joey. We can imagine how Joey is a constellation of trillions of cells all coalesced into this one organism known as Joey. There are various subsets of cells within Joey that are highly differentiated and specialized, such as nephrons, the functional units of the kidneys, and hepatocytes, the cells operating in the liver.
Let’s imagine what the consciousness of each of those cells would be like, in their own little micro-universes, experiencing themselves as separate and at the same time feeling a distant knowing that they are part of something greater. All of these cells are their own cell, and at the same time they share a common home—Joey’s body. And, because these cells are part of Joey’s body, they are connected to a higher intelligence, a life-preserving impulse that is constantly trying to seek homeostasis through up-regulating here or down-regulating there in service to the greater goal, which is Joey’s continued life.
It is the same with Gaia. Truly! We are each of us, not just us human beings, but every member of the web of life on this Earth, cells of the body of Gaia. Each of us cells, by nature of our being here in this body of Gaia, are connected to the pulse of life, seeking to move her towards homeostasis. Said another way, we are hooked by her dream, the dream of a future for herself.
At this particular time on the Earth, we humans have gotten a bit out of balance. Let us say that we humans are nephrons, the kidney cells of Mother Earth. We nephrons have forgotten how to do our job. We’ve forgotten our original purpose and have become sick, out of balance, metastatic even. And the entire system is suffering due to our forgetting.
Though we are indeed in a metastatic epoch, hope remains. Many of us have directly experienced, seen, or heard stories of healing miracles. We know that cells can change overnight and return to their healed, whole, original design.
Herbalism restores our contact with plants, themselves agents of miraculous healing. When we ingest them medicinally, plants open up pathways in our bodies for new healing energy to flow—this is how they heal our bodies. They do the same on the level of spirit, opening up pathways that pull us back into integration within the web of life, connecting us to the force of life and the possibility of miracles.”
REFERENCES
Image Credit <a href="https://www.vecteezy.com/free-photos/mother-earth-day">Mother Earth Day Stock photos by Vecteezy</a>
Berry, Thomas. Dream of the Earth. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1998
Lovelock, James. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford, EN: Oxford University PRess, 2016.
