The sky was light and the land all dark
The sun rose up over Central Park
I was walking home from work
Gaia
The petal sky and the rosy dawn
The world turning on the burning sun
Sacred wet green one we live on
Gaia
. . .
Turn away from your animal kind
Try to leave your body just to live in your mind
Leave your cold cruel Mother Earth behind
Gaia
As if you were your own creation
As if you were the chosen nation
The world around you just a rude and dangerous invasion
Gaia, Gaia, Gaia
Someone's got to stop us now
Save us from us, Gaia
No one's gonna stop us now
Pray for the forest, pray for the tree
Pray for the fish in the deep blue sea
Pray for yourself and for God's sake
Say one for me, poor wretched unbeliever
~ James Taylor
Although James Taylor refers to "Gaia" as "your basic tree huggers' anthem," and Rolling Stone listed it as #2 of the "Corniest Pro-Environment Songs," I still like it. Hard to believe it's twenty years old already, being released in 1997 on Hourglass.
In the 1960s, planetologist John Lovelock put forth the Gaia Hypothesis, suggesting that Earth is a living organism. He named his hypothesis after Gaia, the Greek Goddess of the Earth. (Varying beliefs put forth that Gaia is the Earth or that Gaia is the spiritual embodiment of the Earth or that Gaia is a line of eco-friendly yoga wear.) Lovelock's hypothesis is now referred to as the Gaia Theory. Whatever. Let's just call her Mother Earth. And Mother Earth is a little depressed right now.
Today's news reveals that the man in the White House has just donated his salary for the first quarter of the year to the National Park Service, targeting upkeep of battlefields. The supersized check that Sean Spicer trotted out is for $78,333.32. Sounds magnanimous, doesn't it? Until you consider that the man's budget proposal slashes EPA funding by nearly a third. His "gift" to the National Park Service equals .005% of the amount he cut from the Department of the Interior, which operates the NPS. Fuzzy math?
As if you were your own creation / As if you were the chosen nation / The world around you just a rude and dangerous invasion. Did I mention that James Taylor wrote this song twenty years ago?
Save us from us, Gaia. Please.
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