Trump is Gaia
A nondual perspective on chaos and catastrophe.
See, there’s nothing that isn’t Gaia. Everything is just another form of the Earth, another expression of herself, her soil made flesh, her water made blood. Or made plastic, as the case may be.
Sometimes Mother Earth takes the form of an eagle. Sometimes she goes plastic.
Plastic? That came from the Earth. What else would it be, if not the Earth? Where else would it have come from? Mars? Sure, there’s the whole plastic-came-from-the-aliens conspiracy theory1, but let’s stay grounded, stay reasonable. Plastic came from the Earth, people. We had a part in converting it, transforming it, but we, too, are of the Earth. Earthlings are the Earth. It was the Earth making plastic when we built the plastic factories. We are her fingers. She is industrious. She has many billions, trillions of fingers.
So yes, you see where I’m going with this.
Trump, like you, like me, is Gaia. Your worst earthly nightmare, your most loathed enemy on the planet, whatever he is to you, he is and will always be the Earth herself. His mind, no matter how confused…his heart, no matter how endungeoned…his spirit, no matter how estranged…all of it, all of him, is housed in this body, which is the body of the Earth, like every body.
That eagle.
This plastic.
Still not convinced?
Well, there’s isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing. We might like it or not like it, but the fact is that everything comes from and always is the Earth. Her mountains become soil, weathered down by her waters and winds. Her soil becomes vegetable, fruit, grass, meat. These cow bodies and banana bodies and soybean bodies (her body) become our bodies (still her body). We are not separate from her. We are not other than her. No debate. No woowoo. Just simple, observable facts.
So what, when we convert certain parts of the Earth into plastic, the plastic suddenly stops being the Earth? Or it only regains Earth-status after the thousand years it (she) takes to break down, change form? Nah. That doesn’t make sense. That’s an arbitrary distinction, made up. It’s still the Earth. All the Earth. Always changing, sometimes weird, often unpleasant or downright gross, excruciating even, but unstoppably, unceasingly, indivisibly her.
We might not like what we’ve done to her (ourselves), might not like who she (we) have become, but our judgements about her don’t change who she is, who we are.
We are the Earth. Period. End of conversation. Or the beginning of the conversation we should be having.
“But what about meteorites?” you might say. “Meteorites aren’t the Earth. They come from outer space.”
Well, I guess you’ve got me there. There are some things here on Earth that have come from elsewhere. And I do have to admit, Trump’s behavior is so unnatural that one could be forgiven for thinking he just might be an unnaturalized alien.
But there are no illegal aliens. We know this. No one is illegal. No one’s an alien. That shit’s made up. We made it up, those constructs. What we didn’t make up is the Earth, the non-conceptual Earth to whom we all belong.
Or, no. That’s not quite right. We don’t belong to the Earth. We are the Earth made manifest, made ambulatory, made skin and hair and bone. The Earth, driving down to Portland for his daily commute. The Earth, nursing her newborn son back at the house. The Earth, pulling the trigger, dropping the bomb. The Earth, signing the executive order with that big fat Sharpie.
So the question is not: Does he belong? He does, because he is, and everything that is belongs beyond belonging. It (she) is.
Rather, the question is: How do we let the fact of our true nature (i.e. that we are all interdependent expressions of a singular being, the Earth) inform how we relate to each other, especially when harm is being caused (i.e. when certain Gaia fingers don’t know who they really are and are therefore capable of relating to other Gaia fingers as if they are separate, other than or less than the one)?
Put it like this: If your right hand suddenly popped into its own discrete consciousness, obtained a mind of its own somehow, and then started attacking your left hand, it would be foolish to cut off the rogue right hand. To punish that hand, hate that hand, lock that hand up in a cage for the rest of your life. This would be nonsensical at best, tragic at worst. Because your right hand is also a part of your body. And you need your right hand.
But what to do, how to proceed, if your right hand is a legitimate danger to other parts of the body?
This is the great challenge for those parts of the body who have an understanding of who they belong to, who they truly are. It’s the art we all have to learn, and quick. The art of awakening the right hand.
But really it’s the art of learning how to stay awake ourselves. Just staying awake myself is hard enough. Because the dream, the illusion of separation, is so intense. So painful. So seemingly real. It’s been having its way with us (with Earth) for thousands of years, causing chaos, catastrophe. In the classroom. The bedroom. The boardroom. The battlefield. To remember who we are in the midst of this great and apparently endless war of forgetting, this is the hill to die on. The place to take a stand. Ironically, it’s also the place where the fighting ends.
The best thing we can do to awaken anyone else, maybe the only thing, is to awaken ourselves and just be awake, as awake as we can be. To our nature. To the truth. To the simple, observable fact of who we really are, which is and always will be, Earth.
Not an actual conspiracy theory that I’m aware of. But maybe there’s a conspiracy to cover up this conspiracy?
So beautiful, Andrew, and takes me to a memory I want to echo. I recall a group of women elders who gathered - quietly - in a meadow. The altar in the center was a spiral, adorned with crystals, water bowls, candle flames, dead leaves, blooming flowers of the season and such. 18 x 20 inch photos of Trump and Putin flowered out from the altar. Somewhere in the drumming, wailing and singing, two elders approached their little brothers, their young sons that rested in the image. Slowly. Another joined in singing lullaby-like tones. Sound streams flowing into the images. Another woman approached with aikido like finesse, the way a forest ranger approaches a ferrel animal. First, her hand held a distance away from the photo - or were they living breathing beings by now? With imperceptible, attuned timing, she touched his arm. Her eyes closed, waiting for the next attuned invitation, she moved compassion to her little brother's shoulder. Another woman joined as the lullaby sounding morphed into etheric tones. Something gave way in the images, and these ancient elder hands now, tenderly touched their cheeks, their heart, then back to their hands, up to their hearts in a slow spiraling motion. Accompanied or more like, compelled, by Gaia. Something other worldly in this world was unfolding. I saw watched another form of atomic power being blasted. Somewhere in this compassion dance, one elder started "wiping tears" from her little brother's eyes and massaged the watery ointment into their faces and hands the way a mother rubs lotion into her baby. I watched Gaia take it all back; take all of me back.
“Remember who you are“ I used to call after my children when they would leave the house, especially as teenagers… Your call to remembrance is powerful, heartbreaking, and thank God ,something that we just can’t argue with.
It’s kind of creepy and also kind of relieving to recognize that Trump and I are the same.
Thank you, I think.