Orion and Gaia
Orion is one of the most recognizable of all the constellations in the heavens.Every constellation has a story attached to it, and it turns out that the legend of Orion is an encapsulation of ancient environmentalism.
Greek mythology does not just consist of foolish stories and vulgar superstitions, but rather is found to contain keen psychological and natural insights, encapsulated in the form of parables wrapped up in mythological symbolism. A good example of this sort of thing is found in the mythology surrounding the figure of Orion, the triumphant hunter, and the Earth Goddess, Gaia. Orion had a type of miraculous birth, having been born as the result of the promise of the gods in return for kindness and generosity shown by a simple human farmer to several gods who appeared disguised in human form. Thus Orion is a figure with religious connotations, and represents a humanity raised up from a lowly condition to a position of power on the earth. Orion's power was symbolized by his bow and arrow and the knife he carried in his belt which he then used as his weapon to dominate natural forces. King Oenopion hired Orion to kill the terrifying monsters who were terrorizing the population of Chios. These monsters represented natural forces which inspired fear and Orion's triumph over these creatures symbolized human ability to become dominant over nature.
After Orion had overcome the monsters of nature, he became arrogant and full of pride, and announced that his next goal would be to destroy all the other animals of the world, and this statement represented human attempts to completely dominate the natural world, with the spread of human civilization resulting in this great extinction event which Orion announces. Where human civilization spreads its influence, animal extinction events follow, and this was as true in the ancient world as it is today. For example, the Jewish prophets of the bible spoke repeatedly of the almost total extinction of all wild life in the middle east during the first half of the first millennium, B.C.E., as well as the destruction of the forests and wild lands, which then explains the extinction of species they described, since when habitat is destroyed animals go extinct.
Word of this coming extinction event reached the ears of Gaia, the Earth Goddess, and she was angry, for she was the Goddess of the natural world, and the protection of the animals being threatened with extinction by Orion was her responsibility (Gaia therefore represents the forces of nature).. She therefore sends Scorpius the Scorpion to kill Orion, and all his weapons proved to be useless to him as he was stung to death by Scorpius. As a reward, Gaia then placed Scorpius into the sky as a constellation, and the other gods, saddened by the death of Orion, also made him immortal by placing him into the sky as a constellation. However Scorpius and Orion were placed in opposite hemispheres to prevent any future conflicts erupting between the two of them. This represents a humanity learning to live in harmony with nature, by keeping clear of the territory protected by Gaia. What the mythology represents then is a critique of human attitudes towards the natural world, followed by a call to learn to live in harmony with nature, with a reminder of the overwhelming power of Gaia being a warning intended to inspire humility rather than the human arrogance which disregards destruction of the natural world in favor of exclusive concerns for human desires.
The wrath of Gaia
Some of you might be familiar with the language of the Jewish Prophets from long ago. They would say, ‘thus saith YAHWEH God', and then they would deliver a message. The message of the Jewish prophets is much more complex than most people seem to understand.It consisted of revolutionary tracts calling for land reform and the redistribution of wealth, and to facilitate this they called for revolution in Israel.. The modern political formation the Jewish prophets resemble are the Marxists.Jewish prophets were also the environmentalists of their day, denouncing the ongoing destruction of the environment. The loss of forest cover resulted in the spread of the desert throughout the middle east, and the message of the Jewish prophets incorporated mythological elements common to that time. They spoke of the wrath of the angry rain god, much as the Greeks spoke of the wrath of Gaia, and the Jewish rain god, like Gaia, the prophets insisted, was going to be sending out Scorpius the Scorpion and he would sting the Jewish people to death because of their practices.
Now a modern perspective demands that we not understand literally talk of ‘wrathful rain gods' or ‘wrathful earth goddesses'. I want to make it clear that I do not believe in the literal existence of ‘Gaia'. However there is something hard to describe about natural systems that does resemble, to employ a modern metaphor, what you could call an ‘artificial intelligence'. Nature has a program, and here we can think of the coding of the computational device being in the form of proteins which form the code for DNA. Now much as in science fiction stories, as a computer became more complex, it was said to have spontaneously become 'self aware' and became an 'artificial intelligence'.
In the dispute over ‘intelligent design' and evolution, I have frequently heard it said that, ‘the bird flu is evolving...and that is not an example of intelligent design.' I would disagree. This is a very good example of intelligent design, from the point of view of a bird flu virus. By jumping out of birds and onto humans just think about how much that bird flu virus will be able to increase its range. Even so, the bird flu by itself cannot come up with an intelligent design, being just a virus, and yet all really intelligently designed viruses evolve to a point where they are not lethal and do not kill their hosts, but rather coexist with their hosts in a symbiotic parasitic relationship. What the bird flu virus lacks in intelligence is supplied by ‘Gaia', who, over a period of time, will see to it that the bird flu loses its lethality and a balance of nature will be achieved whereby the bird flu will enter into a parasitic relationship with humans rather than killing them outright.
This complaint about ‘lack of intelligent design' when the design does not suit the interests of human beings is a fine example of anthropocentric thinking. Think about those large scale livestock operations, where animals are kept in crowded conditions to maximize profits per square foot. To keep them alive it is required that they be pumped full of antibiotics and antivirals. The Union of Concerned Scientists took some air samples outside these large livestock factories and found that being released into the atmosphere from these places were powerful super bacteria, which had developed an immunity to antibiotics. Once again, this is a fine example of ‘intelligent design', from the point of view of those viruses and germs. After all, humanity did not think that they were just going to destroy those creatures, and as for those creatures, well they would just go quietly into that dark night by cooperating and going extinct. No, it turns out that when Gaia's creatures are facing a challenge like that one, they grow a scorpion's tail, and become the kind of killer bugs against whom all the many weapons of Orion prove powerless. This once again is a fine example of intelligent design, from the point of view of Gaia, for if Orion is going to destroy her creatures, it only makes good sense for Gaia to send for Scorpius the Scorpion. Now Orion, being so damned anthropocentric, is always heard to be complaining that something is not an intelligent design when it does not favor his own narrow interests, even when it can clearly be seen, when looked at from the interests of another creature, that it was the best possible choice under the circumstances.
Now the obvious solution to this problem is to separate Orion and Gaia, and prevent any further future conflicts between the two of them. This would require Orion to put aside his arrogance, and learn to live without invading Gaia's turf. However Orion has already announced his intentions to destroy the natural world, and bring on wide spread extinctions of Gaia's forests and Gaia's creatures, and in response intelligent design requires that Gaia send out Scorpius. So therefore we see the scorpion's tail emerging from those corporate barns, and we see the scorpion's tail emerging from those really dangerous melting bogs of Siberia (and there billions of hidden tons of methane, a powerful green house gas). The scorpion's tail is emerging from the warming oceans, from the mel ting glaciers and their disappearing rivers, from the sodden skies and from drought stricken plains.
