The Gaian Way was founded by Erik Assadourian in 2019 (after many years of thinking and writing about the need for a deeper environmental way). It is now an active living community with several events online each month and three local guilds that meet regularly for nature meditations.

Helpful Vocabulary

Gaia: the name given by the ancient Greeks for the Great Mother, a primordial entity who is the source and sustainer of all life. Modern scientists borrowed the name of Gaia as a poetic metaphor for the reality of the Living Earth: nothing less than the coevolutionary, interconnected, planetary ecosystem. 

Gaian Way: The philosophical path that recognizes Gaia as a living holobiont, made up of countless organisms, a being that we are part of, and that gives us our purpose, and that we are utterly dependent on for our survival.

Gaianism: The set of religious beliefs and practices (such as meditations and fasting) that have stemmed from this philosophical path.

Gaian: 1) A practitioner of Gaianism; 2) All beings who live and depend on Gaia.

Gaian Community: The community that has formed as Gaians have come together to share their beliefs and seek camaraderie and mutual support.

Gaian Guild: The geographically based communities that form when organized by a committed Gaian. More on Guilds here and here.

Introductory Resources to the Gaian Way

Below are several videos, audio interviews, and articles that help you better understand the Gaian Way:

Want more videos? Subscribe to the Gaian Way YouTube channel.

Suggested Reading

Below is a short list of books that can introduce you to a deeper understanding of Gaia, or the living Earth, and to a living a life more connected to Gaia. Below that are the list of past books we read for our monthly book club. Happy Reading!

  • Clarke, Bruce. Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene, 2020.
  • Latour, Bruno, and Catherine Porter. Facing Gaia: eight lectures on the new climatic regime, 2017.
  • Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology : Re-Inventing Earth-Based Goddess Religion. New York: iUniverse, 2005.
  • Lovelock, James. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, 2016.
  • Naess, Arne. The Ecology of Wisdom, 2008.
  • Primavesi, Anne. Sacred Gaia: Holistic Theology and Earth System Science. London; New York: Routledge, 2000.
  • Ruse, Michael. The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet, 2013.
  • Taylor, Bron Raymond. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
  • Tyrrell, Toby. On Gaia: A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth, 2013.

Past Books, Videos, and Essays for Discussion Club

  • Rachel Carson, Silent Spring [September 2020]
  • John Halstead. Another End of the World is Possible. [October 2020]
  • Pablo Servigne and Raphael Stevens. How Everything Can Collapse [October 2020]
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass [November 2020]
  • Richard Powers. The Overstory [December 2020]
  • Robert MacFarlane. Underland [January 2021]
  • Kim Stanley Robinson. Ministry for the Future [February 2021]
  • Qing Li. Forest Bathing [March 2021]
  • M. Amos Clifford. Your Guide to Forest Bathing: Experience the Healing Power of Nature [March 2021]
  • Thomas Berry. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future [April 2021]
  • Eileen Crist and H. Bruce Rinker (Eds). Gaia in Peril [May 2021]
  • Michael Dowd. Video: The Big Picture: Clarity, Compassion, and Love-in-Action [June 2021]
  • Patrick Curry. Enchantment [July 2021]
  • Charles Mann. The Wizard and the Prophet [August 2021]
  • Megan Seibert and William Rees. “Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition,” Energies Journal [September 2021]
  • Craig Holdrege. Seeing the Animal Whole and Why It Matters [October 2021]
  • Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death [November 2021]
  • Ann Palmer. Reinventing Christmas Carols and Ecosanta [December 2021]
  • Paul Kingsnorth. Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist [January 2022]
  • Chris Smaje. Small Farm Future [February 2022]
  • David Holmgren. RetroSuburbia [March 2022]
  • Suzanne Simard. Finding the Mother Tree [April 2022]
  • Dan Fiscus. “The Roles of Science in the Global Ecological Crisis” [May 2022]
  • Bart Everson. Spinning in Place [June 2022]
  • Henry David Thoreau. Walden [July 2022]
  • James Burke. Connections, Season 1, Episode 10 [August 2022]
  • Thomas Homer-Dixon, Commanding Hope [October 2022]
  • Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, Journey of the Universe [February 2023]
  • Symphony of the Soil [March 2023]
  • Stephan Harding, Gaia Alchemy [Spring 2023]
  • Andreas Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline [June 2023]
  • Ursula Goodenough, The Sacred Depths of Nature [Fall 2023]
  • John de Graaf, Stewart Udall: The Politics of Beauty [December 2023]
  • James Lovelock, We Belong to Gaia [January 2024]
  • Aaron Vansintjan, Andrea Vetter, and Matthias Schmelzer; The Future is Degrowth [Spring 2024]
  • Ferris Jabr, Becoming Earth [Fall 2024]

About the Website:

Gaianism.org is hosted by GreenGeeks as it does a 300% energy match for its hosting services (using renewable energy credits). If you’re looking for a better Internet host, feel free to click here, which will give a credit to Gaian Way’s hosting as we are part of GreenGeeks’ affiliate program (done because of its sustainability focus and good customer service).