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:
- “Following the Gaian Way,” an overview essay in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Or listen to Michael Dowd read it (recommended!).
- “On Dreams of the Long Future,” an interview with Erik Assadourian and Ayana Young of For the Wild.
- A presentation that Erik Assadourian gave at the Ecological Spiritualities Conference at the Harvard Divinity School
- A concise overview of Gaian Practices by Bart Everson.
- An interview with Erik Assadourian and Rachel Donald of Planet: Critical.
- A presentation that Erik Assadourian gave at the Systems of Sustainable Consumption-Knowledge-Action Network conference, which explores how the Gaian Way supports a low consumption lifestyle and redirecting one’s life energy away from overconsuming to healing Gaia and our relationship with Gi.
- An interview between Erik Assadourian and Michael Dowd in his Post-doom interview series.
- A Gaian Approach to Disaster with Krista Hiser, in a discussion with the Earth-based Spirituality Action Team meeting of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby
- An exploration of the broader overshoot humanity faces and how a renewable transition alone is not enough. Economic and population degrowth needs to be first and foremost. Speakers include Ecological Economist Bill Rees, and ecological engineers John Mulrow and Miriam Stevens.
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]
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