so there have been a lot of discussions
the last several years about the meaning
crisis as John Vervaeke calls it
where most modern people are
increasingly lacking a sense of
orientation or archetypal ground our
worldview is so fractured fragmented and
relativized that there's no there has
been no solid ground to stand on
existentially and psychologically and
spiritually and now it seems like this
meaning crisis has metastasized or
intensified or it's taken on a new face
we're now in a material crisis and in so
many ways it's not like the broader
ecological unraveling of the planet the
ecological emergency it's not like that
wasn't already present and wasn't
already in some sense central to the
meaning crisis but we're more aware now
than ever before of the material crisis
we say it's due to the coronavirus
which most directly it is but indirectly
what is the coronavirus indirectly
generally speaking the coronavirus is
the intrusion of Gaia into our hyper
rationalized capitalist
techno capitalist economy Gaia has
intruded the ecosystemic
conditions that made our human economy
possible though we pretended our economy
with some sort of perpetual motion
machine now we're realizing it's not it
doesn't run on the magic of money the
economy has always run on the magic of
labour value is the product of labor and
it's not only human beings but labour
the whole earth flavours right we are
children of this planet Gaia gave birth
to our species like every other species
and we all belong to the same organism
at the end of the day the earth is the
ER organism right you are the earth
organism you are K organism we are all
derivative of the earth and indigenous
populations for hundreds of thousands if
not millions of years recognize that we
are part of the earth in their mythology
in their ritual in their culture modern
people forgot that connection we thought
we had severed ourselves from our mother
we thought we had first invented and
then ended history and landed on the
moon we're on our way to colonize Mars
it's as if we convinced ourselves at
some point that capitalism could
continue indefinitely even after the
Holocaust even after the communist
authoritarian regimes
millions of people
we're continuing and I say communists as
if it's the opposite of capitalist but
in both systems communist and capitalist
you are talking about the centralization
of the means of production in the hands
of a few whether it's the party or the
billionaire club the power is in the
hands of a few in capitalism crony
capitalism corporate capitalism our
system and it's in the hands of a few in
the examples of communist regimes in the
20th century so how do we redistribute
that power well the meaning crisis
wasn't enough so now we have this matter
crisis this life crisis but it's always
been part of the same earth emergency
that modern people have initiated
initiated and are now suffering
it's the intrusion of Gaia right that's
what Isabel Stanger's called it talking
about this you know 15 more than 15
years ago so here we are socially
distancing as we for the first time as a
human species faced a single threat
climate change wasn't enough for us so
now we got coronavirus
forcing us to socially distance at the
same time that it's forcing us
to integrate our humanity we're all in
this together now our national borders
you know can be shut but it's too late
we're too interconnected the virus and
the economic impact of the virus have
already shaken the entire world and so
now we're on our knees together and the
question is which gods are we going to
pray to in this moment the old gods is
capital money
the god of the economy of the market or
are we gonna pray to some new god or
gods
what's guy is placed in all of this
are we not her guests on this planet
might we benefit from trying to attune
our way of life our economy to hurt
ecology I suspect Gaia will be one of
the new gods that we're praying to and
no doubt there are others so let's
invoke them let's invoke new gods
because planetary transformation was on
a trial run for a few decades there and
now there's no choice there's no choice
anymore
be well stay well tell me what you think
what you feel peace
