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The Green Christ is the Primal Christ of the Sacred Land

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The Green Christ and Mother Gaia—Part 2

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Mother Gaia—the fertile, sustaining Divine Feminine—is the Green Christ’s Mother. She is virginal. That is, she is complete within herself, and she alone defines herself. Her home and deepest reflection is the virgin forest.

The Judean Jesus (based on the thin and biased records we have of him, at any rate) was almost exclusively concerned with his Divine Father. He had an earthly mother, Mary, but spiritually he presented himself as descended only from his Father. The Father lived “up there” in the sky, remote from the everyday world of men and women eking out a living from the bare, long-deforested desert lands. Although the biblical Jesus was known to wax poetic about the love and consideration of his Father, the aloof Father God was already present to the people of that time, respected and even feared by them. His strict justice and retributive vengeance were legendary—and no wonder, in that stark land of relentless, glittering skies and vast, empty earth. Reflecting the doctrine of the all-powerful heavenly father, the society in which the biblical Jesus arose was a deeply patriarchal one.
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The Green Christ and Mother Gaia—Part 1

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The Green Christ is of the green land—all green lands—but particularly the virgin forest.

A virgin forest is a forest that is fully itself—complete and self-perpetuating, with all the constituents needed to keep supporting and generating the vast, varied riot of life it contains—from the tallest trees to the tiniest flowers, from the largest animals and birds to the smallest micro-organisms. The light of the sun arrives from above and unites with the waters of rain and dew so that the plants can photosynthesize their own and all creation’s life-giving energies. At the same time, the mycorrhizal fungi in the soil below are using the light created from their own chemical processes to nourish the trees’ roots. Held between earth and sky, from the forest floor up into the canopy, animals, plants, insects, fungi, water and air are constantly combining and recombining with one another in a fecund cycle of creation, birth and growth, decay and death, and re-creation—the endless round of life. Bathed in light from above and below, and nourished by the dynamic interactions of all the living beings that inhabit it, the virgin forest is a generative, sustainable and sustaining green world.
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The Fundamental Green Christian Value: The Sacred Land is in the Center

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I concluded some years ago that the only social movements or spiritual paths that interest me are those that explicitly have at their center this truth: Human beings are not in any way superior to or more deserving than non-human beings and ecosystems. Different, yes. Uniquely gifted, perhaps. But not intrinsically more important.

We humans have been indoctrinated for many generations by the dominant culture and its institutions—including mainstream Christianity—with the conviction that we are superior to everything else that exists. Most humans everywhere unquestioningly believe that not just our survival, but our day-to-day comfort and narrowly defined well-being comprise the most important agenda being played out on earth. We don’t have to look far to see what a mess this has created, with the land, waters and air being polluted all over the planet, wild habitats shrinking, entire species dying, and now the specter of seemingly irreversible, disruptive climate change.

Humans are literally killing the Sacred Land—and thus our very selves, for we are of the Land. Through deigning everything about us and our lives as hyper-important, we have made ourselves hostile and aggressive in groups, and lonely, disconnected and sad as individuals. We are trampling our souls, and depriving ourselves of vast levels of spiritual understanding and deepening that are our birthright. [Read more…] about The Fundamental Green Christian Value: The Sacred Land is in the Center

What is The Green?

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When I was 8 or 9 years old, another girl and I were discussing what our favorite color was. My little friend, in a prim, self-consciously patriotic voice, said that her favorite colors were red, white and blue. I replied that my favorite color was green—and that it was “underneath” all the other colors. We wouldn’t even have red, white and blue, I declared, if we didn’t have green.

Recalling this conversation some 60 years later, I’m amazed that my 9-year-old self knew this. Yet it’s something I’ve always believed: The color green gives grounding and life to everything else, from the vital, sustaining green of chlorophyll that feeds us daily, to the wild world of Nature all around us that nourishes our hearts, souls, and senses. “Living green” means living sustainably, and comprises recycling, alternative energy, organic gardening and many other increasingly important practices. And people of all ages are beginning to say that they are on the “green path”—the spiritual/ecological path of honoring the natural world both practically—through, say, permaculture or herbalism—and ceremonially, perhaps by creating a four-directions wheel in the garden.

When the Green Christ speaks of “the Green,” he presents it as a ray or force—a living, creative intelligence—reminiscent of poet Dylan Thomas’s famous phrase: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
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Creating the Green Christ’s Altar

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The Green Christ is of the Sacred Land.

All primal, ancestral traditions considered the land, the body of the planet, to be sacred. This deep knowing was the basis of the people’s practical and spiritual lives. When we examine this belief in more detail, we encounter the prevalent view held by primal humanity that reality has three complementary, equally important realms. There is the so-called middle world, or day world, where everyday relations, tasks and social commerce take place: the matrix of ordinary life. This world is bordered by two other realms: the Upperworld of moon, sun, and stars—the heavens; and the Underworld, which has analogous levels of reality that also contain light—the light within the earth. Both the upper and lower worlds house spiritual energies that manifest as a multitude of powerful beings, who populate many different realms and dimensions.*

It doesn’t take much analysis to recognize that mainstream Christianity is an Upperworld path. Long before the historical Jesus was born in Judea, the Divine was considered to be up in the sky. Jesus was hailed as the Son of the Father, and the Sun of Heaven. The Underworld became Hell, the home of the Devil and eternal damnation. While there were beneficent, powerful sky beings, such as angels, that helped humanity, the Underworld—the body of the sacred land—was relegated to being a place of darkness, heaviness and suffering.

The Green Christ is of the Sacred Land. While he respects and revels in the beauties and powers of Heaven, he is primarily rooted in the green lands of Earth and in the fertile, light-filled realms of the Underworld. He stands for the ancient truth that invoking and co-creating with this mysterious realm is essential for the wholeness of both the land and humanity. He urges and helps us to make alliances with the many underworld beings and spiritual creatures that yearn to come together with us to bring regeneration to Gaia and to ourselves.

The Green Christ is not interested in whether we call ourselves Christian, Pagan, or something else entirely. He offers to everyone equally the deep knowing that we belong to the whole—that we are, each one of us, integral parts of Gaia’s vast green web. And he joyfully welcomes all of us, regardless of ancestry, who have never forgotten this.
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