The Earth received her breath of life
And spun around in search of light.
Her land, a mass, a solid ground
Became fertile and life was found.
As it's from life, that new life flows
The Earth is alive, her wisdom grows.
Thus, from her dust we came to be.
Yes, she provides for her offspring.
Water wells up to quench her thirst.
Just like mankind, she is two-thirds.
Her inner core bellows with fire.
Her energy flows forth to inspire.
She testifies of Jesus Christ.
Her beauty shines with His pure light.
All intelligence bears a sign
Of her creator by design.
Then, too soon, Adam and Eve fell
Her groans weighed her and she fell too!
For with Lucifer, here to dwell
Carrying life is hard to do.
For as temptations tempt and try
The cries of the victims cause her pain.
The cries of the victims cause her pain.
Such that she, also, with man does cry
The Flood proved how much tears can rain!
Wholly, she then immersed herself
In Christ's Word, His living water;
And made a vow that she would help
God, our King, our Heavenly Father.
Thus, she quakes at His command,
And her mighty oceans heave,
Her lofty mountains fall or stand,
And His love does never leave.
With her spirit all aglow,
From outer space, she is seen.
She seeks the Heavens to show
The great coming of her King!
Then the star, at last appeared!
And touched her very soul.
Angels sang and Heaven neared.
It was then she felt whole.
Christ walked and taught of her beauty-
How she pointed to Him!
She felt the gift of her duty
Miraculously, often!
Then, His blood covered her.
She was sick, nigh to death.
When He died, she shuddered.
Perhaps, she held her breath?
Then, she received his body-
So torn, and bruised, in all ways spent.
Her burden...was too heavy-
From her, life also went.
Darkness covered all the Earth.
She reeled and lost control.
This, for her, by far the worst
Part of her fallen role.
But, then, something happened-
He arose, breathing again.
The Holy Ghost... hers for sampling-
God had sent to her a friend!
Jesus still came and went,
Preaching to her isles.
Blessings from Him were sent.
She was filled with warm smiles.
The Apostles were tutored, in time He left,
The Apostles were tutored, in time He left,
But, then, one by one, they were killed too.
Twas dark for ages, her crust strained, unkept.
And there was naught that she could do.
Then, one day, some came to treasure
Christ's records which she held.
Oh how this gave her such pleasure;
And hope within her swelled.
Many cried for religious freedom.
New land, she would provide!
They wanted to receive wisdom,
In Zion, to reside.
A young farmhand prayed to know
Which of the churches was true.
First, Lucifer tried to show.
But, the boy prayed on, light burst through...
God, the Father, and His Son?
Their warmth, the Earth now felt!
Her restoration was begun.
She thought that she would melt!
One by one, there were temples-
Heaven was coming to Earth!
For every land and people,
There were sealings for rebirth.
As for good and evil, people yearn
She's in a constant state of change.
She hopes and waits for the Lord's return.
When she'll be relieved of Satan's chains!
The weight of the wicked people
Causes her to lose her strength.
The world grows ripe, dark with evil
While less and less she hears, "thanks".
She has enough and to spare!
And yet there is greed, hate, and envy.
Pride seems to be everywhere,
As the hearts of men go empty.
Still the gospel grows of God
And lights her as never before.
This buoys her to give her all,
While anticipating the Lord.
After watching Glenn Beck's The Man in the Moon, I thought about the Earth and how it is a living thing. I read many scriptures and struggled how I would write this. One Sunday I thought about the Earth receiving the blood the Savior spilled. How horrible that must have been! This thought stayed with me for a week and then the next Sunday morning, the whole story came to me except for a few edits. It was an amazing experience! I hope it stirs someone to think as I did and that new thoughts might settle in the heart to feel joy in the blessing of Mother Earth!
The Fall:
"When the earth was framed and brought into existence and man was placed upon it, it was near the throne of our Father in Heaven...But when man fell, the earth fell into space, and took up its abode in this planetary system, and the sun became our light. When the Lord said- "Let there be light, " there was light, for the earth was brought near the sun that it might reflect upon it so as to give us light by day, and the moon to give us light by night. This is the glory the earth came from , and when it is glorified it will return again unto the presence of the Father, and it will dwell there, and these intelligent beings that I am looking at, if they live worthy of it, will dwell upon this earth. Journal of Discourses, 17:143
The Destiny:
Doctrine and Covenants 88:17-25
17 And the redemption of the soul is through him that quickeneth all things, in whose bosom it is decreed that the poor and the meek of the earth shall inherit it.
18 Therefore, it must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial glory;
19 For after it hath filled the measure of its creation, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father;
20 That bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever; for, for this intent was it made and created, and for this intent are they sanctified.
21 And they who are not sanctified through the law which I have given unto you, even the law of Christ, must inherit another kingdom, even that of a terrestrial kingdom, or that of a telestial kingdom.
24 And he who cannot abide the law of a telestial kingdom cannot abide a telestial glory; therefore he is not meet for a kingdom of glory. Therefore he must abide a kingdom which is not a kingdom of glory.
25 And again, verily I say unto you, the earth abideth the law of a celestial kingdom, for it filleth the measure of its creation, and transgresseth not the law—
26 Wherefore, it shall be sanctified; yea, notwithstanding it shall die, it shall be quickened again, and shall abide the power by which it is quickened, and the righteous shall inherit it.
The following is from a pdfhttps://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V44N02_346.pdf
Enoch’s Vision of the Pained and Weary Earth Just as the earth and life thereon can experience “joy,” the earth can experience pain and sorrow. Enoch’s vision in the Pearl of Great Price constitutes the most poignant confirmation in LDS scripture of the reality of the earth’s spirit and capacity to experience pain. Enoch ascended a mountain and “beheld the heavens open” and “all nations of the earth” (Moses 7:3, 23). After observing the Savior’s mortal ministry and wickedness of humankind, the account in the Book of Moses records: “Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof, saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face?”37 When Enoch heard the earth mourn, “he wept and cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, wilt thou not have compassion upon the earth?” Enoch felt so distressed by this vision, he repeatedly asked the Lord, “When shall the earth rest?” He learned that after the Lord comes again “in Galli: Enoch’s Vision and Gaia 43 the last days, in the days of wickedness” then “the day shall come that the earth shall rest” (Moses 7:60–61). Some might assert that the “filthiness” referenced in Enoch’s vision and a reference to “pollution” in Doctrine and Covenants 103:14 equate solely to spiritual wickedness, not to literal pollution caused from careless, wasteful, or excessive use of natural resources. This attitude, however, assumes that literal pollution is not a form of sin, a position that is countered by repeated teachings of Church leaders. President Gordon B. Hinckley affirmed, “This earth is His creation. When we make it ugly, we offend him.”38 President Ezra Taft Benson explained the connection between a lack of reverence for life and despoliation of the environment: “If there isn’t a reverence for life itself, there is apt to be little reverence for the resources God has placed here on which we must call. Irreverence for God, of life, and for our fellowmen take the form of things like littering, heedless strip-mining, pollution of water and air. But these are, after all, outward expressions of the inner man.”39 Joseph F. Smith earlier taught: “To Him all life is sacred creation for the use of His children. Do we stand beside Him in our tender regard for life?”40 Other Church leaders have taught that God will judge His children on how they exercise their stewardship over the earth. A revelation to Joseph Smith announces: “I, the Lord . . . make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (D&C 104:13). Brigham Young instructed the Saints: “Not one particle of all that comprises this vast creation of God is our own. Everything we have has been bestowed upon us for our action, to see what we would do with it—whether we would use it for eternal life and exaltation or for eternal death and degradation, until we cease operating in this existence.”41 According to Hugh Nibley, “A favorite theme of Brigham Young was that the dominion God gives man is designed to test him, to enable him to show to himself, his fellows, and all the heavens just how he would act if entrusted with God’s own power; if he does not act in a godlike manner, he will never be entrusted with a creation of his own worlds without end.”42 Heber C. Kimball recorded that “Brigham Young was speaking of the earth and telling us that we should be cautious how we use it, for it is our mother, and the man that will disgrace his mother is unwor- 44 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 44, no. 2 (Summer 2011) thy of her fostering care.”43 More recently, Elder Alexander B. Morrison rhetorically posed questions that the Savior might ask Saints at the final judgement: “‘What have you done with the earth which my Father and I gave you as a home? Have you cherished and protected it? Have you dressed it and kept it, as your father Adam was commanded to do? Or have you laid waste to it, defiled its waters, destroyed its fertile lands, befouled its life-giving air?’ To those questions, I fear there are many, even among those who aspire to become a Zion people, who will hang their heads in shame. The earth groans under the insults inflicted upon it.”44 The filthiness humankind has inflicted upon the earth, causing it to mourn and the prophet Enoch to weep, must be viewed as both spiritual disobedience and literal pollution—both forms of wickedness which defile the earth.
Gaia’s Theological Implications To some members of the LDS Church, the idea of an angry or vengeful earth, an earth that is our “enemy,” appears to contradict the idea of a benevolent earth created to provide sustenance for Adam, Eve, and their posterity, for it “pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used” (D&C 59:20). Yet Gaia’s capacity to “feel pain” resonates with Enoch’s vision in which he “heard the earth mourn” due to the “filthiness which is gone forth out of me” (Moses 7:48–49). Some LDS leaders have emphasized that though the earth is holy, as we defile it, the earth will no longer nurture us. Brigham Young taught that “the earth under their feet will be holy; . . . the soil of the earth will bring forth in its strength, and the fruits thereof will be meat for man.”63 But he considered those “who pollute the earth” in the same company with “murderers, thieves, robbers, liars, whoremongers, [and] drunkards.”64 Heber C. Kimball similarly counseled: “Those who live upon this land, or any other that God gives to His people, have peculiar promises made to them. Then do not pollute this land, nor pollute yourselves or your fellow creatures, but let us keep ourselves pure and clean.”65 John Taylor predicted that eventually the day would come when the earth will be cleansed from the filth which has plagued it: “This earth, after wading through all the corruptions of men, being cursed for his sake, and not permitted to shed forth its full luster and glory, must yet take its proper place in God’s creations; be purified from that corruption under which it has groaned for ages, and become a fit place for redeemed men, angels, and God to dwell upon.”66 LDS scripture repeats the theme of the earth’s “curse” as a consequence of iniquity. As wickedness increased in Enoch’s day, “the earth trembled, and the mountains fled; . . . and the rivers of 48 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 44, no. 2 (Summer 2011) water turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness” (Moses 7:13). Nephi instructed his rebellious brothers: “Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited. . . . And he raiseth up a righteous nation, and destroyeth the nations of the wicked. And he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands, and the wicked he destroyeth, and curseth the land unto them for their sakes” (1 Ne. 17:36–38). Alma taught his son: “Yea, and cursed be the land forever and ever unto those workers of darkness and secret combinations, even unto destruction, except they repent before they are fully ripe” (Alma 37:31). The book of Ether provides a detailed account of the Lord cursing the land as a consequence of wickedness and blessing the land when the people repent. As an otherwise prosperous people grew more wicked during the reign of Heth, prophets warned that “there should come a curse upon the face of the land; yea, even there should be a great famine, in which they should be destroyed if they did not repent.” After the people rejected the prophetic message, “there began to be a great dearth upon the land, and the inhabitants began to be destroyed exceedingly fast because of the dearth, for there was no rain upon the face of the earth.” The fortunes of the people improved as they repented: “Now when the people saw that they must perish they began to repent of their iniquities and cry unto the Lord. And it came to pass that when they had humbled themselves sufficiently before the Lord he did send rain upon the face of the earth; and the people began to revive again, and there began to be fruit in the north countries, and in all the countries round about. And the Lord did show forth his power unto them in preserving them from famine” (Ether 9:28, 30–31, 34–35). An 1831 revelation that Joseph Smith received stated: “The Lord, in the beginning cursed the land, even so in the last days have I blessed it, in its time, for the use of my saints, that they may partake the fatness thereof” (D&C 61:17). But he warned that “vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation” in part as a consequence of failing to repent; as a result, “there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion. For shall the children of the kingdom pollute my holy land? Verily, I say unto you, Nay” (D&C 84:57–59).67 Galli: Enoch’s Vision and Gaia 49 The notion that the earth would become “cursed” due to humankind’s wickedness is not unique to LDS theology. A repeated theme in the Old Testament is how God punishes the children of Israel for violating His commandments by using natural means such as floods, droughts, and famines. In Hugh Nibley’s words, to the disobedient “all nature becomes his enemy.”68 Isaiah prophesied that, during the last day, the greater part of the earth would be cursed due to transgression: “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left” (Isa. 24:5–6). Descriptions in the New Testament and LDS scripture of the earth’s final cleansing give horrifying details of earthquakes, famine, pestilence, and extreme heat when “the earth shall burn as an oven” (Nahum 1:5; see also 1 Ne. 22:15; 3 Ne. 26:3; D&C 29:9, 45:50, 63:34, 64:24, 133:41 [cleansing by heat and fire]; Alma 10:22 [famine]; D&C 88:80 [earthquakes]). Only then will the Earth “rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness” (Moses 7:48). “Mother Earth” as a universal symbol exists in ancient and primitive cultures, although most organized religious traditions do not recognize the literal spirit embodied in the earth as suggested in Enoch’s vision. Understanding that the earth itself possesses a literal spiritual and sacred dimension should heighten humankind’s awareness of, and ethical responsibility toward, nature. As George B. Handley, professor of humanities at Brigham Young University, explains: “The notion that physical matter and all living things have some living spiritual character grants a sacred identity to the nonhuman realm, and this would seem to give us pause to consider the ethics of our use of such inspirited material.”69 In The Voice of the Earth, cultural historian Theodore Roszak suggests that the widespread belief that “we have no ethical obligation to our planetary home” constitutes a societal “epidemic psychosis” rooted in our spiritual disconnection from the earth: The Earth hurts, and we hurt with it. If we could still accept the imagery of a Mother Earth, we might say that the planet’s umbilical 50 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 44, no. 2 (Summer 2011) cord links to us at the root of the unconscious mind. Our culture gives us little opportunity to stop and to honor that great truth. . . . But sometimes the voice of the Earth breaks through to us in an instant of realization that flashes back across the eons, reminding us of who we are, where we came from, what we are made of. For an instant we touch the great cosmic continuity that is easily lost in the frenzied affairs of the day.70 Today our families are threatened by spiritual and temporal destruction as we often unthinkingly defile the earth and consume more natural resources than necessary. The prophet Alma pronounced a blessing on his children and then “blessed the earth” (Alma 45:15). We can do likewise. As explained by Elder Steven E. Snow: “Our generation, more than any other, has the ability to irretrievably change the land. Financial rewards provide tremendous pressure to unleash our technology to reinvent our surroundings. There will be growth; change will come. But failure to care for the land on which we live means turning our backs on a heritage laid down carefully and at such great cost by our forefathers—and will leave us immeasurably poorer.”71 Perhaps Enoch’s inquiry to the Lord—“Wilt thou not have compassion upon the earth?”—applies to us.
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