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CHECK OUT OUR UPDATED NEWS PAGE!
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Who we areWe are a small but growing community of people who share the same values, political and environmental ideology, and spiritual philosophy. Values We believe in individual freedom and collective responsibility. Governments should not be making rules or passing laws that impinge on our personal individual freedom. Draconian drug laws are an excellent example of how governments involved themselves in our personal lives and take away our civil and human rights. The law is certainly in disrepute when it spoils the lives of millions of young people by imposing harsh criminal penalties, criminal records and jail terms for simply smoking the leaf of a plant which has been used by communities for thousands of years without any harm. The primary role of government should be to redistribute resources, to ensure that the general population is well housed, well fed, well educated and healthy. Unfortunately, the primary role of our existing governments are to ensure that the interest of the corporate elite are well served at the expense of the general population. Political We believe that governments are increasingly controlled and manipulated by wealthy and powerful interest groups, primarily super multinational corporations. Our so called democracies are becoming increasingly obvious as simply sham political systems masquerading as democracy. In the near fascist republic to the South, led increasingly by the Christian Taliban and governed by their proxy, the nitwit son of a former president, we can clearly see how much of a sham democracy has become. (How can a nation of 230 million people find that the only person fit to lead is the son of a former leader? Is this how monarchies start?) The corporate owned media, whose ownership is concentrated in the hands of a very few, very rich people, constantly barrage us with the spurious details of the "leadership" race. In the United States most black men and the poor are disenfranchised and not able to vote. Those people who are still able to vote refuse to do so. In Canada, we have a first past the post system of three nearly identical parties. This first past the post system often results in parties coming to power who have far less than 50% of the popular vote. It seems we choose our leader by picking the one whose style and personality is the most appealing, or at least the most acceptable, least repulsive. Forget proportional representation. All over the world, political systems have evolved and changed. Our North American systems are frozen in time. They were the cutting edge 300 years ago. What do we do to change government? Should we get involved in the current political parties and try to change them from within? We don't think so. The only way to change government is to refuse to participate. Refuse to vote. Refuse to condone a corrupt system by participating in the mock democracy. As numbers of voters dwindle, the politicians will have to change the system so that they can entice people to participate and thereby gain the legitimacy of having an elected mandate. The only way to entice people will be to share political power and to act more in the people's interest. A good way to start would be to follow the lead of most European democracies and introduce proportional representation. In a system of proportional representation, each party would be assigned a number of seats proportional to the number of votes they won. Environmental With the exception of the Egyptians and the Chinese of the Yellow River, every human civilization has eventually collapsed due to environmental degradation. The Egyptians and the Chinese were blessed with environmental factors, the yearly deposit of silt from the flooding of the Nile and the hundreds of feet of wind blown loss deposited from the Gobi, which replenished their soil and preserved their agriculture. Our civilization is planetary in scale and we are consuming resources somewhat like flesh eating bacteria consumes the unfortunate person who is infected. Like the infected person, without intervention, the prognosis is inevitable. Earth will die. It is only then we will realize, belatedly, how dependent we are on the health of the Earth for our own survival. Increasing numbers of people are becoming aware of the direness of our situation. However, the political inertia of a system that serves a small number of the elite is overwhelming. Of course, this small elite wishes to maintain the status quo to serve their own greedy interest, but they are also optimist. They believe that technology will step in and save our butts at the last minute and Malthus will again be proven wrong and they will be able to continue to plunder the planet and amass ever increasing wealth. Who knows maybe we will invent a technological way to intervene and save the Earth and the status quo can continue. But... who other than the multinational corporations wants the status quo to continue? Not us. Spirituality We believe in the Gaian Theory, which was first articulated by a British Scientist, Dr. Lovelock in his book, "Gaia, a New Look at Life on Earth" (1979)". The book argues, convincingly, that life on earth is not an accident. That the complex interconnectiveness of all organisms on the planet and their reliance upon each other is not a random event. Without repeating the scientific arguments, the conclusion is that Earth itself is a life form and we are her children. Gaia provides for her children with plant life that can be used for food, medicine and spiritual communion with Gaia. There is no disease that cannot be cured with the proper plant. Accordingly, all plants should be considered sacred gifts. Many people: Aboriginals, pre-Christian Europeans, Indians (From India), Asians, amongst others, were much closer to the workings of Gaia then today's Western people. We in the West (North American and Europe) believe we have removed ourselves from the web of interdependence through technology and believe we have severed our 'needless' connection to mother Earth. Aboriginals have had a deeper connection with Gaia as their reliance upon Earth is clearly reflected in their day to day lifestyle. Aboriginal cultures have not disowned Gaia and sought to rise above the forces of nature. Instead they seek harmony. They have a knowledge of sacred healing plants. Well known to Aboriginals there are plants which are direct gifts from Gaia and are held in high esteem as being essential to the worship of Gaia. Amongst others, these most sacred plants include plants such as: Marijuana, Poppy, Salvia, Mushrooms, Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, Blue Lotus, Yage and Kava Kava. Under the proper circumstances, these plants are conducive to providing a direct spiritual communication with Gaia. In our belief system, these types of plants are especially important. They are treated as a sacrament. We claim a religious right to cultivate, distribute and consume freely these most sacred of plants as our sacrament. More broadly, as we believe all plants are sacred and have a use beneficial to mankind, we claim a religious right to cultivate, distribute and consume freely ANY plant on the face of the Earth.
We do not believe that Gaian beliefs should be antagonistic to any other religion. We believe that all religions are true if seen as metaphors rather than as one ('mine') being literally true and all others ('yours') as false like the average fundamentalist does. We welcome all faiths and beliefs to join our celebrations, our ceremonies and to partake of our sacrements. We consider it possible to be a Gaian Atheist, Gaian Christian, Gaian Muslim, Gaian Jew, Gaian Buddhist, Gaian Hindu, etc. We hope to see you at our sanctuary.
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