Variation 32 from Gaian Variations by Nathan Currier

32. Lovelock: The Gaian Variations, or Divisions of the Ground

It took the view of the earth from space to give us the personal sense of a live planet on which the air, the living things, the oceans, the rocks, all combine in one as Gaia.

As we move in towards the Earth from space, first we see the atmospheric boundary; then the borders of an ecosystem such as the forests; then the skin or bark of living animals or plants; further in are the cell membranes; and finally the nucleus of the cell and its DNA. If life is defined as a self-organizing system characterized by an actively sustained low entropy, then, viewed from outside each of these boundaries, what lies within is alive.

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