RAISED
BY
GAIA
Created by Naomi Irons and Deborah Gleason as a gift to the earth and all who inhabit it
Raised by Gaia is a dynamic introduction to an expansive new way of living.
Raised by Gaia is the flowering of the seeds we planted years ago when we began to ask big, juicy questions about what it takes to live a thriving life on this planet. The answers were right in front of us and brilliantly appeared when we simply shifted our gaze to the natural world.
Raised by Gaia encourages you to see that you were raised by more than the adults and society that surrounded you. You belong to a vibrant, ever-changing natural community.
We have found no better role model for thriving than the natural world. It relentlessly demonstrates beauty, strength, resilience and presence.
Raised by Gaia lays the foundation for connecting to your true nature. We encourage you to dig in, plant your own seeds and revel in what grows.
PRESENCE
Although the idea of being raised by Gaia may sound fantastical, it is not a fairy tale. Rather, it is a way for you to remember that the earth changed the day you arrived.
Imagine for a moment your birth beyond the hospital or bedroom walls where you were born. Imagine your birth beyond the parents, doctors, midwives or nurses who were there to receive you. Expand for a moment, to imagine the land that welcomed your arrival and loved you, just as you were.
Imagine the pure joy of the entire ecosystem that surrounded you, knowing you had finally arrived. Imagine the trees and grasses that swayed to welcome you and the sound of the birds who sang the song of the earth and sky into your newborn ears.
Remember, your birth was where your essence and your body met the earth for the first time. From that moment on, you were bonded in a reciprocal relationship with the planet and all of its inhabitants.
Because of that bond, when you find joy in seeing a fluttering butterfly, the butterfly also finds joy in exploring you. When the beauty of an old tree takes your breath away, the old tree is happily recycling your exhale into its own body.
You have always mattered deeply to this planet simply because you exist. You were raised by the wind that whipped through your hair as it groomed the landscape, by the bees who joyfully pollinated your food, and by those who have stood tall offering you shade.
GAIA
Gaia is the powerful soul of this planet and the mother of all life on earth. Whether you refer her as Gaia, mother nature or mother earth,
she is a wild and untamable force.
She is colorful, sacred, dynamic, raw, powerful, adventurous, unstoppable, free, whole, beautiful, pure, unyielding, honest, authentic, creative, enchanting, gentle, fierce, nurturing, enlivening, trusting, breathtaking, unconditioned, bold, soft and unbreakable.
She is every consistency and every paradox that lives inside of us.
Gaia is a complete presence, the impersonal, unconditional love that allows you to explore your humanness with curiosity and compassion.
You have been raised by her all along.
Allow yourself to consider what it means that your original instructions for living have never left you, and remain very alive inside of you today.
With your mind open and your body soft, allow a natural expansion, one that will connect you to who you have always been, integrated with this entire planet and its ecosystems.
Natural beings are who we are, and “Raised by Gaia” is designed to bring that to life.
PRESENCE
Gaia is your biggest influence here on earth.
Her influence is bigger than that of your parents or teachers or friends.
Your intimate relationship with Gaia began the day you were born and is with you every moment, for as long as you are breathing.
The type of learning that the natural world offers can be quite subtle. Its lessons are most apparent when we are fully present. And fittingly, presence may be the most potent lesson you can learn from the natural world.
Gaia never veers from the present. She does not spend time lamenting the past or worrying about the future. She always moves in the direction of life.
In every moment, Gaia offers a host of beautiful learning opportunities if we are present to notice them.
The intricate design of a flower demonstrates full expression. An endless army of ants models tenacity. Looking up at trees, you can learn to stand tall. Watching waves crash to the shore, you see boldness. Rain reminds you of how cleansing it is to express your feelings, and gentleness can always be found in a soft breeze. Fierce storms show the power of transformation, while leaves of all kinds demonstrate flexibility.
You can learn about stillness by looking at a mountain and gain insights about collaboration from old growth forests. You see resilience in a long and winding river, and learn about unrelenting focus from a soaring hawk.
REMEMBER
You are invited to shift your inner gaze from your head to your body, as you allow a tidal wave of remembering that reconnects you to your true nature.
This kind of remembering does not come from any intellectual learning or teachings outside of you. It is a call home to the knowing that you have always belonged in the natural world. This remembering may have lived outside your conscious awareness until now, but has never left you. It is an awakening from deep within your body and may feel like an ancient knowing, a childlike innocence or being reunited with an old friend.
Your body may respond in surprising ways as you begin to reconnect to your natural state
Gaia has walked beside you, raising you from the beginning. She has whispered to you from beyond the human world. She has always sung the song of your true nature. She has serenaded you with the essence of your being.
She shows you that you are an elemental being when you sink into her mossy floor, swim in her refreshing waters, squish her mud through your toes and let her wild wind whip through your hair.
Trust the call home that you hear within when you dance with her, for she is always home. Like a loving mother who does not tell you what to do, she remains at her center for you to find yours, over and over again.
GAIA AS A ROLE MODEL
By remembering that you were raised by Gaia, you can begin to reparent yourself through a very different lens, discovering that you too are elemental, intuitive, instinctual, interconnected and deeply woven into the tapestry of this planet.
Through Gaia’s modeling, you can come to deeply trust your own cycles, ebbs and flows, stillness and movement, even life and death.
Allow yourself to see Gaia as a role model or parent who has been there from the beginning of your time on this planet.
Being present to Gaia, you can see:
Gaia is majestic.
Gaia’s body is the earth that hosts life.
Gaia’s ecosystems nurture life.
Gaia’s essence is the expression of life that we see in
waterfalls, lightning, dew, wind, volcanoes.
Gaia embraces all of herself, beauty, chaos, stillness and storms.
Gaia creates life, even in her destruction.
Gaia allows a constant evolution that creates resilience.
With Gaia as your role model, you begin to see:
You are majestic.
Your own body is an extension of planet earth.
You too have a brilliant ecosystem that nurtures life.
Your essence expresses life, often through feelings and sensations that have parallels in nature like rain, storms, rainbows, gentle breezes, earthquakes.
You thrive when you embrace all aspects of yourself.
Like Gaia, you too create life through destruction.
By embracing your own evolution, you create resilience.
INVITATION TO JOURNAL
When you have time to sit quietly with your journal, allow this chapter to integrate by doing the follow exercise.
Visualize yourself in nature. Choose a place you love to visit, or imagine visiting a new and wonderful place. Sink into the space and open your senses to feel yourself there.
Notice the wordless communication, your deep and natural connection with the planet and all the other-than-human beings around you.
Feel into the subtle exchange taking place. Notice that as you welcome and celebrate the natural world, you are welcomed and celebrated for exactly who you are.
Write about what emerged for you as you considered these ideas.
THE MAGIC OF GAIA
When I was a little girl, I knew myself to be the magic of the planet, experiencing Life.
I saw it reflected back to me as I roamed the forests, watched the twinkle in the stars, lay on my horse’s back in the fields, conducted lightning storms with my fingers, and in my mother’s eyes.
The natural world seemed to teach me that I belonged. It reminded me where I came from, that chaos was divine order and that the change in seasons was as natural as taking a breath in and out.
Then, the outer modern world crept in.
My inner natural and instinctual world became suffocated.
I decided it would be easier if I pressed pause on my magical world.
I thought it was gone.
Years later, I woke with an intensity that could compare to that of a hurricane. I felt the chaos I had long forgotten beginning to rise in me, but I didn’t remember at first that it was divine.
I frantically searched for the magic outside myself, attempting to create a life that would give me a taste of the immensity I carried, without ever needing to meet it inside.
One day, at the end of the long, exhausting search outside myself, I found the courage to meet myself inside where I was still very much alive…
At first what came out were all the things I had wanted to say while on pause, all the heartbreaking truths that had been buried and never witnessed by another soul, about who I had come to know myself to be while trapped inside a human body in a world devoid of the magic of the planet.
What followed were waves of intense awakening in my body, and an unfurling of a place inside I had long forgotten.
Finally, when the inner storm subsided and I had honored the elemental voice that had been longing to come out from behind the double-paned glass, to be embraced, my life became more than just trying to escape or numb the pain…
I began to remember
At first it was simply a moment of remembering, followed by two moments of remembering strung together, until one day, I was ready.
I embraced my true nature.
And experienced the beautiful, embodied Being I had always been.
~ Naomi Irons
BELONG
As we shared with you at the start of this journey, the earth changed the day you arrived. From that moment on, you were bonded in a reciprocal relationship
with the planet and its inhabitants.
You have always mattered deeply to this planet
simply because you exist.
You have always belonged to a natural community. Think of your natural community as an expanded view of the beings who have influenced your life. The human and other-than-human beings who have supported, nurtured and loved you from childhood onward. The beings who demonstrated unconditional love to you and beautifully showed you the meaning of abundance and compassion.
Consider the climbing trees that expanded your perspective, the humans who encouraged your curiosity, the birds who reminded you to sing your own song, or the moss that allowed you to feel luxurious support.
There are so many examples in which your natural community has influenced you, held you, loved you and encouraged you. You have been part of a much larger community all along, a natural community that has deeply enhanced your life.
WRITE YOUR STORY OF BELONGING
Now that you have expanded your traditional idea of community, how might you experience belonging differently? Allow the idea of greater belonging to saturate your body for a moment.
Let your imagination soar and allow yourself to step outside of both the well-worn stories of your life and the things others have told you about your life. Feel into what your existence has meant to this planet and what this planet has meant to you.
These questions may help you get started:
• What changed on this planet the day you were born?
• What have you learned from the natural world along the way?
• How does Gaia show you that you’ve always been seen, heard and held?
• Who are you now for having lived on this vibrant planet all these years?
To gain a deeper understanding of how to create your story of belonging, read these sample stories. We invite you to write the story of your life from the vantage point of being raised by Gaia in a vibrant natural community.
DEBORAH'S STORY OF BELONGING
I was born in a hospital, in a Canadian border town in early winter. The season had just changed and the land was sleeping when I arrived. It was a calm and spacious time on the land, and that penetrated the walls of my home. I felt both welcomed and that there was enough space for me.
From the start, the air of the Great Lakes filled my lungs, and the sun and sky inspired my reach. The scent of leaves composting under the big trees in my yard was my first exposure to the cycle of life, and I sensed that I was a part of something magnificent.
When spring came, my body felt the vibration of the plants emerging from the soil. As those plants grew around me and the trees were covered in green, I felt a rising in myself.
As I grew, I sought out trees and leaves and water and, without even knowing it, many invaluable lessons. I played on the edges of lakes and felt the power of the waves tumble me. I climbed strong trees and felt my strength increasing. In those trees, the fear of falling was replaced by a trust in the branches of my body to support me as the branches of the tree did.
My natural community of trees, tadpoles, wildflowers, grasses, birds and insects was always willing to let me play. They unconditionally embraced my curiosity and showed me a fabulous new world each time I communed with them. One spider in particular allowed me to see my deep courage and profound respect for life simultaneously.
The natural world surrounded and filled me. It encouraged and witnessed me. I was never alone and never overwhelmed. I felt a sense of balance and peace both around me and inside of myself.
The older I got, the more I was drawn into natural spaces to renew myself. The combination of fresh air in my lungs and the activation of my body as I moved through waterways or trails enlivened me. I felt safe, seen, and understood in those spaces. I felt like I mattered when I was hiking, mountain biking, swimming and snorkeling. When I witnessed the life around me, I felt witnessed. When I was breathing hard, I felt the abundance of fresh oxygen nourishing and healing me. When my tears fell, I felt the earth beneath me catch them. When love raced through my heart, I sensed the trees soften to share the moment with me.
Today I stop a lot and just look, smell and feel my way around the natural world. As much as I am grateful for what I sense, I feel appreciated. As much as I am curious, I feel like a curiosity. As relaxed and enlivened as I feel, I know I add value. I know I am home here. I know that I belong.
NAOMI'S STORY OF BELONGING
I was born in the middle of a massive storm. A blizzard welcomed me, and I welcomed it. Together, we celebrated the transformative storm of labour and the deep blanketing calm that followed my birth. I had no idea until writing these words that Gaia was showing me that whole time, who I am in this world. To be both seen and felt for my wild immensity and deep calm, is a gift from Gaia that I have not opened until today. I now see that this is the power of writing our Gaia Story.
Gaia continued to show me more of myself as I grew, and I took refuge in her natural world. From a very young age, I was free to roam our 20-acre property in Nova Scotia. The other-than-human world seemed to allow an ease in the connection to myself that I would not understand until many years later. In my formative years, I learned that the communication within nature was a wordless exchange that moved intuitively through my little body, offering me the grand sensation of being alive, with very little story or resistance to my natural state.
I befriended many other-than-human creatures on the banks of rivers, in the thick of the forest and on the edges of the meadows.
These creatures taught me about true reciprocity in relationships. I remember having a feeling, very early on, that everything was interconnected, and that the natural world offered me a feedback loop of life that felt real and true.
Gaia invited me to explore myself as she did the same. As the water from the stream cooled my feet, my feet were being felt by the stream. As I saw the world from the top of the tree, the tree was also seeing the world through my eyes. As I played in the ocean waves, the waves were playing with me. As I gazed into my animals eyes, they were gazing back. I came to trust a natural simplicity, a wondrous, wordless communion and an inner knowing that I was a deeply important expression of the natural world. This was a knowing that I would later cover up to fit in, but it is now clear that it has never left me.
As I write this and invite what was taking place alongside my human upbringing to seep into my conscious awareness, I am allowing a wave of remembering that Gaia has never stopped modeling to me, the pure expression of life that moves through us all.
INVITATION TO JOURNAL
When you have time to sit quietly with your journal, allow this idea to integrate by doing the follow exercise.
Connection to community through the natural world feels playful and easy. It allows us to be seen, heard, felt, witnessed and celebrated for our true nature.
Take some time to reveal to yourself the rich natural community to which you belong.
Who are the beings that surround and support you? Create a list of the beings in your natural community from as far back as you can remember until today. Name the animals, humans, plants, trees, land, mountains, rivers, oceans, lakes and microorganisms that are your natural community.
When you consider each of the beings on your list, how does this redefine community for you?
TRANSFORM
When Gaia is ready to storm, she does not hesitate. She embraces her power to light up the sky and thunder across the land. She uproots trees, burns prairies and forests, and blows mightily across the sea.
Storms transform the landscape and are often a precursor to the awakening of dormant life awaiting renewal,
life that requires space to expand.
For our lives to transform, we must welcome the power of storms in our own ecosystems.
GAIA'S STORMS
Storms are transformative.
Storms clear the old, making way for the new.
Storms signal dynamic changes.
Storms shift landscapes.
Storms expose dormant life that’s ready to come alive.
Storms bring balance back to ecosystems, allowing what had become stagnant to thrive.
Storms show the power of nature.
OUR STORMS
Like the natural world, we too have intense storms.
Our storms are more internal, and they often blow in unexpectedly. They can feel like a tightening in our chest, tears welling up behind our eyes or fear gripping our bones.
Our storms are also the precursor to dormant life that awaits renewal.
Our conditioning often trains us to resist our storms. We have been trained to push back against feelings of discomfort, to try to pause and deflect the sensations that arise. We may blame others, use substances to push down our feelings, hide or yell or freeze.
When the water rises up or our mind aches in discomfort, it’s a signal that we need to soften into the storm, not try to stop it.
If we can marvel at the beauty and the power of planetary storms, we can also marvel at our internal storms.
Softening into our storms means staying with ourselves when things get uncomfortable and allowing new space to open so our inner landscape can change. Staying aware of what our bodies experience and not paying undue attention to what our minds have to say can allow for old conditioning to fall away as new experiences and ideas emerge.
Like Gaia, we were designed for storms. We too are dynamic and ever changing.
When the fullness of who we are
becomes exalted,
free to move swiftly through our bodies in an unfolding spiral of aliveness,
what was once hidden
now becomes an expression
of immense life
to be lived.
~ Naomi Irons
EMBRACE
This planet is home to wild, majestic wonders of nature,
from playful wildflowers to erupting volcanoes, tiny tide pools to roaring seas, the glow of fireflies to the grace of blue whales.
Raised by Gaia is a journey to embrace the extraordinary expression of life,
the wonder of nature that you are.
It’s a call to return to a deeply rooted relationship with yourself, the earth and all its inhabitants.
THRIVE
Whether it’s a tree in an old growth forest taking nourishment from a fallen friend or lava expanding an island after destroying
all in its way, Gaia always chooses thriving.
When you begin living as the extraordinary natural wonder you are, you are choosing a reverent practice of thriving.
At first thriving might feel foreign or undeserved,
but in a single internal embrace, you have the capacity to remember that you are designed to thrive the way the natural world does.
NATURAL WONDER
Gaia has been revealing the natural wonder that you are from the beginning.
You are an alchemic dance of the infinite and the tangible,
a living infusion of many astonishing things. You are literally one of a kind.
You possess extraordinary natural features, and your body is an incredibly complex organism teaming with life. You are resilient, adventurous and adaptable, and you have a massive capacity for emotion and love.
When you gaze into your depths and embrace your inner wilderness, you will see the extraordinary expression of life that you are.
Your work is not to become a natural wonder; it is to embrace that you always have been.
