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The Story of Gaia

The Big Breath and the Evolutionary Journey of Our Conscious Planet

Published by Inner Traditions
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

Explores how the Universe, our planet, ourselves, and everything in existence has inherent meaning and evolutionary purpose

• 2023 Nautilus Gold Award

• Examines our emergence as self-aware members of a Universe that is itself a unified and innately sentient entity that exists TO evolve

• Shares leading-edge scientific breakthroughs and shows how they support traditional visions of Earth as a living being--Gaia

• Rewrites evolution as not driven by random occurrences and mutations but by intelligently informed and meaningful information flows and processes

Exploring our emergence as self-aware members of a planetary home and entire Universe that is a unified and innately sentient entity, Jude Currivan, Ph.D., shows that mind and consciousness are not what we possess but what we and the whole world fundamentally are. She reveals our Universe as “a great thought of cosmic mind,” manifesting as a cosmic hologram of meaningful in-formation that, vitally, exists to evolve.

Sharing scientific breakthroughs, the author details the 13.8 billion-year story of our Universe and Gaia, where everything in existence has inherent meaning and evolutionary purpose. Showing how the Universe was born, not in an implicitly chaotic big bang, but as the first moment of a fine-tuned and ongoing “big breath,” she shares the latest evidence for the innate sentience that has guided our universal journey from simplicity to ever-greater complexity, diversity, and self-awareness--from protons to planets, plants, and people. She explains how evolution is not driven by random occurrences and mutations but by profoundly resonant and harmonic interplays of forces and influences, each intelligently informed and guided.

In Gaia, the Universe’s evolutionary impulse is embodied in collaborative relationships and dynamic co-evolutionary partnerships on a planetary scale and as a wholistic gaiasphere. She reveals how the conscious evolution of humanity is an integral part of Gaia’s own evolutionary progress and purpose. By perceiving and experiencing our planet as a sentient being and ourselves as Gaians, we open ourselves to a deeply ecological, evolutionary, and, above all, hopeful worldview.

Excerpt

From Chapter 5. “Parents: Sol, Luna, and Gaia as a Triple Relationship”

Within our Soular System, Sol and Luna are essentially the parents of Gaia, without whose tripartite relationship the emergence and abundance of her future organic children would have been severely constrained.

Sol is four hundred times larger than Luna and is four hundred times farther away. This exact and unique correspondence not only enables total solar eclipses to occur, also but numerous other valuable influences and processes to ensue.

With Luna’s orbit around Gaia, though, being around 5 degrees from the plane of Gaia’s orbit around Sol, solar eclipses only happen between two and five times each year and total solar eclipses only roughly every eighteen months: at a New Moon and specifically when Luna’s orbit intersects the solar plane. Given that at the time of a New Moon, Luna lies between Gaia and Sol, not only do they present an awe-inspiring cosmic sight, but the combined gravitational influence of her parents, along their arc of totality around Gaia, raises the highest of her tides.

However, in the earliest epoch of Gaia’s Soular family, before and during her early years as a planet, Sol was much fainter than now. So, when she was birthed around 4.54 billion years ago and located at the same distance as now from Sol, unlike later epochs, where his radiant heat enabled the presence of liquid water, some other influence needed to supply sufficient heat for that to be possible during her early years.

The most significant of these was the presence of Luna. The Gaia-Luna relationship is extraordinary and more of a binary system than a planet and satellite. Luna, recognized by many traditional societies as Gaia’s “mother,” is the largest moon in relation to its planet in the entire Soular System with the exception of Pluto and his moon Charon.

Even more astounding is the most likely way in which Luna and Gaia in her final form came into being.

Lunar rock samples collected by the Apollo astronauts show a great similarity with the rocks of Gaia’s crust, suggesting they had a common origin. Named after Theia, in Greek myth the mother of the moon goddess Selene, the Theia hypothesis posits that a body, about the size of Mars, slammed into the protoplanetary Gaia. Causing an immense ejection of material that formed Luna, the core of Theia plunged deep into Gaia where she has remained ever since.1 Indeed, some of her remains may be present in the form of two huge masses of ancient rock: one buried under Africa and the other beneath the Pacific Ocean.2 Known as large low-shear-velocity-provinces, or LLSVPs, denser and with a different chemical composition to Gaia’s geosphere, they have sunk to the base of her mantle rocks, straddling her core and possibly have provided a further rotational stabilizing influence.

In addition to the rocks of Gaia and Luna being very similar, Theia’s remains should thus also be found in the lunar rock samples. And, indeed, rocks collected from the deepest locations on Luna’s surface reveal relatively less similarity with Gaian rocks and are more attributable to being relics of Theia.3

Furthermore, there’s growing evidence that the birth of the Gaia-Luna system was even more extraordinary. It suggests that Theia may have originated not in an orbit close to Gaia’s but some further distance toward the outer Soular System. Unlike the arid environment of the inner Soular System, its outer echelons were replete with water and carbon-based materials. In this scenario, Theia would likely have brought with her these vital ingredients for the emergence of organic life and perhaps delivering much of the water that would make Gaia the bluegreen planet she became.4

It also seems that Theia delivered two further, interrelated and inestimable benefits. For unlike Venus—Gaia’s close sibling in planetary scale—thanks to Theia, Gaia gained a much larger and denser iron-nickel metallic core and a correspondingly much shallower crust; both, as we’ll see, are essential for the emergence and evolution of her future organic children. Indeed, the scale of her metallic core causes Gaia to be the densest planet in the Soular System.

The primordial heat of her core, convected through the magma of the molten mantle above and through to her volatile crust, evaporated the gases of her first atmosphere and, likely, huge amounts of hydrogen (and its heavier variant, deuterium, where a neutron joins the proton of its nucleus) and oxygen to form the two “flavors” of water: light (H2O) and heavy (D2O).

While the search for the possibly multiple sources of Gaia’s abundance of water continues to be studied, mineralogical analysis shows that her primordial ocean was present by around 4.4 billion years ago.5 (Commonly, “billion years ago” is abbreviated as Ga, for example 4.4 Ga, which we’ll use going forward.)

Using the ratio (D/H) of the two flavors of her water is a key test for compatibility and so origin, and it seems increasingly likely that the major contributors were Gaia herself as a proto-planet,6 Theia, and then a later bombardment of water-bearing asteroid impacts emanating from the asteroid belt, likely triggered by Jupiter’s grand tack and lasting hundreds of millions of years until around 3.8 Ga.

Heavy with carbon dioxide, her powerful atmospheric pressure at this earliest era was vital, as Gaia cooled, to prevent her liquid water evaporating into space. The size of her core and its continuing high temperature have also remained crucial for her strong magnetic field ever since, protecting her from harmful UV radiation and charged particles emitted by Sol that otherwise could have stripped her entire atmosphere away.

In addition, the heat of her inner core (solid and crystalline due to the immense pressure) caused the lighter rocks of the overlaying mantle to remain molten. This enabled the surface rocks of her shallow crust not only to float but, driven by circulating convection currents in the underlying mantle, to facilitate the cracking of her crust into a number of tectonic plates and the subsequent recycling processes of their rocks. As we’ll go on to explore, the timing—starting between half a billion and one billion years after Gaia’s birth—and the scale of such processes progressively recycles and modifies her geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, enabling (over billions of years) a great variety of environmental opportunities and evolutionary niches for her emergent biosphere.

Theia’s greatest gift, though, was perhaps Luna herself, whose relative size, proximity, and orbital resonance has enabled Gaia’s long and continuing evolutionary journey for some 4.5 billion years.

Gaia’s distance, just under a 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from Sol, locates her in a goldilocks zone, neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on her surface. Yet during her early years, with Sol much fainter than now, instead of Gaia’s water being frozen into a global snowball for at least her first billion years of existence, geological evidence and the rapid emergence of organic life-forms shows this wasn’t the case.

Instead, two other compensating circumstances crucially prevailed. Soon after Luna was formed from the impact of Gaia with Theia, she was only around 20,0 kilometers (12,4 miles) away, compared to an average of some 384,0 kilometers (238,6 miles) now. Gaia at that time was also spinning on her axis far more rapidly, with a day then perhaps as short as five hours or even less.

These two key factors meant that the gravitational interaction between Gaia and Luna was much more powerful than now, with the push-pull of Luna’s tidal influences warming Gaia and also likely triggering massive volcanic eruptions, bringing huge amounts of deep mantle magma to her surface and causing crustal off-gassing. Generating a still thicker carbon dioxide rich atmosphere trapping yet more heat and also squeezing water to the surface, her primordial oceans rapidly formed, themselves helping to cool the magma into solid rock.7

Had their relationship, though, remained as it was, while enabling her to avoid a frozen fate, the powerful tides raised by Luna and the turmoil of associated and continuing volcanism would have destabilized Gaia’s surface. Preventing water oceans from forming or whipping them into unimaginable maelstroms, Luna would have instead forestalled the conditions necessary for the emergence of Gaia’s organic children.

However, within at most twenty million years, due to the frictional tidal drag of their interactions, Luna began to move further away, and Gaia’s rotation began to slow down to her current twenty-four hours, conserving the angular momentum of their combined system. Gradually the two also became tidally locked, so that Luna’s rotation around her axis correlated with her orbital rotation and so presenting only her near face to Gaia.

Such tidal, or synchronous, 1:1 resonance, maximizes the stability of their binary system while also offering an ability to clear of debris a combined orbit around Sol, and so enabling their benevolent relationship to continue for the billions of years since.

Although continuing to gradually move apart, its effect beginning around 4.25 Ga and peaking around 4.0 Ga when Luna was around 113,0 kilometers (70,0 miles) distant from Gaia, she gave yet another gift of inestimable value to her daughter.

At that time, the young Sol, while fainter than today, was expelling a much stronger solar wind. Establishing his protective sheath of the heliosphere for the entire Soular System also cleared its inner region, where Gaia is located, of much of the remaining material left over from the formation of the terrestrial planets.

Gaia was then beginning to terraform into a habitable planet, and her early atmosphere was vital to provide the heat and pressure for the formation of her surface oceans and the potential emergence of her earliest organic life-forms. With the dynamo of her own magnetic field ramping up, perhaps, though, less strong than today, the protective magnetosphere it provided would have been insufficient to prevent the intense solar wind from stripping the volatile gases of her atmosphere away.

Between 4.2 and 2.7 Ga, Luna, too, had a primordial magnetic field, its dynamo driven by the gravitational tug from Gaia causing Luna’s small liquid core and its mantle to rotate at different rates. However, as they continued to move away from each other, the stirring of Luna’s dynamo eventually reduced to zero.

In Gaia’s early years, however, its strength at Luna’s surface, as powerful as Gaia’s is at her surface today, coupled with their proximity, was critical. It enabled them to couple their magnetospheres together, forming a sufficiently protective bulwark against the intense solar wind and thereby ensuring the survival of Gaia’s vital atmosphere.8

Continuing to ensure Gaia’s thriving, and overlighting the emergence and development of her organic children as the two continued to move apart, Luna’s moderated tidal influences have helped to dissipate heat and disperse nutrients in Gaia’s waters—optimizing energy flows, nurturing the abundance of food chains, and so augmenting the scale and speed of evolutionary speciation and diversity.
Now, they’re settled into a distance between mother and daughter averaging just over 384,0 kilometers (238,6 miles), and only increasing by a miniscule 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year. Luna will continue to benefit Gaia and her daughter’s own children for the rest of their lives; perhaps five billion more years, before Sol depletes his hydrogen fuel, probably expanding to the orbit of Mars and becoming a red giant star.

About The Author

Jude Currivan, Ph.D., is a cosmologist, futurist, planetary healer and previously one of the most senior business women in the UK. She has a master’s degree in physics from Oxford University and a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Reading in the UK. She has traveled extensively, worked with wisdom keepers from many traditions, and is a life-long researcher into the nature of reality. She is the author of 6 books, including The Cosmic Hologram, and is a member of the Evolutionary Leaders circle.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Inner Traditions (December 8, 2022)
  • Length: 320 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781644115312

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Raves and Reviews

The Story of Gaia is destined to become a cornerstone for the cosmology of the new millennium. Currivan invites us on an extraordinary journey that gives our mind the reason to accept what our heart already knows--that we’re born into a universe that supports us and our evolution as an integral part of a larger evolutionary process. I love this book!”

– GREGG BRADEN, scientist and New York Times bestselling author of The Divine Matrix

“To read this book is to be enhanced, empowered, and evolved into the receiving of a consciousness that evokes the higher human intelligence yearning to unfold in this time of change, trauma, and the coming of a world that works for all.”

– JEAN HOUSTON, Ph.D., scholar, a principal founder of the Human Potential Movement, and coauthor of t

“Jude Currivan is that rarest and most original of evolutionary pioneers--one that fuses together profound mystical revelation and passion with grounded, wide-ranging, precise scientific knowledge. In her latest brilliant and galvanizing masterpiece, The Story of Gaia, she guides us into the depths of the divine intelligence that has shaped the life and evolution of our Earth. Read it as I have done with awe and gratitude again and again, and share it with everyone you know.”

– share it with everyone you know.” Andrew Harvey, coauthor of Radical Regeneration and author o

“Weaving an impressive array of sciences, from cosmology to the latest biology of trees, Currivan creates a compelling new history of the Earth as a single conscious entity whose components result from a grand, holistic design. Ultimately, this highly original story of our home planet signals a new way of being for its human inhabitants--a welcome and necessary message of hope in these challenging times.

– Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field and The Power of Eight

“Jude Currivan’s encyclopedic knowledge of modern quantum-informed science shimmers with her vast, integrated knowledge. Gaia truly comes to life through her masterpiece. Highly recommended!”

– Eben Alexander, M.D., neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven

The Story of Gaia is an amazing book. It tells who we are--for the future of humanity on the planet and for the future of the planet in the Universe. Perhaps the greatest story ever told--now told with the authority of cutting-edge science.”

– Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D., whole systems theorist, philosopher, author, and founder of the Club of Budapes

“A fascinating new perspective on our cosmic and human evolution.”

– Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade and coauthor of Nurturing Our Humanity

“A breathtaking journey into the ever-increasing intelligence, ingenuity, and creative wisdom of our Universe and the consciousness-actualizing ways in which this becomes manifest and expressed through Gaia and her children and our creative relationships. I highly recommend this masterpiece for discovering the principles, processes, and cosmological architecture that makes life possible and able to thrive.”

– Anneloes Smitsman, Ph.D., LLM, futurist, systems scientist, and coauthor of the Future Humans Trilog

“With this book, Currivan takes her place as a leader in a direction that will be necessary if we are to survive the challenges our species faces on our precious planet.”

– Larry Dossey, M.D., author of One Mind and Space, Time, and Medicine

“Currivan evokes a deeply empathic sense that all that led to and now exists as life on Earth is intrinsically the result of the universally unifying and cohering presence of love. Ultimately, The Story of Gaia is a vast love story that reminds us that we, too, are an inevitable manifestation of this same eternal presence; it should be a foundational educational text for all students everywhere.”

– Marshall Lefferts, author of Cosmometry

“Jude Currivan has written a masterly interdisciplinary odyssey based on a wider range of scientific principles consistent with the emerging consensus on the centrality of mind and consciousness. Within an overarching evolutionary framework, she draws on her extensive and detailed knowledge of cosmology, geology, physics, ecology, biology, and the wisdom traditions to weave a highly accessible narrative about our ‘sentient, dynamic, and co-evolutionary gaiasphere.”

– David Lorimer, PGCE, FRSA, program director of Scientific and Medical Network and editor of Paradigm

“Very rarely a book comes along that profoundly transforms the way we look at the world and our place in it. The Story of Gaia does so and takes us on a journey to truly know ourselves as Gaians.”

– Diane Marie Williams, founder of the Source of Synergy Foundation

“With its copious and expertly elaborated combinations of scientific, cultural, and consciousness data, the book provides a powerful contribution and, in fact, salvational view of both our current location and our most ambitious and evolutionary potential.”

– Kurt Johnson, Ph.D., coauthor of The Coming Interspiritual Age, Fine Lines, and Nabokov’s Blue

The Story of Gaia provides irrefutable evidence of our deep relationship with each other, the Earth, and the Cosmos. This book is indeed a beautiful expression from Gaia herself--through Jude Currivan, her creation--as she seeks to bring us human children back to our senses.”

– Peter Merry, Ph.D., cofounder of Ubiquity University

The Story of Gaia roots us solidly as Gaian creatures who are coming to understand our spiraling cosmic and earthly journey. With this self-knowledge we cannot help but do better by Gaia and thus for ourselves. The future we dream of is ours to co-create!”

– Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., author of EarthDance and Gaia’s Dance and coauthor of A Walk Throug

The Story of Gaia is an eloquent affirmation of our need to change our modern perception of being human. Our ancestors knew that we were a part of--not apart from--our living planet, as do Indigenous people today. This marvelous book tells that story and inspires us to change.”

– John Perkins, author, activist, and cofounder of the Pachamama Alliance

The Story of Gaia lays out the scientific fundamentals of our wholeness in a deeply grounded and beautifully told exposé of our inherent unity. It moves from our Universe’s point of origin through every cosmological step to the present, revealing a holarchic complexity that is the scaffolding of our wholeness and laying the groundwork for unity-based decision-making and action-taking.”

– unity-based decision-making and action-taking.” Joni Carley, D.Min., United Nations ECOSOC con

“Jude Currivan eloquently describes the known science about the history and development of the Universe and our place in it for the layperson. A must-read for the curious explorer wanting to see the big picture view of how humanity arrived where we are today and, vitally, our co-creative potential for conscious evolution.”

– Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR, director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of

“Jude Currivan eloquently brings together extensive scientific knowledge, evolutionary biology, cosmic insight, and embodied wisdom with brilliant attunements and insights before each chapter, leading the reader on a unified path toward greater wholeness. This book will wake the innate genius within us as the ‘microcosmic co-creators’ that we are. It’s a labor of love that will change the world.”

– Julie Krull, Ph.D., president and founder of Good of the Whole, Inc., author, and host of The Dr. Ju

“The beauty of The Story of Gaia highlights the interdependent nature of all things in a web of wholeness. Jude Currivan writes with a deeply held gratitude, wonderment, reverence--and love--for all that came before, all that is, and all that will be, revealing, as she conveys so brilliantly well, that the Universe, too, has a soul.”

– Robert Atkinson, Ph.D., developmental psychologist, author of The Story of Our Time, and coeditor of

The Story of Gaia lays out the pathway for humanity’s reconnection with our Earth as mother, as Gaia, showing us how aligning with Earth opens up deeper understanding of both unity and diversity.”

– Jim Garrison, Ph.D., cofounder and president of Ubiquity University

“A brilliantly epic journey of universal breadth and Earth-based wisdom. A book for the ages. I highly recommend it as a foundational resource to discover our shared destiny.”

– Adam C. Hall, author of Divine Genius, The EarthKeeper, and The Little Book of Genius

The Story of Gaia is our story. Jude Currivan has crafted a captivating narrative that uses cutting-edge modern scientific insights along with ancient wisdom to re-enchant us with the ground of our being: Gaia as a living planet manifesting within consciousness.”

– Daniel Christian Wahl, author of Designing Regenerative Cultures

In The Story of Gaia, Jude Currivan shares with us her aim to serve the voice and wisdom of Gaia. We are invited to recognize with open hearts our citizenship as Gaians.”

– Paul J. Mills, director of the Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health

“An eloquent and scientific rendering of how planet Earth, our home and the crucible of our human existence, was created and evolved throughout the history of the Universe. Breathtaking in the scope of research and implications for a new understanding of Gaia as a living being, this book unveils the mystery and majesty of our cosmic home in a way that is worthy of Gaia herself.”

– Emanuel Kuntzelman, social entrepreneur, cofounder of Greenheart International, cofounder and presid

“Jude’s voice and Gaia’s story mesmerized me as it weaved in and out of this universal web of emergent meaning and purpose--an alluring, deeply compelling, and inspirational call to re-member our true nature.”

– Steve Farrell, worldwide coordinating director and cofounder of Humanity’s Team

“An evolutionary way-shower, Currivan is embodying the true art of the shaman, who is a storyteller and creative artist par excellence. Through Gaia’s story, she is helping us to re-create our world as well as ourselves. For this, we should be forever grateful.”

– Paul Levy, author of Wetiko

“Jude Currivan has brought together knowledge across an amazing range of specialized subjects to form a coherent whole. This is a remarkable book!”

– Rev. Don MacGregor, PGCE, author of Blue Sky God and The Wisdom Series

“Some books speak to you. This one sings. Currivan reminds us to honor and savor the deep heritage of Earth, appreciate its place in the greater universal scheme, and catch a glimpse of what is still seeking to evolve and unfold through our lives. This compelling and sparkling biography of Earth invites us to become Gaians--to carry the whole of planetary life within us as we in turn are carried and held within the wholeness of Gaia’s embrace.”

– Michael Lindfield, president, board of directors at Meditation Mount

“This book is essential for anyone wanting to deeply understand the miracle of life on Earth.”

– Rev. Deborah Moldow, founder of the Garden of Light and director of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle

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