Many thanks for sending me your very thoughtful and well articulated article.

Recently, I was contacted by another American - Steven Wolfe - also appears to be associated with the Space Settlement community

As there is quite alot of shared insight. you will probably enjoy his article called:

Space Settlement: The Journey Inward

Which you may find here:

http://www.arc-space.org/isdc%20talk.htm

This is a link to his bio.

http://www.arc-space.org/Steve%20Wolfe%20Bio.htm

----------------------------------------

I, too, have toyed with the metaphor of a pregnant Earth.

In 1995, made an art installation of 'SEEDS' at the 46th IAC in Oslo in the space and exhibition and in 1997, I presented a paper about the project called "SEEDS - Synergizing Earth's Evolutionary Destiny Spacewards" at the 48th IAC Congress in Turin in which I proposed developing and sending biological payloads encapsulated into artworks designed for Earth orbit, the Moon and eventually for interstellar destinations.

In the conclusion I stated:

"Life on Earth may have originated by an intervention from space or it may have begun spontaneously. Sooner or later Life will cease to exist on Earth. Accepting the processes of nature on our planet as a model, the questions: "How did Life originate on Earth?" or "How endangered is Life at the moment?", may not be as important as understanding that Life's chances for survival can only be enhanced by promoting its propagation beyond Earth. Today, Life on Earth has reached a point in its evolution where it is feasible for it to propagate in other parts of the universe. The arguments for spreading Life are certainly more compelling than the arguments for not doing so. Life's expansion into the cosmos may or may not include humans but humans are essential for that expansion to happen. By accepting the responsibility to help propagate Life beyond the home planet, humanity could be fulfilling its ultimate purpose."

I think the only difference between what you have written and similarly what Wolfe and Burth are stating and my conclusions is that I am not 100% convinced that humans are the 'seed' but rather the all important midwife serving Gaia in her evolutionary drive to insure survival by planting Earth's 'seeds' in other places in the Cosmos. It is not a major ideological difference however, as any 'seeding' undertaken by humanity on a significant scale will most likely create a synergy leading to the acknowledgement and implementation of the Space Option for the future survival and spread of our civilization and species in the solar system.

It is nice to be hopeful, however, as you know from our previous discussions, it is the 'window of opportunity' factor that may unfortunately leave us in the same situation as the dinosaurs ...... So the time for this discussion has surely arrived.

----------------------------------------------

Coincidentally, In May, I am part of a group that is organizing a Symposium and Workshop called:

Space: Planetary Consciousness and the Arts.

The event will take place in Switzerland, at Yverdon-les-Bains which is near Lausanne.

Perhaps you would be interested in attending and contributing your insights to this discussion.

The call for participation is attached. Please feel free to post it and / or distribute it as you like.

Meanwhile, let's stay in touch and I wish you and yours all the best in 2005

Arthur ----------------------

At 15:21 07.01.2005, you wrote:
>Newsletter TDF 1/2005 - http://www.tdf.it/
>
>Dear Co-Planetaries,
>
><<<snip
>
> Earth is not sick: She's pregnant!
>
>Two years ago I proposed a document to the yearly congress of the
>International
>Astronautic Federation, whose title was: "Lady Earth, would you like to have a
>baby?" (http://www.tdf.it/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcforumid13/13.html). The document
>discussed this concept indeed: a Baby Solar Civilization, given to the light by
>our Mother Earth, impregnated by the technological and cultural progress of
>human kind. In the paper, and in a book of mine not yet published, I discussed
>the role of the pressure in the process of pregnancy. The pressure grows
>up, and it's a dangerous process, that can bring to a disastrous abortion, and to the
>death of both baby and mother. However the pressure is useful, and inevitable,
>if we wanted that a pleased event followed to pregnancy. David Buth introduces
>some considerations of great relevance, speaking about the awareness of the
>pregnancy, and about the need of assistance.
>
>Similar comments we can also find in a 2003 article of mine: "Why not to hope
>(and work) for a miracle??"
>(http://www.tdf.it/cgi-bin/dcforum/DCForumID2/369.html): Lady Terrestrial
>Civilization is pregnant, and it will give birth to a little baby Solar
>Civilization, but nobody takes care of such pregnancy, so we risk the abortion
>and the shutdown of the process. As in a pregnancy (or in a boiler) the
>pressure is growing up (number of individuals, increasing in a closed system). If
>we keep on not recognizing this critical process, and we don't start to assist it
>and to check it (opening at least a valve, to start modulating it), the boiler will
>explode or (in the opposite case) we will get the shutdown of the pressure
>with the abortion of the process. Today we could also say that such valve
>exists, and it appeared in 2004, year for so many reasons disastrous, that however
>also saw some events of enormous positive course. The "valve" is called
>SpaceShipOne, and opened the hope for a low cost access to space, finally affordable to private
>entrepreneurs of good will!
>
>David Buth compares the pregnant biosphere to the hypothesis of Gaia, proposed
>by Dr. Lovelock. I owe to confess that the Gaia's hypothesis never
>attracted me too much, until now, since it was mainly used by the nihilistic thought.
>Obviously nothing prevents us to take out, from any theory, any conceptually
>positive items it might contain. Since in our globalised political strategies
>the space colonization is still (absurdly) considered less than an option
>among so many - a matter of speculation for a bit fanatical researchers - our
>biosphere is exactly in the conditions of a pregnant woman that isn't aware
>about her pregnancy, and even doesn't know that children can exist.

>snip

>In our Mother Earth's metaphor, the task of humanity is obvious. We are
>here to help Mother Earth to give birth. We are the reproductive apparatus, and
>part of us is the fetus, that is growing. The dinosaurs failed, after a long period of
>success, because a comet or an asteroid, seems, struck the Earth and swept
>them away. Subsequently a kind able to fly in the space is evolved - and that
>is able to avoid the same destiny, expanding itself out of Earth. The expansion of the
>life environment of a kind is a rather frequent and well-succeeded survival
>strategy. The expansion in the solar system and, subsequently, in the galaxy,
>should assure a substantial and immense capital of survival to our kind.
>
>I have wanted to put my matters together with those proposed by David
>Buth, not out of foolish boasting, but to underline their complementarity, and above all
>because it seems to me extraordinary that the same metaphor came to mind
>of two people, living thousands of kilometres of distance, and they never came in
>contact before! I also do want to read such fact as a kind of sign of the
>destiny (our history saw other miracles, and we could say that our kind
>reached up to here thanks to a long series of miracles; therefore why not to give a
>value to unequivocally positive signs?), or however as a proof of the great
>value of this metaphor, turned to the future and to the hope of survival
>for our kind and our Civilization! Close to the grief for the victims, together with
>doing our best to help the people struck by the break-up of the crust near
>Sumatra, this thought can perhaps help us to choose an active strategy, of
>prevention, of assistance, of acceleration in the development of the Space
>Economy.
>
>One birth of ours is outlining, in many senses: a Baby Solar Society, a more
>ethical Civilization, a society able to use very better the abilities and the
>talents of all the Earthlings:
>
> Mother Earth begun her contractions, and the pains of the birth
> are drawing near, let's take care of her, and let's help her to give birth!
>
>I think that we are in serious delay. We should already have at least 20 years
>of experience of life and working on the Moon. We should be very much more in
>advance, in solving the main problems, about supporting the human life out of
>Earth: the artificial gravity, to fight the bony and muscular decadence; the
>defence against cosmic radiations; the generation of oxygen and water; the
>cultivation and breeding of food in completely artificial environments. Such
>delay becomes more and more serious: think if Mum pushed us out of her uterus
>before we are leastly ready to survive! It is therefore extremely urgent and
>vital relevant that this vision of pregnancy and birth spread more broadly the
>possible among all the Earthlings of good will: each one of us can do
>something.
>
>
>More than ever:
>
>Aim high!
>Adriano Autino
>
>***************************************
>Please visit Technologies of the Frontier http://www.tdf.it/ for other news,
>articles and papers on the topics of space age philosophy, politics and
>economy.dell'era spaziale.
>
>
>***************************************
>The pages by David Buth are on the NASA' web site:
>http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/Basics/wwwwh.html
>
>
>***************************************
>A comment by Michael Martin-Smith, who kindly revised the English version of
>this newsletter:
>
>You will find also in my book the idea that, if you follow the Gaia hypothesis
>(namely that the Earth and biosphere have helped to nurture each other) it is
>logical to see Earth's biosphere as a kind of Mother; the function of
>Mothers is Procreation.
>
>We should also reflect that the ability to recover from the Asian tragedy
>requires aid from affluent countries and revived local economies; the move to
>limit growth in the name of ecology, as advocated by the Kyoto Treaty,
>directly opposes this possibility - it is all the more ironic that even the
>proponents of Kyoto offer no guarantees that we will delay global warming by more than a few
>years - even if we assume that the global warming we observe is all due to
>Humankind.
>
>It would be ironic if the world sacrificed £150 billions per year and
>impoverished billions only to have little or no effect on climate change. We
>should surely look for cleaner and more efficient energy - but not put on hair
>shirts! This will help no-one.
Michael

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Arthur Woods
The O.U.R.S. Foundation
P.O. Box 180 8424
Embrach Switzerland
www.ours.ch
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