Is Earth alive?

I’ve always been struck by the verses in Moses 7 in which a personified planet Earth speaks:

48 And it came to pass that Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof, saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face?

 49 And when Enoch heard the earth mourn, he wept, and cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, wilt thou not have compassion upon the earth? 

I commented passingly on the idea in an article otherwise devoted to another issue:

“On the Motif of the Weeping God in Moses 7”

And, partly because I have Moses 7 in the back of my mind, I’ve long been fascinated by the so-called “Gaia hypothesis.”

Here’s a nice essay on that notion:

http://nautil.us/blog/its-time-to-take-the-gaia-hypothesis-seriously

Posted from Richmond, Virginia