Gaia Rising was an organization focused on:
Restoring and protecting sacred land, vegetation, etc., especially when used in worship, meditation, shamanism with nature spirits, and honoring the Goddess in Nature
Minimizing and overcoming legal barriers to those whose practice is to maintain, restore and/or create complex nature-friendly, organic ecosystems
Assuring that all funds donated or granted are properly accounted for and used efficiently for their intended purposes, with a reasonable minimum of administrative and overhead costs
Associated activities, including fund raising, administration, disbursement, publishing, electronic communications, PR, meetings, events, etc.
It was founded by Bill Obbagy, the Editor of the Cleveland Citizen (the Oldest Labor newspaper in the United States) and Larry Cornett the coordinator of the Earth Religions Legal Assistance Network (http://www.erlan.org).
Its first project was fund raising and providing appropriate financial administrative services for donations intended to assist with the situation on Frank Giglio's ravaged land and protect it through litigation, etc. -- along with coordinating its work with other organizations and individuals.
Mr. Obbagy joined Larry Cornett, Nancy (of the W. 25th St Bookstore) and Henry (a Tremont Earth Religionist and professional Grant writer). An attorney was helping with incorporation, and additional positions for volunteers sharing the work were sought.
Gaia Rising is currently inactive. For further details, contact Larry Cornett, 2450 W 6 St, Apt Up S, Cleveland, OH 44113 lcornett@en.com or see its website at: http://www.erlan.org/GaiaRising.htm.
For details about Natural Landscaping, see:
John Marshall Law Review presents an overview of "weed
laws" and real-life cases of natural gardeners who won their rights to
natural landscaping
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/greenacres/weedlaws/JMLR.html
Weeding Out Bad Vegetation Control Ordinances by Bret Rappaport
and Bevin orn
http://www.for-wild.org/weedlaws/weeding.htm
Natural Landscaping Toolkit
A Source Book on Natural Landscaping for Public Officials
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/greenacres/toolkit/
USEPA, GREEN ACRES: Green Landscaping with Native Plants
http://www.epa.gov/greenacres/
Wild Ones Homepage
http://www.for-wild.org/
Gardening for Wildlife
http://www.nwf.org/backyard/tipsheets.cfm
43 Reasons Not to Mow, etc:
http://www.acorn.net/evergreen
Paradise Lost - The Tyranny of Conformity Revisited, by
Carol Wallace at
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/virtually_gardening/11040
If you run into legal problems associated with your religion, check the following webpages for help:
.Finding Help and Helping Yourself Links:
http://www.erlan.org/helplink.htm
DIRECTORY OF Public Contacts for Earth Religion
Rights organizations, by State
http://www.erlan.org/directory.htm
EARTH RELIGIONS LEGAL ASSISTANCE NETWORK (ERLAN) HOMEPAGE
http://www.erlan.org
Many (but not all) people who have been helping, share with Frank Giglio an animistic view of the world, agreeing that:
1. Gods, Goddesses, the Tao, etc. (Deity) manifest in nature immanently (Deity and etc. includes a lot of possibilities, including that which can not be categorized, various concepts of God, and even the Unified Field theorized by some Physicists)
2. Working with the spirits of nature provides opportunities to work with, worship, and experience deity in manifest forms
3. Concerning other levels of Deity, experiencing singular vs the plural are a matter of how our minds resonate with the unmanifest.
Animistic Pagans and others can work together with deity as manifested in the spirits of nature to heal the Earth, etc., however we may think about and work with other levels of Deity.
In the mid 1980s, a heretical Franciscan Monk, a Sufi, a Sikh, a Cherokee Medicine Man, and several Pagans who actively worked with Nature Spirits met (when Starhawk came to Connecticut) and formed an ad hoc group called the "Earth Liberation Front" (ELF). Together, they celebrated the seasons and got together at other times to share technique, to do Earth healing and protection magic, etc. -- often at an ashram with a forest at which members worked with the spirits of the land and were establishing permaculture. Different concepts of Deity at other levels than the manifest really did not matter, and techniques drawn from their different traditions enriched their work together.
The possibility of forming such a network in Northeast Ohio is being explored, along with, perhaps, evolving it into a Church that would, among other things, legally register Frank's restored garden Chapel of the Goddess in Nature as one of its officially recognized churches, along with other such sites, some of which are in the process of being created.
If you are interested in helping these efforts,
or share the aforementioned animistic beliefs, or have documentation of the
importance of natural surroundings and work with Nature Spirits as part of religious
or spiritual practice, contact:
Larry Cornett, 2450 W. 6 St., Apt UpS,Cleveland,
OH 44113 (216)583-0007 lcornett@en.com