Case 3

John Seed and Joanna Macy, "Gaia Meditations," This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature , Environment (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2nd Edition, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb, pp. 552-553.

In their prayer, Seed and Macy answer the questions, "Who are you?" "Who am I?" with "Intersection cycles of water, earth, air, and fire." Water is "the vast poem of the hydrogen cycle, earth is "ashes to ashes, dust to dust", air is "breathing ... the dance of the air cycle", and fire is the power that fuels metabolism". Seeing the long history of life as and unbroken chain from the Big Bang, they portray "our long planetary journey" as a series of reincarnations during which "we died to old forms, let go of old ways, allowing new ones to emerge. But nothing is ever lost. Though forms pass, all returns. Each worn-out cell consumed, recycled, ... through mosses, leeches, birds of prey.