This site was dreamed up and constructed by Rob Blake, who has been fired up by the awesomeness and magnificance of the Cosmos we (humans and other beings) find ourselves in. Rob had been reading books by James Lovelock on Gaia, and by Carl Sagan and other scientists, and was aware of the revelations and story being provided by Western science about our Habitat. He was also involved in neo-paganism, a ritual observance of Earth’s annual sacred journey about the Sun. He was grappling for a spiritual framework that could bring these two passions together, and for a term for such a synthesis.

At the same time, and for an even longer period, on the other side of the planet, Glenys Livingstone had been immersed in what she identified as a ‘Gaian spirituality’, a term used by Charlene Spretnak to describe a practice of cosmological celebration particularly of the Earth-Sun annual cycle, that was informed by a scientific perspective. For Glenys this had begun with early works by Fritjof Capra, then especially the work of Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, and Elisabet Sahtouris later: and it was couched in a radical re-storying of female imagery for the Sacred.

When Rob spliced together the words ‘Pagan’ and ‘Gaia’ in late night creative tension, to form “Pagaian”, he thought he had come up with a genuinely new concept and registered the domain pagaian.org. Yet on the other side of Gaia-Earth, Glenys had been thinking too about language for describing what she, in a context of community, was doing and writing about: which was in essence a ‘Pagan’ practice, as it came out of an awareness and observation of ‘country’ – Place as sacred, and its base was the Pagan tradition as taught by Starhawk. Yet it was ‘Gaian’ – with an expanded sense of this ‘country’ … as planetary, Cosmos, yet also particular to self and place, that had new metaphors for telling the stories and celebrating it. Her partner Taffy (Robert) Seaborne, who had been participating in and supporting Glenys’ creative work for a few years, suggested the term ‘PaGaian’. Glenys immediately accepted it, and within a day gave that name to her book in process, which was the reframing of her completed doctoral thesis on seasonal ritual, female metaphor and cosmogenesis – a documentation of her synthesis that had been forming for decades. The new word ‘PaGaian’ helped form the new book – gave it slightly new shape, and it was published June 21st 2005 – Winter Solstice, Southern Hemisphere.

Rob meanwhile, had been pre-occupied with work, but then decided to google for his new word. He found the book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. His pulse quickened, and he realised that he had ‘tapped into’ a conception in the ‘collective unconscious’ – as this territory of the global brain has been known – or the ‘Well of Creativity’ as it might be understood. Rob contacted Glenys, and the con-versation began.

pagaian.org has resulted and is an invitation to collaborate in the weaving of an open source spiritual framework called ‘Pagaianism’. As Glenys’ book specifically invites (p.256):
Now as the Wheel continues to turn, and the work is given over again to something Larger – it disperses. It becomes many seeds in the minds and hearts of readers who may take it further. This is the Return of the “finished” work. It is consumed by the reader – the audience. It loses itself in a new context, many new contexts – it becomes many seeds – to come to life in a new way, within others. The cycle begins again in many new Places.

This site is appropriately birthed at the Season of Imbolc in the Southern Hemisphere and the Season of Lammas in the Northern Hemisphere – because it is a beginning as Imbolc marks and nurtures, and it is also a harvest, a dispersion as Lammas marks and midwifes.

Hopefully there will be much creative collaboration in the expression of feeling for our sacred Place, for how our Place – self, Earth and Cosmos – may be celebrated.