Hi, Erik--

Another beautiful, thoughtful article. Once again, I feel as if you and I are one mind in two bodies--and fortunately (or not?) your body is a lot younger than mine!

Your "Gaian Guild" idea is of one essence with my current "Garden Guild" initiative. I chose the term "Garden Guilds," however, to expand my potential outreach beyond people who already share our own Gaian perspective on the world--i.e. to go beyond "preaching to the choir."

For example, when I attempted to start a Dharma Gaia Circle on Zoom here in my neighborhood, the result was that I got a small handful of women (always women!) whose values were closely attuned to my own. The chances of reaching out beyond the "choir"--even to other Buddhists--was negligible. Think of it like a Venn Diagram: if you reach out to people for whom "Gaia" is deeply meaningful (who unfortunately are still few and far between) and to those for whom "Dharma" is deeply meaningful (a slightly larger constituency), you get only those at the intersection of the two circles.

Conversely, if you reach out to those for whom "Garden" draws their interest, you immediately reach a much larger potential audience, even in your own neighborhood. These, once organized locally into a guild, can then work together to reach out to their neighbors as well--especially if sponsored by pre-existent organizations with a vested interest in either gardening (the Master Gardeners) or in community-building (Neighborhood Organizations). So that is my strategy in a nutshell: Growing Gardens, (thereby) Growing Community (and thereby) Growing (Gaian) Awareness...So I can envision the possibility of Gaian Guilds--and/or Dharma Gaia circles--budding off Garden Guilds, as the movement grows...