'Gaia Awakens' envisions an alternative to the planet's 'catastrophic momentum'

In ancient Greek mythology, Gaia personifies Mother Earth.

“Gaia Awakens” is the title of Michael Gray’s new novel, which merges science fiction, history and spirituality in thinking about the future — or end times — of our planet.

The story features two aliens who are called “adjudicators.”

One alien, Dwttiz-Palo-Hum, arrives on Planet Earth in 2026. He is sent to Earth by a Council for Planetary Evolution to check on the status of the previous adjudicator, Ahat-Ohal-Kum.

Over centuries, Ahat sent reports to the council, documenting his observations of Earth’s dominant species (humans) in developing and using tools as weapons against neighboring peoples.

But Ahat’s reports have slowed and eventually stopped. The council assigns Dwttiz to search for Ahat, but alas, he can’t find him.

So Dwttiz, using his special powers and his speedy absorption of information, concludes that the worst part of Ahat’s disappearance was his failure to monitor the technology of humans for the past 2,000 years.

Dwttiz learns that the species had used its technology for destructive ends.

An example of what he found was the United States having dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, “killing hundreds of thousands of their own species and rendering millions more terminally poisoned.”

This is Gray’s reference to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II.

Dwttiz further learns that in subsequent decades of the 20th century, several nations have stockpiled and armed missiles many times more than needed, and these devices have the power to obliterate all terrestrial life forms.

Could this refer to the proliferation of nuclear armaments?

“These stockpiles were distributed among political adversaries, and the only safeguard standing in the way of the deployment relied on an assumption that no leader would be so insane as to launch them against an adversary capable of retaliating in kind,” according to the narrative.

“The emptiness of this strategy is so breathtaking that Dwttiz could not recall another planet in the galaxy on which technology had so far out-paced the development of sane international relations.”

Therein resides Dwttiz’s sole option — wipe out the human species.

Gray said in an email that he had an overarching motivation for writing the book.

“It represents my last-ditch attempt to counteract a feeling of helplessness that has become stronger and stronger the more aware I have become of the harm that the human species is inflicting on Planet Earth and of the species over which we have dominion,” he said in the email.

Gray writes that he is watching “the cruelty over the lives of the animals we consume, the mass extinctions, the ravages of climate change, and the damage caused to land, air and water by the extractive economy.”

But he is viewing these developments as if he were an ineffective bystander to a murder.

The novel, Gray said in the email, is his attempt “to envision an alternative to the catastrophic momentum that seems so unstoppable in this world.”

Gray, an 82-year-old Albuquerque author, said he would like “Gaia Awakens” to help him find a solution based on insights into the nonfiction world we live in.

Indeed, some chapters in the book have recurring characters who suggest insights that arise from explorations of positive qualities of human behavior, such as empathy, compassion and mindfulness.

In one chapter, a recurring character named Peter saves the life of a woman when a fire engulfs the apartment house they live in. “… She plummeted straight down, in a free fall of a dozen feet, into the sling of Peter’s outstretched arms.”

In the book’s afterword, Gray mentions that the character of Peter is based on his own life as a young man living in Montreal.

Another recurring character is cheerful, independent Barry, who is blind. At one point, he manages to get himself ready for a ride to the grocery store on a Sun Van with his favorite driver, Maria.

Gray said in the email that in writing the final draft of the book, something surprising and unexpected happened in the story’s fictional world, modeled after 21st century Planet Earth.

What happened was the awakening of a living planet, though Gray said that he, as author, did not engineer it.

“But once underway, this fictional world started listening to its characters, their dreams and cares, granting them creative power, so that a vision of a living, conscious planet started coming forth of its own accord,” he wrote.

Readers are left with the possibility that hope might prevail, though annihilation shadows the troubled human species.

“Gaia Awakens” is Gray’s fifth book. He has a weekly blog on the website, michaelgrayauthor.com.