Seven Lives of the Sun

Earth’s Oldest Environmental Organization

   

“Think of the food chain. The top predators eat smaller animals, which might in turn eat insects, which eat smaller insects, which live on fungus or leaves. Five or six levels in a food web are not uncommon.”

Nick Lane (Life Ascending) 

 

Background

 

Nick Lane goes on to write: “All our energy is a beam of sunlight set free from its captive state in food.” And what sets the sunlight free? The beautiful dance of reciprocity between vegetative photosynthesis and animalian oxygen respiration, “equal and opposite processes.” 

Through photosynthesis, plants use carbon dioxide to transform sunlight into sustenance. And the waste product they release—oxygen—in turn powers the breakdown of organic molecules (food) into energy used by animals, whose metabolic waste product is, you guessed it, carbon dioxide. Full circle! 

The ability of ever more efficient guts to glean every last bit of energy from organic matter finally falters after the fifth or sixth gleaning.   

The diversity and wonder of nearly all earthly life to have ever lived over the span of nearly four billion years has done so within the energetic book ends of a beam of light and cold inertness. 

That full trophic spectrum comprises the Seven Lives of the Sun.

 

The Seven Lives Defined

 

—The first life of the Sun is the gravid and radiant solar body herself, bathing the Earth in a constant wash of energy. 

—The second life of the Sun is the host of photosynthetic organisms — from phytoplankton to ferns — who intercept the raw sunlight and with it compose not only themselves but the very oceans and atmosphere of Earth. 

—The third life of the Sun consists of the eaters of the oceanic and terrestrial plants. Sometimes, humans join krill and deer as expressions of the third life of the Sun. Other times, humans are expressions of the fourth life.

—The fourth life of the Sun is composed of the multitudes of carnivorous organisms (both predators and scavengers) who feed on the eaters of the plants. 

—The fifth, sixth and seventh lives of the Sun are the increasingly efficient and microscopic organisms who withdraw every last calorie from material that has already passed through numerous guts and fueled multiple metabolisms. 

 

To thrive, all life forms must serve not only themselves but all seven lives as a whole. This is only possible if the rate at which energy passes through the six Earthly iterations of solar life does not exceed the rate at which the First Life offers her gift of energy. To live in excess of this rate is to live in a state of drawdown, tapped into the un-metabolized energy of the biosphere (Earth’s Forbidden Fruit) accumulated over a span of 3.8 billion years and stored in wood, water, soil and subterranean hydrocarbon and other ore deposits. To live from the tap is to forsake trophic integrity and go rogue in relation to the greater the Community of Life. The only long-term remedy is to turn off the tap and reintegrate into the Trophic Cascade (humans are omnivores and so belong at levels 3 and 4).

The mission of Seven Lives of the Sun is to preserve and promote ways of living in accord with the Trophic Cascade.

 

Membership/Contact Information

 

Unlike other environmental organizations, to enjoy the benefits of Seven Lives of the Sun, you don’t have to join. You are, in fact, already a member. And look at what you receive with your membership! 

Air, water, food, warmth, meaning, purpose, beauty, life, and much, much more. 

To partake of these benefits to the fullest, simply turn off your television, shut down your computer, tuck your cell phone in a drawer, and immerse yourself in the worldwide web of life where every forest grove, every tree, and every leaf is a website packed with amazing information. Moss and saplings, newts and millipedes post regular updates on their nurse (b)logs, and the sky is filled with a kind of twitter that only comes from the throats of songbirds. 

So, what are you waiting for? Make Seven Lives of the Sun part of your life today!

 

Suggested Donation

 

Consider supporting Seven Lives of the Sun with offerings of care, attentiveness, humility, gratitude, celebration, and reciprocity.  Make your every thought and action a gift of service to the all-inclusive whole, the greater body of the biosphere, our shared home, the Sun-quickened Earth.  Thank you!