Joan Tinkess
The Great Lakes Basin Women of Gaia are an international group of women from Ontario and Michigan who join together monthly to sing for our Earth. In 2003, together with women from Atlantic Canada and Atlantic New England, the Great Lakes Basin Women of Gaia recorded a double CD entitled O Beautiful Gaia: Love Songs to Earth. The proceeds from this venture were donated to education and advocacy to save and protect our lands and water.
At present we are preparing a group of songs that embody the words ands spirit of the U.N. Earth Charter with the hope that this CD will educate and inspire those who hear it to deepen their knowledge of the Earth Charter and the dream it holds for our Earth and all life within it.
The spirit and intention of the Great Lakes Basin Women of Gaia may be summed up in these words from the liner notes in O Beautiful Gaia: "Gradually the idea is taking form that earth is a common ground and that land must be guarded in safekeeping for the generations to come. Support grows for a land ethic that recognizes the "commons" from mountain top to meadow, river to rocky coast, as we participate in our local home place to protect the living ecosystems that sustain all life. We sing these songs that we might will into being a human spirit that lives with reverence and sustainability. We sing to see our world as it is — we sing to see our world as it can be. Seeing our world as it is opens our love. What we love we protect."