It’s been warmer than usual where I live. The grass is often brown this time of year, but it’s drier and crunchier than I remember. From the first day I moved to California, people around me said the weather wasn’t what it had been during the previous years. In the 15 years I’ve been here, I never quite got the sense that the weather had a recognizable pattern to it anymore. Longtime residents seemed amused at times, but more often, they seemed worried.

The Reality of the World

I grew up in the time when recycling became a ‘thing.’ I pushed my family to get recycling bins and I wrote dramatic essays in school about saving the planet. Several decades later, I look around and see the recycling bins at my apartment complex full of things you aren’t supposed to recycle. And the seasons keep changing into months and months of everything becoming better kindling for the next forest fire.

To say reality is bleak is an understatement and an invitation to dissociation. I’m in the middle of activists and I’ve seen the work they have done, again and again. And yet, the world as I see it continues to be on a slanted slope toward complete destruction. My protest-weary friends are less hopeful. My recycling excitement has waned. (After all, is anything ACTUALLY being recycled anymore?)

This is a sad story, though I also know there are changes happened around the world. There are scientists and students finding new ways to get rid of waste. There are stories that show there are new ways to clean up the water and to bring once-nearly-extinct animals back. Those stories are not the ones that make the news. And it makes sense to reach for despair instead of reaching for hope.

Reconnecting with Gaia Everyday

I am an aggressively hopeful person by nature. I am the one you want to have on your team because I will focus on what we COULD do instead of what we can’t do anymore. It’s not an easy mindset, however, especially in a world that seems committed to separating humans from the Earth. Food isn’t in its original form. It’s rare to see how animals are processed for meat. There are steps and steps of packaging between the sources of nutrition and the moment you reach for a snack.

This creates a disconnect between humans and nature, between humans and Gaia, a.k.a. Mother Earth. When we forget that we are a part of nature, that we are also Gaia, we aren’t as motivated or inspired to act. If we continue to think of the Earth as a ‘thing’ out ‘there,’ it seems like it isn’t even within our responsibility to do something or say something.

In my work as a witch, I focus on building relationships with deities and energies. I look at this practice as being essential to cultivating my inner wisdom and my outward knowing. When I can look at Gaia as a being that I am committed to, I act on her behalf. And as I act on her behalf, I also save myself. It is not about reacting to something happening somewhere else. The ongoing destruction of the Earth is personal, not just a scientific report or another warning to evacuate because the forest fire might take my house.

Grabbing the Hand of Hope

Connecting with Gaia can happen in small ways. From getting out to enjoy nature to finding out where food comes from, you can step into a conversation with the Earth herself. You might find ways to plant trees and bushes that help insects. There might be ways you can reduce you energy consumption at home or drive less. You might discover you can buy things without adding plastic to the trash can. You might set up an altar and meditate with Gaia to hear what she might suggest you do next.

Yes, these are small steps, and they are small things that don’t add up to the Earth becoming undamaged overnight. But here’s the thing: this is not a one-day practice. The damage has been happening over decades, and it will take decades to slow it down and (fingers crossed) reverse it. What we’re doing now to help Gaia is what will help future generations, so they don’t have to work as hard to remember they are a part of the Earth too.

Hope is something you can grab onto with the help and guidance of Gaia. She has seen the years pass and she will continue to watch the stretch of time. And she can take your hand and help you with the next steps.

Irisanya Moon (she/they) is an author, witch, international teacher, poet, and Reclaiming initiate who has practiced magick for 20+ years. She has taught in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, bringing her blend of grounded, graceful, and radically authentic facilitation to inspire transformation and liberation at the personal and collective levels.

She has written a number of books:
Pagan Portals (Reclaiming Witchcraft – 2020, Aphrodite – 2020, Iris – 2021, Norns – 2023, Artemis – 2024, Circe – 2024, Hestia – 2025)
Earth Spirit (Honoring the Wild – 2023, Gaia – 2023)
Practically Pagan: An Alternative Guide to Health & Well-being – 2020

(With Pantheon: The Greeks and The Muses to arrive in late 2025 and early 2026, respectively.)

Plus she has written essays, articles, poems, and blogs for Moon Books, Watkins MIND BODY SPIRIT Magazine, Llewellyn, Revelore Press, Girl God Books, Witches & Pagans, Pagan Dawn, Coreopsis Journal, Epona Muse Publishing, and more.

In 2023, they self-published a book of poetry, “wrecked: the insistence of grief.”

Irisanya cultivates spaces of self-care/devotion, divine relationship (whatever that means to you), and community service as part of her heart magick and activism.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/irisanya-moon