SolSeed is a religion founded in 2005 by Brandon CS Sanders. Its main website is www.solseed.org. Its two core tenets are:
- Life is precious
- The destiny of Gaia is to take root and flower amongst the stars, to give birth to a family of living worlds.
More recently, we've introduced the concept of the Rebirthing, which refers to both the rebirth of civilization in a form based around the NewSacredStory? of Connection/Interbeing, and the rebirth of the Earth's biosphere through the regeneration of ecosystems humans have degraded or destroyed.
In contrast to most other religions, SolSeed is grounded in mainstream science and rejects belief in the supernatural. We use the term Gaia as a metaphor rather than an assertion of the truth of James Lovelock's controversial Gaia hypothesis stating that all life on Earth behaves like a single superorganism.
SolSeed also uses a specific model of the human mind and supports the virtues of Passion, Empathy, and Wisdom.
Despite its small size, SolSeed currently has two branches:
- Gaia Vision Fellowship, consisting of BenSibelman and Eric Saumur
- The children's branch, consisting of Brandon Sanders, his wife Shelley Sanders, and their children Sequoia and Ren.
SolSeed and StarCommunity
Current StarCommunityMember BenSibelman joined SolSeed in 2006, when it was nothing more than a wiki site. He first met LionKimbro, a friend of Brandon's who went on to become a cofounder of StarCommunity, at SolSeed's first in-person gathering in Redmond in October 2008.
Ben has introduced StarCommunity to some of SolSeed's rituals, including Ben's appropriation of the Hanukkah menorah-lighting ceremony (Ben grew up Jewish) and the Viventibus Galaxia ritual featuring green fire burning across a clay model of the Milky Way Galaxy.
More recently, Ben and Lion came up with the idea of introducing SolSeed ideas into StarCommunity with a monthly Zoom meeting called the SolSeedPhilosophyClub?, in which Lion and other StarCommunityMembers could discuss SolSeed's philosophy with Ben and Eric Saumur. These meetings lasted several months beginning in June 2020.
Regular SolSeed events
- Weekly
- Sabbath services: Saturdays, 1-1:45 PM
- Business calls: Sundays, 5-6 PM
- Biweekly
- StorytellingGroup?, a joint effort of SolSeed and StarCommunity: first and third Thursday of the month, 7-8 PM
- Seasonal
- Solstice, Equinox, and cross-quarter celebrations marking the transitions between SolSeed's eight Liturgical Seasons
- The aforementioned menorah-lighting ceremony celebrating the Solar System, each night during Hanukkah
See Also
- The SolSeed Wiki -- wiki used by SolSeed
Discussion
Ben, would you create a page specifically for the solar system ritual? I bet it has a better name than SolarSystemRitual?. And then would you link to it on StarCommunityGatherings? Maybe the teaser, that then links to http://wiki.solseed.org/SolSeed_and_Judaism .