The Shield of Gaia

"The real battle lines are not between East and West, "Socialism" and "Capitalism", or even between "a-theism" and "theism"; but between enlightenment and ignorance, between imagination and blind short-term greed, between vision and bigotry; and in this battle it is vital that the forces of Light should join hands at every possible point, and stand together in whatever context they operate."

~ Zachary Cox

Deep in the hubbub of North London during 1988, Zachary Cox published No. 26 of  Aquarian Arrow, with the Shield of Gaia shining brightly out of its pages. As I've reflected on Zach's life in the past few days, my memory of this edition of Arrow has perhaps been one of the strongest in light of what many of us did as a result of it.

Now Arrow was a forward thinking journal published by the  Neopantheist Society from 1978 until the early 1990s, featuring occult thinking of the time, wicked satire, poetry, letters, decent book reviews and adverts for other journals and esoteric training. Always cutting edge, topical, challenging, entertaining and provocative, it was part of any self-respecting occultist's required reading. Contributing authors, often writing with nom de plumes, included Zach himself, Lionel Snell, the late Steve Wilson, John Kennedy Ebbutt and John Gordon. There is really nothing like it these days.

At the point of publication Zach believed the time had come for the symbol of the Shield of Gaia to be more widely magically worked with. To this end he asked friends, esoteric groups and readers to meditate on it, to "soup it up", to improve it and make copies of it. In his own words he compelled us to, "Bash it out into the Planetary Unconscious. Let it be a love gift to Gaia from the Planetary Logos."

For a time it served a very great purpose --  one which had significant consequences a year or so later.

Given our current global parlous state, maybe it is time to regenerate some work on the Shield of Gaia? A copy of my own tessera of the Shield is shown below.