Despite all the news about humanity doing this or that, what about the Earth? Pivotal alignments are going on with this living Gaia as she supports all of humanity’s shenanigans. While we fight over politics, create misery with wars, or joyride all over the bazillion roads crisscrossing the planet, the Earth has its own drama. A very slow-moving, but powerful shift is taking place under our feet.

 We all know global warming -yeah, yeah let’s have a party or be depressed, depending on how you process overwhelm, but there is a bigger story that climate change is just a part of. The Earth is warming at an unusual time. At this moment the poles are shifting at a geologically fast rate.

The magnetic polar wandering has been meandering north by northwest since humans started tracking it in 1831. Since then, it has significantly sped up since the year 2000, increasing 3 times as much from 10 miles per year to about 34 miles per year. NASA report states that this may be due to the huge amount of water and oil we pump out of the Earth. Those aquafors may be a significant amount of mass which keeps the Earth stable.

This year, 2024 the magnetic field is very close to the polar axis. This is quite unusual since Magnetic North has resided in mid-Canada for years. Perhaps there is something to this - an alignment of energy? A cosmological synchronicity? Should we be paying attention to this?

Well, gravity feels the same so whatever.

The future of this magnetic wandering may be indicating that the Earth is heading toward a pole reversal. Not any time soon, but you know, like within 1,000 to 100,000 years, therein about. What will happen when the Earth shifts; our minds go crazy, we become weightless, or the sun blows the atmosphere off? Ahh…the possibilities for so many good movies. But the real answer is probably not much. It really isn’t about the flip but the time between when the poles are in very odd places, creating magnetic chaos in the atmosphere. The realistic results may not be felt that much by our bodies other than the Borealis will be seen worldwide and our electrical devices won’t work. So don’t worry about AI taking over the world. More likely that jellyfish and cockroaches will take over.

This magnetic flux is nothing new. The poles have swapped about 183 times in the last 83 million years and at least several hundred times in the past 160 million years. The time between reversals is an average of about 300,000 years with the last one taking place about 780,000 years ago. There were two long stretches of no polar magnetic switching in the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods, which is interesting because those periods also had no polar ice caps.

Although Nasa claims that from looking at fossil records, there have been no effects on life during polar flips, a new study supported by the National Science Foundation from Rice University published in Geophysical Research Letter says there is a possible connection to polar wandering and ice ages, where when the poles shift relative to its spin axis, and ice ages occur.

Another interesting wiggle of the world is that not all coastal regions will be overtaken by rising seas. As the glaciers melt some continents rise and some sink from the release of the heavy pressure of the ice. Like a slow-moving waterbed, the rising of the northern continents makes southern regions of the world sink.

Global warming is going to alter life on this planet, no doubt about it. But when we look at the Earth as a living organism that is always changing, maybe humanity is just another phase of Gaia. The apex of humanity is right now. Enjoy it because we aren’t going to be king of the hill forever. Our mother is always on the move.

This is all theoretical, but the idea of it holds a fascinating irony that global warming, caused by humans, may be counteracting a forthcoming, natural cycle of glaciation on this planet. The wobble and magnetic shifts of this ball floating in space puts a damper on our self-importance; we are just tiny creatures given life by Earth’s grace. Perhaps there is nothing we can do to stop the Earth from changing. Certainly, our society is not changing fast enough to stop the inevitable warming and the potential of extinction for us and every other creature. But here is a jolly thought - even if we are causing it, we are part of the Earth. Perhaps the Earth is not just a rock with water but a conscious being itself, taking an interest in us as a piece of its own consciousness, and delighting in our antics. I’d like to think of it that way instead of thinking of ourselves as a cancer.

Change is what the Earth does, and it will continue to change with or without us.