The question would be whether those metaphors that compare the universe to a living thing are strong or weak. Remember that our brain evolved to detect patterns anywhere. We can find patterns even in random shapes like clouds or woodgrains. So we can always find some grounds for comparing anything to anything else. We could compare a car to an organism too. But whether the analogy is weak or strong depends on how many similarities there are and whether they're relevant to the point of the analogy.

The kind of pantheism that intrigues me is darker and more cosmicist, in Lovecraft's horrific sense. I'm not sure we should be personifying nature in talking about how it needs "love" from us. What if human nature is anomalous in the universe? In that case, the values that mean everything to us are irrelevant to what the universe at large is doing. That discontinuity brings with it angst, dread, horror, and the other existential reactions. My suspicion is that we need to deal with that discontinuity before we can acquire an enlightened, transhuman mindset.