Written May 11, 2019, posted June 5, 2020

How can we possibly wrap our minds and hearts around the deep, terrible, violent, enduring, destruction and suffering that our culture has let loose on the planet? How can we take in that the actions of our culture has forever changed the future of the planet by eliminating species from the gene pool, razing forests never to be again, poisoning land and water on a millions-of-years time scale?

Thomas Berry wrote about building emotional capacity in the individual and collective human (my words, maybe his, can’t remember in this moment) to face what must be faced about reality and deal with it. He advocated again and again to be clear about what was real and what was valuable – “reality and value” – a phrase he uses sixteen times throughout The Dream of the Earth. The health of Earth is real and valuable. The maw of destruction is real and valuable to pay attention to. It is valuable because the only way to the Ecozoic is through this Valley of Death in which we all live. It requires extraordinary emotional and social capacity to endure, much less survive or even thrive in, on both the personal level and the social/cultural level.

I am dumbstruck, powerless.

A deep and thoughtful conversation. Listen and let it all wash over you. 1:14:57.

Overton window was new to me. Did you catch it?

We announce with sadness, the passing of Margaret Berry, sister of and aid to Thomas Berry, on August 13, 2019. She was a saint and now joins the heavenly cloud of witnesses.

A  Memorial Mass will be celebrated by Rev. James Duong, Pastor at Saint Benedict’s Catholic Church in downtown Greensboro, 109 W. Smith Street, Greensboro, 27401 at 12:15 pm on Wednesday, August 28. Those who wish to attend the rosary with the congregation please be seated by 11:45am. Parking is available in the Hanes-Lineberry Funeral Home lot across the street. Interment of ashes will follow in Forest Lawn Cemetery, 3901 Forest Lawn Drive. After the internment, the family will receive visitors in the Event Center at WellSpring Retirement Community at 4100 Well Spring Dr, Greensboro, NC 27410.

Here follows her obituary from https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/greensboro-nc/margaret-berry-phd-8819680

Holding a St. John’s University Ph.D. in nineteenth-century English literature and a University of Pennsylvania postdoctoral degree in South Asian Studies, Berry taught college and university for 40 years. Her publications include: The Chinese Classic Novels: An Annotated Bibliography of Chiefly English-Language Studies (1988, 2011), named by American Library Association’s Choice among the year’s best reference works; Pegasus Over Asia: Ventures in East-West Literary Analysis (1980, 2011); and Mulk Raj Anand, the Man and the Novelist (1971). In addition to numerous published articles in professional journals, Berry has written two unpublished novels, The Tennis Club and Amaranthine Weed. The University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, the Japan Foundation, the Association for Asian Studies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Berry several grants including the Ford, Fulbright, Danforth, and NDEA awards during her lifetime

Besides traveling to Europe, Berry visited South America, Australia, China, Japan, and India. Offices included presidency of both the College English Association of Ohio and the John Carroll University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and long service as National Coordinator of Affiliates of the College English Association. After her 1993 retirement, Berry returned to her native Greensboro, where she served as liaison for Harvard University’s Archives for Environmental Science and Public Policy as it acquired the papers of her brother, geologian, cultural historian, and author Thomas [W] Berry. In addition, she became the matriarch of the family with her annual Berry Patch which included the names and addresses of the extended Berry family. For her 100th birthday, nearly 150 family members paid tribute to her caring for each and everyone.

Surviving Dr. Berry is her brother, Thomas Gabriel (Stephanie Eddy); sisters-in-law, Jerry Berry of Charlotte, Rosemary Berry of Greensboro, and nieces and nephews too numerous to name here.

Besides her parents, Elizabeth and William Nathan Berry, Sr., founders of Berico Fuels, she was preceded in death by brothers, Jack (Jessie), Frank, MD (Polly ), Jim (Mary Elizabeth), Joe (Jean), Benedict, Steve; sisters, Merse (Sr. Mary Elizabeth, Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul), Katherine (Richard Fuller), Ann Louise (Sr. Zoe` Marie of Maryknoll Missioners), Teresa Kelleher (Leo “Boots”) and sister-in-law, Ginny Berry.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Thomas Berry Foundation, c/o Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, Yale University or to Green Mountain Monastery, Greensboro, VT c\o Sr. Gail Worcelo.

Hanes Lineberry North Elm Chapel is assisting the Berry family with arrangements. Online condolences may be shared at www.haneslineberryfhnorthelm.com

Crundale Press, United States, 2019.

The world is facing an existential crisis.

Looming climate breakdown and ecological collapse could lead to the “sixth extinction” event in Earth’s history, this time by our own hand, and the massive loss of human life and of many other life-forms with which we share the earth. How did we get here, and how can we transform our ways of thinking and living to avoid catastrophe? And what really sustains us?

In a wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis, based on decades of experience as an environmental research scientist, activist and Quaker, Jennie M. Ratcliffe explores the interconnected scientific, technological, economic, religious and psychological causes of our predicament and shows how the ecological crisis is, at its heart, a spiritual and moral crisis.

Drawing primarily on Quaker testimonies, on Gandhian, Buddhist, and other wisdom traditions, and the work of Thomas Berry, Arne Naess, E.F. Schumacher and others, she explores the underlying principles by which we–particularly those of us in the wealthiest countries–can radically transform our ways of life. The principles of integrity, reciprocity, nonviolence, simplicity, and equality, rooted in a realization of the unity and interdependence of, and love for, the whole earth community, are the foundation of an integral deep ecology, deep economy, and deep peace.

Far from being utopian, they can and are being translated into spiritually-grounded practices around the world, offering transformational paths to the long-term sustainability of a more just and peaceable world for the commonwealth of life and the emergence of a new Ecozoic era.

I’m always interested in how language opens up a new reality, a new view on an old reality.

Not a sexy new word, not a new word, but it gets at it in a clear, simple way: compatibility.

If we simply make human culture compatible with ecology we’d be almost there.

Compatible.

A Pachamama Alliance Conversation

 Pachamama Alliance • 30 May 2019

The global Pachamama Alliance community came together on May 29, 2019 with Brian Swimme—Professor of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness and Director of the Center for the Story of the Universe at the California Institute of Integral Studies—to discuss the story of the universe.

Evolutionary cosmology refers to a way of seeing and relating to the universe as an ongoing story, and is part of Brian’s work that draws together scientific discoveries in astronomy, geology, and biology with humanistic insights concerning the nature of the universe.

He spoke of our Milky Way galaxy as a creative system that can regenerate itself through the creation of new stars, and offered that seeing how “the universe is the most spectacularly creative realm we know of” allows the dynamics of creativity to come alive in our own lives.

As he said, “the perspective we take determines how we understand the world,” and evolutionary cosmology points to a process “giving birth to a new form of human being, which includes a new form of human consciousness.”

Global Commons member Elly Lessin asked a great question about how to relate to the story of the universe in the face of possibly catastrophic effects from global warming (42:00 in the recording), and Brian’s answer highlighted why he is such a valued ally of Pachamama Alliance.

Gaia Foundation’s latest eNewsletter can be seen at this link:

https://mailchi.mp/gaianet/new-and-ancient-stories-for-earth?e=436fa8dac4

The Stories from this eNewsletter:

• New and Ancient: Stories for the Earth – De-mystifying Earth Jurisprudence In this interactive story, we tell the story of Earth Jurisprudence in video, images and words. We explore how ‘EJ’ can play a vital role in rooting the new story we need deep in the Earth’s laws, following the example of Indigenous Peoples from Colombia to Finland.
• Africa’s movement for Earth Jurisprudence – Meet inspiring African community leaders working as ‘barefoot lawyers’. They are accompanying Indigenous and traditional communities across the continent who are reviving their Earth-centred knowledge, practices and goverance systems to protect their ancestral lands.  
  
• Rooting Rebellion in Nature – Liz Hosken, reflects on the life and legacy of philosopher and ‘geologian’ Thomas Berry, and why his central idea- Earth Jurisprudence- can be a guiding light for emerging movements rebelling for the Earth at a time of crisis.
  
• Thomas Berry: A biography – Our friends Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology have produced a wonderful new biography charting the life and thought of visionary eco-philosopher and Gaia elder Thomas Berry. We recommend it to everyone!
  
• Expanding our circles of compassion – In 1950 Albert Einstein wrote a powerful letter that, we think, connects with and conveys both the deep message at the heart of many Indigenous Stories of Origin and the root understandings of the new stories we need now.
  

Gaia Foundation’s latest eNewsletter can be seen at this link:

https://mailchi.mp/gaianet/new-and-ancient-stories-for-earth?e=436fa8dac4

The Gaia Foundation is passionate about regenerating bio-cultural diversity and restoring a respectful relationship with the Earth. Find out more at www.gaiafoundation.org

by Allysyn Kiplinger and The Fig Tree in the back yard

There was a time when humans could trust the natural world to take care of them.

They could trust the seasons to be hot, warm, cool, cold. To signal when to move to warmer or cooler grounds, wetter or drier.

They could trust that drinking water from a living body of sweet water (river, lake, stream, brook, creek, pool, the palm of a leaf) would quench thirst and keep them healthy.

They could trust that salmon would return so they could eat.

The “outer” natural world activated a robust “inner” world of the human.

But that is not universally so anymore.

I see why my human ancestors may have become autistic, deaf, to the natural world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Water poisoned by corporations. Food poisoned by out-of-touch leaders. Seasons altered by the human desire for convenience. Trust was broken by the cultural establishments entrusted to keep them safe and vital.

Was that trust broken when my great grandfather drank bad water on a business trip and died of Typhus at the age of 46 in 1909?

Multiply that by millions. By billions.

A slow turn, a slow dependent co-arising of distrust – courtesy of the military-industrial-commercial-chemical-life-killing culture of the Western world – wedged itself between the inherent, natural, evolutionary trust that humans have for Earth and Earth itself.

If you and your people get sick and die from having ordinary interactions with the natural world, how do you create a culture of trust with nature?

In these times our historical mission is to alter our culture so that we may universally trust again and re-encounter, rediscover our genetic trust of Earth.