April 13, 2011

5pm

Yale Divinity School

409 Prospect Street

New Haven, CT

Neibuhr Hall

Discussion afterwards with Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim, Executive
Producers

This event is free and open to the public.

WASHINGTON DC

April 17, 2011

7:15pm

Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital

Carnegie Institution for Science

1530 P St. NW

Washington, DC

This event is free and open to the public.

https://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/films/show/734

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

April 21, 2011

5:30pm and 7:30pm

Kimmel Center

Room 914, Silver Board Room

New York University

60 Washington Square South

New York, New York 10012

First Showing: 5:30pm

https://www.nyu.edu/rsvp/event.php?e_id=3518

Second Showing: 7:30pm

https://www.nyu.edu/rsvp/event.php?e_id=3519

Discussion afterwards with Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim.

This event is free and open to the public.

RSVP required.

SAN FRANCISCO

April 30, 2011

5pm and 8:30pm

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th Street

San Francisco, CA

5pm – Film showing (sold out)

8:30pm – Film showing

For ticket information, visit:

https://www.ciis.edu/x2977.xml

For more events related to Journey of the Universe, visit:

https://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/upcoming-events/
 

With our warmest wishes and deepest thanks, Mary Evelyn Tucker & Brian
Swimme

November 14, 2010

Dr. Brian Thomas Swimme revealed Sunday night at Santa Sabina Retreat Center in San Rafael, California that KQED public television in San Francisco has picked up his film "Journey of the Universe" for regional airing in the fall of 2011.

  Santa Sabina Retreat House, San Rafael, California (photo by Marc Pasturel)

KQED will be the national distribution hub for airings in other regions. Here's a link to the trailer: https://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/film-trailer/

The west coat premier is tentatively scheduled for April 30, 2011 at the Delancey Street Theater in San Francisco, California. The east coast premier will be held in March 2011 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale is the home institute of Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker, the film's executive producer and co-writer. Swimme and Tucker both studied extensively with and were deeply influenced by ecological cultural historian Thomas Berry (1914-2009). Please confirm dates and locations as the openings get near.

Brian Thomas Swimme on location.     Mary Evelyn Tucker on location.

In the works for seven years, the film was initially inspired by Brian's viewing of Jacob Bronowski's BBC series "The Ascent of Man" (1973) in about 1977.

"Journey of the Universe" is directed by David Kennard who worked on Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" (1973), James Burke's "Connections 1"  (1978), and Carl Sagan's famous "Cosmo" series (1980). The style of documentary film making, now so famous, was inaugurated by Kenneth Clark in his BBC series "Civilisation" (1969). The narrative of each series is deeply engaging, activating the natural part of us that loves a good adventure story. Kennard's current project, "The Journey of the Universe", is indeed the ultimate adventure story!

Its narrative arc takes us on the same journey the Universe itself has been on – from the first known moments of the Flaring Forth (aka the Big Bang) to the current moment of planetary danger and opportunity brought forth by the human family. The human phenomenon is treated as an integral part of the adventure and its unfolding. The film makers hope this will help re-orient us toward an ecological civilization.

Brian also revealed tonight that he is beginning to consider himself not merely a scientist, but a storyteller – a storyteller, fascinated from a very early age, by the story the Universe is telling to tell us about itself. With a Ph.D. in gravitational dynamics and mathematical cosmology from the University of Oregon (1978), a razor-sharp mind, great humor, humility, and grace, he is indeed a masterful teller of this adventure.

From the film's synopsis at https://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/: "Through his engaging and thoughtful observations audiences everywhere will discover the profound role we play in this intricate web of life. From the Big Bang–to the epic impact humans have on the planet today–this film is designed to inspire a new and closer relationship with Earth in a period of growing environmental and social crisis."

###

I got to thinking about the sweet little song "Edelweiss".  OK, it is a fictionalized Austrian folk song written for the show. But I'd forgotten how, within the story, the song is deeply political, patriotic, and defiant of the impending, destructive Nazi regime.

I felt a bit envious of the character "Captain Von Trapp", who sings the song most often.  Do we here in the USA have a natural being, like a flower, or plant, or mountain, that organizes our loyalties, focuses our energy, calls us to our better selves for the sake of the larger community the way edelweiss does in that story?

If we had foreign invaders or a foreign regime in our homeland doing to our mountains and lakes and forests what we allow to happen to our mountains and lakes and forests (by big business) we would be outraged!

The practice of "mountain top removal", the decapitation of mountains for coal (it is really ecosystem annihilation and mass destruction), prevents any sound of music from coming from those destroyed mountains, those filled valleys, those mistreated humans that live there.  What creativity might have emerged that would inspire and the Earth community?  How would the opening and final scenes of the film look if the previous generation had torn the alps down for gravel?  No fields filled with edelweiss, no well-worn paths as escape routes through the mountains to neutral ground.

May we learn to live with the mountains and the flowers so that we may all bloom and grow forever, together.

Here is a sweet rendition of the song (1:20): \"Edelweiss\" sung by John Denver and Julie Andrews