Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves
September 20, 2016 Kosmos Community News


The Loss of the Sacred and a Prayer for the Earth

By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
for Kosmos Online

“The very nature of existence, of life and all of creation is sacred. And yet our lack of awareness, our culture’s lack of relating to creation as sacred, covers its light. It becomes more and more like a dream lost before waking. As we forget, so the light of the sacred is dimmed, becomes less and less accessible. And with this darkening, an essential quality of life also fades away.”


Book | The One Life We’re Given

By Mark Nepo, from his new book:
THE ONE LIFE WE’RE GIVEN
FINDING THE WISDOM THAT WAITS IN YOUR HEART
Atria Books, 2016

A Kosmos featured book for the Sacred Season

During the summer, I was staying in a lodge near the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Every morning I’d stroll along the path behind the lodge, watching the tufts of grass stretch to meet the dew. The sun hitting the wet grass seemed an illumination. In that crisp early light, I was reminded that everything in life has an inner quality that emanates from its center.

That emanation of life-force coming out of everything is Spirit. And the sensation of that lifeforce moving out of us into the world is the sensation of being fully alive.


Genesis Farm | Restoring Paradise: One Watershed at a Time

A Kosmos Interview with Sister Miriam MacGillis

Kosmos: How has the concept of Earth Literacy informed and inspired the mission of Genesis Farm?

Miriam MacGillis: ‘Earth Literacy’ is a term often used by Thomas Berry. He would say that we are not literate in the language and meaning of the natural world, the planet Earth and the greater cosmos from which everything has emerged. Our literacy has been centered only on the last few thousand years of human history which has shaped our perceptions about our identity and purpose. Earth Literacy suggests a process of learning the bigger story out of which everything has come, which has only recently been enabled by the scientific instruments we created, expanding our ability to see, hear and explore aspects of the inner and outer processes of this evolving Universe.


Pope Francis on an “Ethics of Ecology”

By Pope Francis, from his Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si
ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

Educating for the Covenant Between Humanity and the Environment

An awareness of the gravity of today’s cultural and ecological crisis must be translated into new habits. Many people know that our current progress and the mere amassing of things and pleasures are not enough to give meaning and joy to the human heart, yet they feel unable to give up what the market sets before them. In those countries which should be making the greatest changes in consumer habits, young people have a new ecological sensitivity and a generous spirit, and some of them are making admirable efforts to protect the environment. At the same time, they have grown up in a milieu of extreme consumerism and affluence which makes it difficult to develop other habits. We are faced with an educational challenge.


Fear of a Living Planet

featured image | Pati Makowska
By Charles Eisenstein
KOSMOS JOURNAL, FALL | WINTER 2013

“Our discomfort with New Age-sounding concepts like “The planet is alive” is not entirely rational, but comes in large part from a wound of betrayal, cloaked in the pervasive ideology of our culture. Is it true though? We might play with various definitions of life and come up with logical, evidence-based arguments pro and con, just as we could debate the veracity of anomalous data and unconventional theories, and never come to an agreement. So let us look at the matter through a strategic lens instead. What belief motivates effective action and real change? And what kind of action results from each belief?”


Engaged Ecology: Seven Practices to Restore Our Harmony with Nature

By Rhonda Fabian
KOSMOS JOURNAL FALL | WINTER 2015

It has rained steadily through the night, a gentle hushing sound in the thick tree canopy. In the morning light, crickets thrill and every leaf trembles and gleams. Soft mist gently rises as the creek gushes along its deep habitual groove in Rose Valley, a place as beautiful as it sounds: my home.

Amid such grace, one might forget the planet is in chaos. Wars rage… and the trees grow slowly. And yet, if one pays attention, the very poignancy of the Earth’s beauty is the reminder of her woundedness.