By Mark Phillips
In Kosmos Journal SPRING | SUMMER 2017

The first time I wept for the Earth I was alone in the woods in late summer after a long run. It was, I believe, the combination of runner’s high, a sense of connection to the beautiful natural setting, and the culmination of several months’ personal awakening to the gravity of our ecological crises. I just stood there with my hands on my knees, crying in shock. It was a rare and surprising moment for me. The last time I had cried was at my grandmother’s funeral. But this time the grief felt immeasurably vast and deep, beyond anything I had ever experienced.

By Miriam Therese MacGillis, Rhonda Fabian
In Kosmos Journal SPRING | SUMMER 2017

Sister Miriam | The physical changes, including climate chaos that we’re presently experiencing, are the greatest changes that have happened to Earth’s life in the last 65 million years, which scientists refer to as the Cenozoic Era. This amazing flourishing of life after the death of the dinosaurs is coming to an end, in large part due to the chemical toxicity humans have caused. Unfortunately, most people are unaware. That’s where the disconnect is—at a cosmological order. This destruction wasn’t intended. Chemical toxicity has not been an ethical consideration until very recently. The political climate, which is legitimating the change in the physical climate, is just a reflection of the foundation of thinking that is fundamental to all Western civilization—that humans are somehow separate from and superior to the rest of Life.

A Kosmos 2017 Project of Promise

By Kate Bunney and Gigi Coyle

We walked up into the Angeles Forest from Antelope Valley. The group was excited because the next day, after spending the night in Green Valley, we would walk alongside Bouquet Canyon Reservoir seeing the first open body of water in two weeks. For much of the journey we had walked in extreme heat and extreme winds – walking next to a pipe – the LA Aqueduct – that takes 30% of LA’s water needs from the Eastern Sierras down to the city.

As we sat at the peak of a long hill that day, eating our lunch, one of the group noticed a forest fire about half a mile behind us–where we had just walked. The speed with which it ignited and then spread was dramatic. We were literally walking in a world on fire.

By Geoff Dalglish, via Findhorn Foundation

How interesting it is that I’ve travelled many millions of miles flying, driving and sailing – and yet it is only while walking at the pace of our ancestors that I’ve slowed enough to appreciate the difference between being a tourist and a pilgrim.

Almost always it has been in wild nature that I’ve found my greatest inspiration and clarity, although occasionally I’ve known that peace and serenity as my spirits have soared in cathedrals, temples, mosques or meditation sanctuaries.

We asked you, our readers, about your personal journeys ‘Walking in a World On Fire’ and you responded by sharing your stories of courage, art and activism. We have selected a few here.