Week One
Welcome!
The following articles and features are associated with this week’s theme, ‘How We Consume.’ Enjoy the readings and reflect on the questions and exercises that follow.
You will see opportunities for journaling. The experience of writing down your thoughts and feelings can be a cathartic one. Others may prefer the practice of contemplative silence and inner reflection. It is completely up to you.
At the same time, we are a community. Sharing your experiences and ideas can be helpful and even healing for others. Share your thoughts in the comment section at the end of each article, or on our Facebook page: Kosmos Journal Quarterly Study Group.
In fact, feel free to join the Facebook group right now and introduce yourself if you are new to the group. This will be the place to share your insights, questions, and experiences with other members of the Kosmos Community.
Let’s get started!
Editorial | The Four Nutriments by Rhonda Fabian
This week’s sub-topic, ‘How We Consume,’ is closely related to the ‘first nutriment’ in Rhonda Fabian’s editorial.
What do we take into our bodies on a regular basis, and how do these ‘nutriments’ reflect our ancestry, beliefs, and social conditioning?
Exercise | Create four quadrants on a sheet of paper, one for each nutriment: edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. Record and examine your own habits of consumption. What changes have you made in recent times or do you wish to make in the near future?
Keynote | un-pick-apart-able by Nora Bateson
What aspect of our daily lives is Nora Bateson asking us to consider?
Reflect on the following quote. What does it mean to you in terms of your daily life?
We are going to have to pull back from all forms of exploitation to protect the possibility of breakfast for the babies. In that statement is the imperative for clean oceans, for gender equality, for protection of the forests, for human rights, and to end both poverty and wealth.
Tending the Wild by Charles Eisenstein
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb
Nourishment by Fred Provenza
Each of these three articles asks us to contemplate our complex, dynamic interrelationship with animals and the living Earth. Fred Provenza says:
Plants convert sunlight, water, and nutrients into roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits. Herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores can consume daily sustenance and enjoy life above and below ground because plants convert sunlight, water, and nutrients into roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits. In the process, life lives on life—from death comes life and endless transformation. Yet, we seldom stop to reflect on the experience of this flow of energy and matter from plants and animals through us and back into earth…If we enhance our awareness of these dynamic forces, we can experience and embrace a universe where energy and each particle of matter are changing at every instant.
Reflect on your day from the time you woke up. Make a list of the interactions you have had with food, water, animals, plants, and people. In what ways are these also interactions with the Earth, the cosmos, and with the Divine?
Fruit Meditation (20 minutes) | Hold a piece of whole fruit in your hand and become aware of its color, texture, shape, smell, and vibration. As you peel or prepare the fruit, inhale its fragrance and examine even more closely its innermost structures, fibers, seeds, sections or parts. Follow the story of your fruit back in time—maybe to a garden or the store, the truck, the person who harvested the fruit, how the fruit first appeared, the tree, the sapling, the seed, and so on. As you take the first bite, try to taste the sun, wind, soil, and rain that nourished the fruit. Compare this experience of eating with your typical daily eating experience.
Gallery | The Prophecy by Fabrice Monteiro
Examine the photos in this gallery closely. Expand each photo to full size and take five minutes to fully appreciate its details. Are the photos beautiful? Why or why not? How do the photos make you feel?
Why do you think the artist focused his work on places in Africa?
Climate News by Victoria Price
Read the Climate News briefs and select a single report for deeper research. Sit in silence for ten minutes with one fact or idea that surprised you.
In what ways do you feel moved to improve your impact on our Earth?