Dear Reader,
We are all becoming more aware that the choices we make have consequences for life on Earth. The ways we travel, the foods we buy, how we cool our homes, all make a difference. On the other hand, some environmental activists work for decades and feel they make little impact.
We also hear about meditation and mindfulness being co-opted as a means of ‘spiritual bypass’ – the idea that inner peace is enough, without service to others. Or, we meet leaders who believe their views are infallible, and have failed to do the inner work necessary to engage in real transformation. Each of these approaches is a form of selective awareness. How do we achieve balance between our inner and outer worlds?
Earth-centered spiritual activism is on the rise. It calls us to be part of the Earth’s immune system, protecting her, and invites us into Oneness with all Life. Each will decide how to answer this call.
Call for Essays and Other Works | New Spirit, Wise Action
Our Fall theme, New Spirit, Wise Action, explores this relationship between spirituality and activism. Can we be effective activists without a stable spiritual practice? And can we call ourselves ‘spiritual’ if we fail to stand up for what we believe to be just and true? How does this dynamic manifest in our communities, at work, our places of worship, and in governance? How would you describe ‘new spirituality’ or ‘new activism’?
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We invite you to submit an essay up to 1000 words, a poem, or other artwork, in response to any of these prompts or what New Spirit, Wise Action means to you. We will choose several works to publish in our Quarterly and on our website.
Deadline: August 18, 2019 | Use our Submission Form for written works. For all other media, contact info@kosmosjournal.org directly, with the subject line: Submission Inquiry. Before you submit, please take a look at our guidelines.
Building Strong Community
Excerpt | Developing a Mindful Approach to Earth Justice Work
by John Bell, in the 2019 Summer Edition of Kosmos Quarterly
“Feelings of powerlessness and living in a thoroughly oppressive society gives rise to separation. We get pitted against each other. We blame and shame others. We feel the need to protect our own, to go it alone, to compete, to get “ahead.” Our families, social networks, and communities break down. So building community is another necessary component of earth justice work – finding ways to unite across issues, create multi-racial and multi-class organizations, develop deep communities of practice as refuges, as sanctuaries, as think tanks, as renewal spaces.
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I know this is easier said than done. White supremacy, patriarchy, and classism are dominant. Climate crisis asks us to get on with this healing and unification work, because the environmental impacts will affect everyone, not equally or at the same pace or time, but no place will be untouched, and the coming generations depend on us repairing long festering historical systems of oppression and exploitation that have kept us separate and have helped bring about the damage to the earth.
Another reason to nurture deep community is to be better able to provide a refuge of support for climate activists and climate refugees, to help each other maintain loving kindness and compassion as climate stress mounts, to be able to resist likely voices of separation and demonizing as fear increases. Strong community helps us deepen our skills in listening, and healing, and reaching harmony, skills that will become increasingly needed with rising chaos.”
READ THIS ARTICLE IN KOSMOS QUARTERLY