Kosmos Community News | April 2017

Dear Community. We added 43 new members last month - 8343. Here's what's up for April! Kosmos Seed Grants Have Been Awarded! Special thanks to Kosmos Community Members: Allie Middleton, Kathryn H Greene, and Susan Weiss who volunteered to be Grant Reviewers.  This year's Recipients of a Seed Grant are: Great Lakes Commons for an experimental 'art and currency' project that explores our…

The Kosmos Blue Pocket Diary, Our Gift to You

Our newest Kosmos collectible, this blue pocket diary is perfect for keeping record of your thoughts, dreams and aspirations. Some of us at Kosmos use it as a gratitude journal, and writers love it for jotting down ideas and phrases that occur throughout the day. Made from 100% recycled materials, the diary slips easily into your pocket. It measures 3x5 inches in size and has a durable cover.…

Activism Today: From Protest to Revolution

Activism Today: From Protest to Revolution FOR SOME YEARS I have been giving a talk called “State of the Art” where I lay out what I see as qualitative changes or growth points in the worldwide practice of nonviolence. There’s also been quantitative growth, to be sure: since Richard Deats published his survey in the early 1900’s, where he found that the number of persons who had experienced…

Steps to Support Balance and Beauty in this Time of Social Upheaval

While all of my friends and family were focused on the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, the Women’s March and the issuance of at least a dozen distressing Executive Orders, I was on retreat. Retreats are an essential part of my inner work. They allow me time to connect to the source, grow my understanding of the inter-relatedness of all life and illuminate the purpose of…

Restoring humane values through activism

In 2012, I went to the Sahara Desert seeking a spiritual experience. In my wild imagination, the emptiness of the desert would transplant me to a transcendental plane beyond my limited self. Clearly, it never happened. At least, not in the way I had imagined. The experience I was seeking came in the most mundane and unusual way – in the midst of a local hammam in Fez, Morocco. Back then, I…

The Food Balance Imperative to Sufficient Commons

The physical necessities are shelter, water, fire (fuel) and food. No one should be involuntarily homeless or lacking in necessary clothes; not have adequate clean, potable fresh water; not have sufficient fuel or means to cook, wash, bath and heat with; nor be undernourished or hungry or lack needed medical care and medicines. The major reason any of this occurs is political, not resources.…

Moving from the Anthropocene to the Androgynocene Gaian Leadership for a Balanced World

Moving from the Anthropocene to the Androgynocene Gaian Leadership for a Balanced World By Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. We have only to look around us to see the extent to which we are already living in the Anthropocene. Human activity asserts itself everywhere on the planet, from the most remote reaches of the poles to the deepest abysses of the ocean to the highest peaks of the mountains.…

Why I Went to the Land Institute

“So what exactly is your interest with all of this?” It was a question I got many times at the Land Institute’s 2016 Prairie Festival. For this majority plant scientist crowd, a graduate student of English just seemed out of place. This was a scientific research center working on developing a perennial polyculture grain crop—what could this possibly have to do with novels or poetry? I should…