One of Us | Can (non-human) animals know their own existence?
By John Jeremiah Sullivan, via Lapham's Quarterly
This is an excerpt of a longer article. To read the complete article, visit this link: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/animals/one-us
These are stimulating times for anyone interested in questions of animal consciousness. On what seems like a monthly basis, scientific teams announce the results of new experiments, adding to a preponderance…
Reader’s Essay | The Animals Are Calling Us to Council
By Susan Eirich, Earthfire Institute
Asking how we can help “birth a new story for humanity” will lead us astray. A more useful and very exciting question is how to help birth a new story for Life on Earth, within which humanity is embedded. We need to think larger than humanity.
For the last 25 years, I have had the opportunity to live with rescued wildlife that can never be free: bears,…
Poem | Let Us Seek Refuge
By Dr. Rama Mani, Co-Founder, Rising Women Rising World; Founder, Theatre of Transformation
Let Us Seek Refuge
As we watch them flee their homelands
Battered by bombs we sold their leaders
Impoverished by markets that made us rich
As we then rush to bolt our borders
Let us halt
And look into the mirrors of their eyes
To realize
That…
Mitakuye Oyasin | All My Relations
Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear. - Isha Upanishad
Dear Reader,
Fear drives too many of our actions. In fear, we become territorial – at work, in our communities, about our ideas, even as nations. We are afraid of people who are not like us, afraid of animals, insects, afraid of the woods, the sun. Our fears isolate us, even though we are…
The Earth is a Sentient Living Organism
By Liz Bentley, via The Mind Unleashed
Throughout history, the concept of Mother Earth has been a part of human culture in one form or another. Everybody has heard of Mother Earth, but have you ever stopped to think who (or what) Mother Earth is? Contrary to the common belief that the Earth is simply a dense planet whose only function is a resource for its inhabitants, our planet is in fact a…
Indigenous Peoples and the Impact of Extractivism
by Mark Kernan, via Maptia.com
In 1937 George Orwell said that coal mining was the ‘metabolism’ of western civilisation. What he meant by this striking metaphor was that coal was the catalyst for an earlier industrial revolution, just as enzymes act as the life-sustaining catalyst within the cells of living organisms to maintain life. If he were alive today though he would have good cause to…
Kosmos Global Ambassador Report from Australia
By Anita Kelleher
KOSMOS JOURNAL SPRING | SUMMER 2016
Sharing Our Message of Hope and Solidarity
My work takes me into other countries and gives me firsthand experience of the many different lives our human family is living. Being a Kosmos Global Ambassador has enabled me to share the global messages of peace, regeneration, the beauty of diversity, and the stories from remote places that…
Building a Local Peace Economy: We Have the Power
By Judy Wicks, BALLE co-founder, via Alternet
This article was the first in a series to be published by AlterNet that explore the need for rethinking how we organize our lives and economy to be more just, peaceful, and sustainable.
When attending meetings with peace and justice activists, I often find myself the only business person in the room. Inevitably, someone makes a comment about the…
Natural Capitalism | Can Business Save the Environment?
Via the blog, Persuade Me Politics
What can be realistically done to protect and revitalize the health of the planet, our living environment, given the combative political culture in America, big energy corporations pushing for complete deregulation and the public continuing to consume resources and industrial products at unprecedented levels?
We must consider capitalism’s effects regarding…
Kosmos Classic | Sophy Banks on the Heart of Transition
Transitioning to a more compassionate, conscious future is a journey of both outer changes and inner ones. Sophy Banks is a psychotherapist and co-developer of the Transition Town Movement's 'inner transition' philosophy. I had the pleasure to create this short video with her at the New Story Summit in Findhorn, Scotland. I admire Sophy's gentle determination and compassion. She explores a vision…