From Kosmos Journal: The Invisible Yet Existent Culture of Peace
By Dot Maver
A Culture of Peace Emerges
A new story is emerging. Humanity is the storyteller. The story line is ancient and the global community is right on time as it wakes up. The global community is appalled by many of its own creations and strives to take responsibility for creating a Culture of Peace. Let us call it the Path of Beauty. Ultimately, humanity shifts from living with pain…
Building a Village: Lessons in Urban Living from South Korea
By John Page
“This is a very special house. It’s called the House of Happiness through Communication. People live here like a big family.”
Our guide was 12 year-old Seon Jae, and we were standing in front of an unremarkable-looking 3-story brick building in Mapo-gu, a district of the high-rise metropolis of Seoul, South Korea. We were there to learn about Sungmisan, an “urban village” that…
How Do We Live Together Now?
Dear Readers,
How do we live together now? This is a question that has been rattling around my head of late and I brought it with me when the Kosmos core team met in Lenox, Massachusetts last week.
In a way, it is a question that pervades a lot of what we do at Kosmos, and each of the five women who met for three days to laugh, cook, collaborate and reflect is devoting a substantial portion…
REVIEW: Ecology and Religion, by John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker
Ecology and Religion is a foundational text for environmental studies and religious ecology. It is a distillation of Grim and Tucker’s 20-year effort to create religion and ecology as an academic field of study. They take us through the development of religious ecology showing how our understandings of nature have shifted over time in various religions, and in western philosophical traditions and…
EVENT: Peter Barnes – Economics for the Anthropocene
The Schumacher Center for New Economics and the American Institute for Economic Research are hosting and Kosmos Associates will be co-sponsoring and attending this talk by Peter Barnes, prominent spokesperson for the Commons. Look for an excerpt in the Fall/Winter edition of Kosmos Journal.
Peter Barnes - Economics for the Anthropocene
Sunday July 27, 2014, 7:30PM, Auditorium, American…
Family Farm: The Mother of our Breath
By Robert V. Bishop
In the westernmost region of the Caroline Islands of Micronesia lies the Republic of Palau. Palauan traditional farming shows how agriculture, family values and culture are interconnected. Despite these connections, family farms are facing challenges. By joining forces, the small-scale family farms of these islands are standing up for their rights and calling for support…
GUIDE: Planning sustainable cities for community food growing
A guide to using planning policy to meet strategic objectives through community food growing from Sustain.
This guide brings together in one place examples of planning policies around the UK that support community food growing.
It is aimed primarily at planning authorities to help them to use food growing as a way of creating healthy communities, but contains practical advice for all…
Connecting for Change: A call for essays from Kosmos Journal
Dear Kosmos Reader,
Twice a year Kosmos invites our readers to submit an essay. We choose 2 or 3 essays to publish in our hard copy journal and publish several others in our newsletter and on our website. This is an opportunity for you to share your work and expertise with a large international audience.
TOPIC: Connecting for Change
Kosmos recently conducted a study of the growing global…
Unshackled and Unschooled: Free-Range Learning Movement Grows
By Lorna Collier
Most people have heard of homeschooling — kids are educated by parents or caregivers at home, rather than at school, for a variety of reasons. But within the homeschooling community, the growing “unschooling” subset has a somewhat different, amorphous, definition.
Depending on whom you ask, unschooling is centered around what the child wants to learn using any and all…
What Is the Role of a Spiritual Teacher or Mentor?
By Nirmala
In general, a teacher or mentor is a person who guides, instructs, or helps another in the process of gaining knowledge, understanding, or skills. What about a spiritual teacher or mentor? What is their role? And more specifically what does a spiritual teacher or spiritual mentor in the nondual or Advaita tradition do?
A spiritual teacher/mentor’s role is unique in that the goal is…