Book Review: The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market & State
By Leo Burke
If I were to be marooned on a desert island and could take along only two commons-related books, they would be Elinor Ostrom’s 1990 classic, Governing the Commons, and David Bollier and Silke Helfrich’s The Wealth of the Commons. This remarkable anthology of seventy-two essays by authors from six continents represents a milestone in the commons literature. The quality of the essays is not…
Taking Root: An Unbroken Intimacy with Life
By Anne Hillman
How do we cooperate with life’s gradual shaping of the human mind—its painstaking work of drawing us towards the light of greater wisdom? Life has been molding our clay since birth: drawing us, as it did our earliest ancestors, out of the dense energies of instinct, into an awareness of feeling, and then, into the mystery of thought. The call of our time bids us seek beyond a reliance on thought,…
The Circle of Presence: Building the Capacity for Authentic Collective Wisdom
Our first article (Kosmos, Spring / Summer 2012) gave an overview of the new human capacity we are starting to articulate—that we call Collective Presencing, the purpose of which is to allow us to systematically achieve collective wisdom. We described the two distinct phases that we see unfolding as a collection of individuals learns to become a collective capable of employing this capacity on…
The Widening Circle After Rio+20: Advancing the Campaign for a Global Citizens Movement
Realizing early that the Rio+20 Summit was heading towards failure, The Widening Circle (TWC) went to Rio de Janeiro to join those who wanted to see beyond the summit and collectively plan our transition to the Great Transition towards a sustainable future. It is obvious that a critical social actor has been missing from the global stage. Time is ripe for a catalytic campaign to evolve a powerful…
Book Review: Sacred Economics | Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition
Is a more beautiful world possible? Many of us dream it is, and Charles Eisenstein’s latest book, Sacred Economics, shows that it’s possible and even probable. Probable in this interest-rate-driven and growth-dependent economy, because we’ve privatized, monetized and destroyed so much of what was once commonly owned, we’re running out of growth options.
Humanity must now choose economic…
Rebecca Solnit
San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit is the author of thirteen books
about art, landscape, public and collective life, ecology, politics,
hope, meandering, reverie, and memory.
They include November 2010’s
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, a book of 22 maps and nearly 30
collaborators; 2011’s A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary
Communities that Arise in Disaster, and…
Occupy Your Victories: Occupy Wall Street’s First Anniversary
by Rebecca Solnit
This article can be found on TomDispatch.com: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog//175593/
Occupy is now a year old. A year is an almost ridiculous
measure of time for much of what matters: at one year old, Georgia
O’Keeffe was not a great painter, and Bessie Smith wasn’t much of a
singer. One year into the Civil Rights Movement, the…
Fall-Winter 2012
In this IssueJourney of a Global Nomad: Breaking Down and Breaking Through (Spanish Translation) - by D. FisherThe Future of Leadership for Sustainability – Part One - by Barrett C. BrownStanding in My Power: Becoming a Fearless Dean - by Dorrie K. FontaineA Spirituality for the 21st Century: Inevitabilities and Possibilities - by Kurt JohnsonThe Future of Religion: Four Scenarios, One Dream - by…
A Spirituality for the 21st Century: Inevitabilities and Possibilities
By Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord
In a forthcoming book, The Coming Interspiritual Age,1 we offer a responsible survey of the global factors that might influence and contribute to the possible emergence of world change based on a significant input from the reservoir of collective human wisdom available in the world’s perennial Great Wisdom Traditions. Absent such a contribution, the world appears destined to march toward…
Journey of a Global Nomad: Breaking Down and Breaking Through
By D. Fisher
I am a young woman currently on a global pilgrimage—a philosophical, cultural, and spiritual inquiry that is deeply intertwined with the engagements of everyday life.
Dancing the Liminal
I’m a critical thinker, a poet, and a passionate activist who is committed to creating a future of global sustainability for all. I am currently in the process of deconstructing much of my own identity as a…