Center for Ecozoic Studies

THE ECOZOIC #3 ON “ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION/LIFE-GIVING COMMUNITY” – INVITATION FOR SUBMISSIONS

In 2008, CES renamed its primary publication as The Ecozoic: Reflections on Life in an Ecological Age.

The first two issues were on the foundation of our work: Cosmology and Thomas Berry. The third issue will be on the central project of the Center, which is ecological civilization (a/k/a life-giving community).

Thomas Berry described the Great Work as moving on from a terminal Cenozoic to an emerging Ecozoic Era. This can only come into being if there is a new mode of human civilizational presence. There is probably no single word to characterize what this new presence would be, but we know it must be grounded in the ecology of Earth.

Thomas describes our present civilization as industrial. What are the elements of ecological civilization? CES does not have the answer to this. Our effort is to promote a dialogue on this question.

This dialogue will include your essays, stories, poetry, art or music. Please email your submission to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or mail a printed copy to Center for Ecozoic Studies, 2516 Winningham Road, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516, USA. If you have questions you may call us at 919-942-4358.

The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2009. (If you expect to make a submission, please email us and let us know.)

Herman Greene

THE ECOZOIC #3 ON “ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION/LIFE-GIVING COMMUNITY” – BACKGROUND

Here are some ideas that may stir your imagination on ecological civilization (a/k/a life-giving community) and lead you to compose and submit an essay, story, poem, artwork or song for this issue.

From the CES Motto

Seeking integral community in an ecological age . . . .

From the CES Statement of Purpose

CES emphasizes critical reflection, story and shared dream experience as ways of enabling the creative advance needed to bring into being a new mode of human civilizational presence, and also of discerning the practical steps leading to the Ecozoic.

CES understands the universe as meaningful, continuously evolving, and relational. In such a universe, the Ecozoic is not something to be arrived at, but something ever to be created.

[The] hallmarks [of the Ecozoic] are inclusiveness, interdependence, and appreciation; communion, differentiation, and subjectivity; and sensitivity, adaptability, and responsibility. It involves more just and cooperative relationships among humans, as well as transformed relationships of humans with the larger community of life.

From The Great Work by Thomas Berry

Our task is to move from our modern industrial civilization with its devastating impact to that of benign presence.

We must move from a human-centered to an Earth-centered norm of reality and value.

The universe is the primary lawgiver, the primary economic corporation, the primary scientist, the primary technologist, the primary healer, the primary revelation of the divine, the primary artist, the primary teacher, and indeed the primary source, model and ultimate destiny in all earthly affairs.

The ecological community is not subordinate to the human community. Nor is the ecological imperative derivative from human ethics. Rather, our human ethics are derivative from the ecological imperative.

The question we must ask is not what do we want Earth to be, but what does Earth want to be?

We must move from a wonderworld mentality to one of creative discipline or self-limitation.

We must move from a terminal extractive economy to an organic economy that participates in the ever-renewing processes of the Earth.

No effective restoration of a viable mode of human presence on the planet will take place until intimate human rapport with the Earth community is reestablished on an extensive scale. Until then, efforts, even heroic ones, to establish a more benign mode of human presence will ultimately fail.

The universe as a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects

Ecology should not be thought of as a separate course of study, but as “the foundation of all courses and programs. Thus, for example, ecology is not a part of medicine; rather medicine is an extension of ecology because medicine is an extension of the healing powers of Earth. The same can be said for law, for architecture, engineering and the other professions.

Our language as presently constituted does not express a true sense of reality, of value, and of progress. There needs to be a rectification of language in relation to reality.

The human might be identified as that being in the universe in whom the universe celebrates itself and its numinous origins in a special mode of conscious self-awareness.

A viable future for the planet is less the result of some scientific insight or some socio-economic arrangement, than participation in a symphony or renewed presence to the vast cosmic liturgy. The fulfillment of the Earth community is to be caught up in the grandeur of existence itself and in admiration of those mysterious powers whence all this has emerged.

From the Invitation to the Conference on Ecological Civilization in China

The world of 21st century suffers from many increasingly serious global social problems: population explosion, resource shortage and depletion, environmental degradation, polarizing of rich and poor, etc. All these problems, together with the recent financial and economic crisis, pose unprecedented threats to the future of human race. Many scientists and scholars have reached consensus that ecological civilization is the only correct choice to continue human survival and development. But opinions differ on questions such as what ecological civilization is and how ecological civilization can be realized. Thoughtful theoretical studies on ecological civilization are urgently needed, so that feasible measures can be put forth and consensus of international community can be reached, to promote the achievement of this goal.

Other Thoughts

Ecological civilization involves renewal of political civilization, social civilization, spiritual civilization, material civilization and ecological civilization.

Ecological civilization means turning things upside down. Rather than beginning with “the human” and then looking at nature from the standpoint of humans, we would begin with “Earth” and then look at humans from the standpoint of Earth.

Herman Greene

THE PASSING OF EDWARD (“TEDDY”) GOLDSMITH

The world has lost another giant in the world of ecology. Edward Goldsmith, founding editor of The Ecologist of London, major catalyst for the Green Movement, and leading thinker on the re-ordering of society based on ecological principles, passed away at age 80 on August 21, 2009.

I had the opportunity to be a part of a small luncheon with Mr. Goldsmith in his home in London in 2006, which was the fulfillment of a dream for me. To me his book The Way: An Ecological World-View is one of the top ten books for understanding how one might accomplish the inversion of beginning with Earth and understanding human society from that standpoint rather than the other way around. I highly recommend it.

In my view no one has gone beyond Mr. Goldsmith in giving meaning to Thomas Berry’s admonition that “we must move from a human-centered to an Earth-centered norm of reality and value.” No one has better stated ecological principles and how they apply to human society, than Mr. Goldsmith did in this book.

When I visited with Mr. Goldsmith he did not feel he was in good health and he anticipated his death. This saddened me, but made me all the more grateful for the opportunity to be with him. His library was rather like Thomas Berry’s must have been. It included books on science, economics, philosophy, ecology and many world cultures, especially cultures of indigenous people. He saw in the life of indigenous people an intuitive knowledge of “the way” and contrasted it with the reductionistic, mechanical view of modern science that understands nature as inert matter shaped by blind, random forces without an inner principle or a larger pattern in the whole. In indigenous society technology is “’embodied’ in social relations . . . and is rationalized and legitimized by its mythology.” The technology [of indigenous society is not aimed at maximizing production but rather at ] maintaining . . . homeostasis and hence homeostasis of the ecosphere itself.” (The Way, 360)

Adoption of a world-view of ecology could not be derived from empirical or theoretical evidence based on the canons of modern science. It involved “a profound rearrangement or recombination of the knowledge that makes up our world-view. It must affect its very metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic foundations. It must, in fact, involve a change akin to a religious conversion.” (The Way, 435) He concluded that “the world-view of ecology is very much that of the vernacular (or indigenous/local/self-organizing) community-based society, whereas the world-view of modernism is that of industrial society. We must set out to combat and systematically weaken the main institutions of the industrial system—the state, the corporations and the science and technology that they use to transform society and the natural world.” (The Way, 438.)

I asked him what he felt was the best statement of what needs to happen and he said A Blueprint for Survival, by the editors of The Ecologist, which was published as a special issue in January 1972. This is available for download. The Blueprint calls for a “stable society” (the precursor to the “sustainable society,” but more rigorous and more akin to Herman Daly’s Beyond Growth) and names these four principal conditions of such a society: “(1) minimum disruption of ecological processes; (2) maximum conservation of materials and energy; (3) a population in which recruitment equals loss; and (4) a social system in which the individual can enjoy, rather than feel restricted by, the first three conditions.” (Blueprint (1972 book version), 23).

Mr. Goldsmith also called attention to his book The Great U-Turn: De-Industrializing Society (published in 1988), in which he argued that we must move to “an economically and politically de-centralized post-industrial society." He was co-editor with Jerry Mander of the 2001 book, The Case Against the Global Economy & For a Turn Towards Localization.

Additional information on Edward Goldsmith (as well as many downloadable works) is available at his website.

Herman Greene

POEMS BY THERÉSE HALSCHEID

The Sun's Sacrifice

The sun, each second transforms 4 million tons of itself into light - Brian Swimme

A child's face shines

and no one will say, it is from Sun's fire

few will mention

the ongoing radiance in spears of grass

or sense

that warm surge

in our own energized bodies

and certainly, no one will speak

of the light within non-living objects

that golden source

which animals acknowledge, the wild

animals, who lift their eyes to the east each morning...

and surely

when they wake, we all wake, we rise but

are locked in a modern gaze

so caught in the acquiring of things that would not even be

were it not for that burning star to ignite their existence

so many possessions that

would all turn before us into frozen dust.

This is the sun's story

tale of an ancient blaze that still gives of itself

and only asks us to know it

to honor its bright meaning enough to feel again, the deepest awe.

Long Night Moon

* * * * *

"The Sun's Sacrifice" and "Long Night Moon" rights reserved by Therese Halscheid.

Therese Halscheid taught elementary school for 13 years and, in 1993, resigned from teaching to pursue a strong desire to write. This desire had been seeding itself for some time and to follow her dream, she sold possessions and sought ways to live simply. This led to journeys through mountains and forests in the United States and England, as well as house-sitting by the sea. Her journey includes leading junior high students through foreign lands in a cultural exchange program and an artist-in-residency at Acadia National Park, Maine. Additional information is available about Ms. Halscheid at her website.

Betsy Green, a close friend of Ms. Halscheid and a member of CES, reports that Ms. Halscheid wrote “The Sun’s Sacrifice after Betsy introduced her to Brian Swimme’s book, The Universe Is a Green Dragon, and Ms. Halscheid wrote “Long Night Moon” after she and Betsy took a full moon, winter solstice night walk in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.