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Wednesday Section
Applying the New Cosmology to Current Issues, Institutional Change, and Movement Building
(Mentored by Herman Greene, Chapel Hill, NC (US) and Drew Dellinger)
Herman Greene and Drew Dellinger have years of experience in applying the new cosmology to current issues, institutional change, and movement building. If being on the right side of history helps, being on the right side of the evolving universe and planet may help even more. Learn how these mentors have practiced the new cosmology and how you may apply it to your own efforts. Herman Greene, JD, DMin, President of the Center for Ecozoic Studies, and Co-Author of Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Practitioners Guide. https://www.ecozoicstudies.org/
Emergent Dialogue and the New Cosmology
(Mentored by Marianne Rowe, Monterey Bay, CA, US)
Cultivating attunement with the story of the Universe allows us to support and consciously participate in the evolutionary process of the New Cosmology and cultivate qualities of the Ecozoic Era. Emergent Dialogue is a form of inquiry that engages individuals and groups with the collective field. As individual and known perspectives are voiced and transcended, there is access to increasing connection, complexity and creativity — a way of being together that is wanting to emerge and evolve. There are many who consider that awareness and access to this co-creative intelligence is the evolutionary leap that is needed and is arising. Through Emergent Dialogue, we practice a new way of being together in which there is respect for all perspectives as parts of a cohesive whole. In this way, we cultivate a New Story — shifting from a Story of Separation to a Story of Interbeing. Marianne Rowe, MS, is a Founding Teacher of Monterey Bay Meditation Studio, an ANFT Certified Forest Therapy Guide, and a psychotherapist. In her work, teaching, and life, Marianne focuses on healing, transformation and evolution through cultivating awareness of connection between all beings. http://www.
Church-based Centers for the New Cosmology
(Mentored by John Leydon and Bing Carranza, Manila, Philippines)
Thomas Berry put the challenge humans are currently facing in stark terms: “The human community and the natural world will go into the future as a single sacred community or we will both experience disaster.” Many of us work out of a religious context in dealing with the current crisis. Our religious traditions can be both a hindrance but can also provide us with the inspiration and energy we need to create the Ecozoic Era. This allurement group will explore our experiences, share our resources, help to guide us on the difficult task that we are undertaking. John Leydon is an Irish Columban priest. He was coordinator of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Ministry of the Columban Missionaries in the Philippine Region; co-founded the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning (CELL), an eco-center inspired by the work of Thomas Berry; and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and Chairperson of its Philippine Chapter, GCCM-Pilipinas. Elizabeth (Bing) Carranza, is Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Terra Sisters of the Trinity, a new Earth-oriented Philippine-based Catholic religious community of women. She works with the Global Catholic Climate Movement-Pilipinas and is involved in the Education Program at the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning. She was a College Physics Instructor at the University of the Philippines before entering religious life. She chaired the Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance Inc. Check bios on the course description page for more info.
Indigenous and Ecozoic Ways of Knowing and the Possibility of a First Earth Church
(Mentored by MJ Zimmerman and Shirley Pevarnik)
Together we will listen for ways we can remind ourselves daily of our relatedness and connection to the emerging universe and hear its call. Wonder if we put the Bible aside and celebrated the sacredness of the Earth? How can Indigenous and Ecozoic ways of knowing help us along this journey? Our allurement group will practice “becoming indigenous to place” both through individual practices in our local sacred places and through deep sharing of these experiences which arise. Together we will begin to imagine and co-create the possibilities for something like a “First Earth Church.” M.J. Zimmerman studied the new universe story with Brian Swimme at CIIS in the 1990’s and has studied indigenous wisdom with Leon Secatero, a Navajo elder in New Mexico, where she currently lives. These two strains of wisdom continue to inform her professional life as a therapist and her personal practice of deep connection to the local ecosystem where she lives. Shirley Pevarnik MLA in Creation spirituality, teacher, social worker, social and environmental activist. Most important – loves the Earth and human possibilities.
Cosmic Embodiment – Everyday practices for accessing cosmic creativity and embodiment
(Mentored by Rebecca Strong)
What does it mean to embody the teachings of the New Cosmology? ~ What would it look like to wake up in the morning and to know from within our cells that time and space are unfolding with us/through us? What would we focus our creative attention on as we move through our day; listening for the evolutionary pulse guiding us from within. Let’s explore practices and ways to more fully embody this 13.8 billion-year ancient wisdom and intelligence as we explore together our most creative response to being alive at this time in history. You are 13.8 billion-years in the making! Rebecca Sophia Strong is a social artist and full-time psychotherapist. She has studied the work of Brian Swimme for over two decades and out of this inspiration became the creator of The Embodied Cosmology Project; TECP brings the science of the new cosmology together with performance art and movement-based non-formal science curriculum. She just finished writing her first film called Cosmogenesis: The Story of Us and challenges herself everyday to apply the new cosmology to her “one wild and precious life.”
Leading Retreats in the New Cosmology: Daring to dream a New World into Reality
(Mentored by Carl Madigan, Montreal, Quebec, CA)
Retreats are an opportunity for one to reflect on the story that will be their guide to co-creating their future. We all strive to find meaning in our lives, to understand ourselves and our place in our world, in our universe. We create stories to express our shared understanding. We now find ourselves in the liminal space between the stories we grew up with and the New Story that is emerging in our midst. This is an opportunity for us to reflect with one another on how we, as retreat facilitators, can assist others deepen in their journey as co- creators of the New World as visioned in the New Story. Carl Madigan is a retired Mathematics Professor and spiritual director who has offered spiritual direction, retreats, and program development through the Congrégation de Notre-Dame and the St Joseph Renewal Centre in Mabou, the heart of Celtic country, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia for over 40 years.
The Spiral Way and Contemplative Cosmology
(Mentored by Judith Keller, Southport, Australia)
Join with other creative contemplatives to enfold and unfold the course Principles – A Vast Evolving Universe, Embededness, Interiority and Enacting the Ecozoic – in ways which, like the evolutionary process itself are open-ended, expressive and transformative. The group will draw on poetry, visual art, music, gentle movement, writing explorations, meditation and contemplative practice. The invitation is to experience ourselves as deeply ‘unfolding’, cosmic contemplatives drawn to transform into our deeper identities inside an evolving Cosmos. The spiral’s pattern of cosmic beauty and energy might inspire the unending emergence of our own individual and collective beauty. Judith Keller has a background in spirituality and the arts. She is drawn to cosmic wonder via the expressive and transformative arts of poetry, music, movement, writing, meditation.
Birthing Rituals and Practices for an Ecozoic Era
(Mentored by Margie Abbott)
Dive deep into the radiant light of the first flaring forth present within you. Find all you need to feel sensations in your body that urge a desire to express your love of Earth and all there is. Sensations will be your guide. Embody them and act spontaneously out of them, allowing what is emerging to arise. You are artist; poet; musician; dancer! You will then share what emerges from within you with others and create together in the moment practices that may evolve into rituals. We will celebrate out of your reflections and whatever is arising, entering into a physical, heart centered and nurturing relationship with earth.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Integrating Spirit, Psyche, and Earth
(Mentored by Andrew Del Rossi, Th.D.)
Explore the big ideas of the course inside of Teilhard’s work and apply them inside your life, organization, and the world. Andrew Del Rossi, Th.D. publishes and presents nationally on the work and vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin along with the integration of spirituality and psychology. He is currently the Director of the Spirituality and Retreat Center at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, PA. Andrew serves on the board of the American Teilhard Association and has a passion for gardening, plant medicine, and learning about permaculture.
Friday Section
Applying the New Cosmology to Current Issues, Institutional Change, and Movement Building
(Mentored by Herman Greene, Robert Athickal SJ, and Gerardo Amaro)
Herman Greene and Drew Dellinger have years of experience in applying the new cosmology to current issues, institutional change, and movement building. If being on the right side of history helps, being on the right side of the evolving universe and planet may help even more. Learn how these mentors have practiced the new cosmology and how you may apply it to your own efforts. Herman Greene, JD, DMin, President of the Center for Ecozoic Studies, and Co-Author of Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Practitioners Guide. https://www.ecozoicstudies.org/. Robert Athickal SJ is a Jesuit Eco-activist from Allahabad, India, and is the National Co-ordinator of the Students’ Forum for Environment “Tarumitra.” He has been working as an Eco-activist last 33 years and his association Tarumitra has been promoting an Eco-spirituality based on the writings of the Jesuit Scientist and mystic, Teilhard de Chardin, and enjoys Special Consultative Status at the United Nations from 2005. Gerardo Amaro is an activist scholar in Anthropology and Social Change, educator, weaver of feelings and thoughts, interested in learning with and supporting spaces that create viable alternatives to the current civilization crisis. He brings a deep inquiry into the question of what are the practices, ideas, experiences, and ways of knowing and being that enable the emergence of the pluriverse, or ‘a world where many worlds can be embraced’.
The New Cosmology and Education
(Mentored by Judi Bauerlein, Orla Hazra, Annie Spade and Missy Lahren)
Applying the new cosmology is a teaching/learning experience itself. The new cosmology shows us we live in a Universal process of teaching/learning co-creation. A sacred mystery. How do we introduce these concepts within institutions currently named “schools” that have yet to learn this fundamental vision? Lets work together to share our various experimentations of all age groups whether with children via Montessori curriculum,or older students via Big History, Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm, Capra Systems theory, Earth Charter, Awakening the Dreamer/Pachamama Alliance. ” (Orla)
Together we aim to explore the richness and depth of Dr. Montessori’s Cosmic Education as well as others who know the brilliance of children and help us to envision and create a world in which people never lose their primal sense of wonder, their interconnection to all life, and their true purpose and passion. (Judy)
Brought into being by allurement – the child’s very nature is to live in wonderment, gratitude, joy and love. How do we as adults reaccess this “original vision” in our own lives, and how do we support its development and continuation in our children? (Annie)
Missy has created a curriculum on the five Kingdoms and Biospheris Consciousness. New scientific discoveries are revealing news ways to construct an intimate, creative and mutually enhancing relationship with the Earth Community, especially through the lenses of the kingdoms themselves: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista and Monera. This endeavor falls under the heading of biosphere consciousness as defined by Jeremy Rifkin in his 2009 book Empathic Civilization and will expand as it incorporates the imaginal and embodied insights of the nature mystics. (Missy Lahren)
Judi Bauerlein has been an educator sine 1960 teaching all ages from 3 years old to adolescents. She has been teaching adult students since 1976 and continues in her work. In 1972 Judi became a Montessori educator and was transformed once she encountered Dr. Montessori’s Cosmic Education and Education for Peace. Annie Spade has been practicing Montessori and “The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd” for four decades. She is active with the Integral Christian Network, and is an admin with the Teilhard de Chardin FB Group. See Orla Hazra’s bio on the course page bios. Missy Lahren is an environmental lawyer and activist who is about to defend her PhD in philosophy where she wrote a middle school curriculum for Earth Day on biospheric consciousness.
Communicating the Story/Sharing our passion for the New Creation Story with the World
(Mentored by Sarbmeet Kanwal)
So many of us feel deeply moved by the new creation story and inspired by its wisdom to align our lives with the 14 billion year in-the-making evolutionary impulse that runs through our veins. Even so we are a tiny minority. To bring any possibility of sustainable change to our world and to build an earth-wide community based on peace and harmony, we need to evangelize this message far and wide. This allurement group will explore possibilities of how to make this happen in our life and our world, and will come up with actionable projects that small sub-groups could take on during the span of this course as well as after it concludes. Sarbmeet Kanwal is a TEDx speaker and a professor of physics & astronomy with a PhD from the California Institute of Technology. He is a cofounder of an award winning youth leadership program called MOSAIC and founder and leader of a popular study circle centered on the New Creation Story.
Nature/Gardening as Portal to the “big picture and a rich spiritual life”
(Mentored by Sr. Danielle Julien)
We will explore how we are enriched by our relationships with plants we grow in our garden, and with the winged peoples, the fur peoples, the roots peoples, the crawling peoples, the sky peoples, all creatures living and non-living we encounter in our Universe. What can all these beings surrounding us, from the smallest to the biggest, teach us as we journey within the Universe and deepen our spiritual life? What patterns and deep mysteries of the Universe may they be revealing to us, how might they be calling us to join in their dance?
Sister Danielle Julien is a Franciscan, amateur gardener, amateur photographer, beginner artist (drawing), nature pilgrim, a seeker hoping to be a seer of the Divine revealing her/his/its presence/love/action in every thing, everywhere, all the time. “No longer do I look at a leaf, but enter into direct contact with its life-process, with Life itself, with what I, too, really am. For the time being the split between Me and not-Me is healed, suspended.” (Frederick Frank, The Zen of Seeing, Seeing/Drawing as meditation, p. 7)
The New Cosmology and Creative Arts — Art, Writing, Video, Dance, and More
(Mentored by Imogene Drummond, Garrison, NY, US)
In this allurement group, we will focus on expanding our cosmic kinship through creativity. Exploring in whatever way you choose—visual art, writing, dance, photography, or other—will deepen your awareness of being an integral part of the Universe. All levels and manner of imaginative expression are welcome. You can choose any medium, including a long time or entirely new passion! We will hold space and support for non-professional, emerging, and professional creatives looking for context for shared companionship and community in your creative journeys. I look forward to sharing this time with you! Imogene Drummond is a painter, filmmaker, and video artist whose Divine Sparks film and creativity program connect the creativity and transformation in the universe with our own potential for creativity and transformation. http://
Exploring Humanity’s Great Transition to a Mature Planetary/Cosmological Civilization (the Ecozoic)
(Mentored by Peter Holmes)
How can we get from here to there? Taking a hard look at the reality of our current planetary crises and mapping out possible pathways to a compassionate, conscious, and engaged Earth citizenship. This allurement group will provide a forum for participants to share their deepest thoughts and feelings about a radically uncertain future, and will explore the work of Duane Elgin, Joanna Macy, and others in visioning a sustainable world that works for everyone. Peter Holmes BA (Physics & Maths) PhD (Psychology). Work experience in secondary education and clinical psychology. Life experience in Buddhist meditation, communal living, hiking, playing music.
Bridging The Ancient Past to The Ancient Future. In The Present
(Mentored by Yona Frenchhawk)
We’ll explore the Metaphysical and Transpersonal aspects of Native American Spirituality and how nature continues to reveal to us the frequencies that will bring all beings back into harmony and balance. If we listen. What has modern day science and technology revealed to us about our cosmic relatives? As One Indigenous Tribe of Mother Earth? What are the echoes of our Ancestors telling us each time the wind blows or water pours over the Earth? The New Way to The Old Way is the path that leads back to the full circle. The Sacred Hoop of Life. And what we do as a tribe today will support the ongoing journey and effort to build the bridge that connects the Ancient Past to the Ancient Future.
Yona FrenchHawk is a full-blooded Cherokee Wisdom Keeper and Ceremonialist. He was born and raised on the Qualla Indian Boundary and is an enrolled member of The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the Great Smoky Mountains in Cherokee, N.C. http://www.yonafrenchhawk.com/
