@orla-hazra
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thank you Di and Noha for your reflections and i deeply appreciate the three points of intersection…..it will help me to distinguish and be able to respond when and if a torrent of sentences come my way in the future.
I always think of epistemology as two sides of the same coin….understanding and praxis..the understanding being the kind of fuel and framework embeded as the praxis flows. Now, I am visualizing the point of intersection where understanding and praxis intersect …the axis being a kind of allurement. Two days back a very prominant journalist was assasinated while she was leaving her home. she had been consistently critical of the ‘right wing fundamental ‘ streams.
protests have emerged yesterday in various cities.
As this news spreads, its very consoling to have our imaginative ways of figuring out how to stay grounded and hopeful! thanks!!! -
So here is the conclusion of someone regarding fostering tolerance and compassion in the community. Its certainly an example of generosity, but is it enough to build a sustainable and flourishing Earth community?
I wonder how to bring the concern people have into the integral framework. People just dont want to engage conceptually…its a roadblock. The person who sent this self describes as a theologian, has read my thesis etc etc…is in an interfaith marriage….but is not ‘integral’ and riddled with language of the ‘other’.
Its something I wrestle with all the time…folks in the positions they are in who can really help to move things forward but they dont…….I guess it is maneuvering ourselves in ways to be powerful. …to be able to expose more people.“More gestures like this will pave the way for unity. ”
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Perhaps I will just have to take the leap! For example, this weekend….our college is going to show a film “the world before her’..taking the lives of two young Indian women…one entering a Miss India pageant (supposedly to be free of the constraints of patriarchal society????) and one entering a fundamental militant Hindu ‘boot camp”. (to learn what it means to be good Hindu women)….One could say that the two characters represent extremes…which we have all over the planet at this point.
I know that the woman who is going to be doing the reflection with the student body following the film is coming from the feminist framework…perhaps beginning to think about a ‘stewardship’ response to environmental issue……in other words, not from an integral framework. I have heard these kind of analysis before and they go nowhere…perhaps a bit of ‘tolerance’, but no compassion, and no clear understanding of the issues at hand. I plan to be in the audience to offer another framework to look at the two young women, and perhaps encourage a conversation from an integral standpoint. Its been a while since I have seen it, but when I saw it I thought it was a great film for showing two extreme styles of humanity emerging in this generation and the implications for peace and sustainability. Following the film showing, there is a gathering of a network of NGO’s who are all working on peace/justice initiatives. The department has not encouraged them to engage with the big history/cosmic story to enhance their work, deepen their vision etc etc. Perhaps now it is time. Wish there were more of us!!!
There is a term people often use here to encourage communal harmony (again limited to the human) Vasudev Katumbakham…The world is one family. Perfect …and so it is…but only from the integral lens….interreligious panel discussions are all talking about finding common ground etc etc. We are already standing on ground…and it is common…we have forgotten that…we now have a story which show s that……etc etc.
What I was looking for were examples of programmes, out in the community where there were these kind of discussions and projects but with a shared communal understanding of deep time.Will let you know how it goes!
Perhaps Sam has a feel for the effects and responses from his music in the communities he works with?
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Greetings all from Mumbai
This is great information for classroom teachers fostering tolerance inside the classroom and so so hopeful. I am also interested in our teaching forms aside from schools…eg family, work and recreation. I live in India and , as the world over, the politics of separation….othering , difference etc etc are gaining momentum and becoming increasingly violent…violent against humans and violent against the larger Earth community. Are any of you familiar with how integral vision, grounded in an evolutionary universe, is being used explicitly to foster tolerance outside the classroom. Eg a programme advocating peace and justice and grounded in our integral understanding.as the backdrop in calls for action. …how is it being done and what are the outcomes……….thanks…..in peace and hope. Orla -
Greetings all! I just tried to upload my document on Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm in the Context of an Evolutionary Universe but it would not ‘take’. Will try again tomorrow. IPP is the pedagogy associated with Jesuit schools internationally and was developed reflecting the integral spirituality of St Ignatius of Loyola. Unfortunatly, the practice of the pedagogy is no longer integral because the mindsets of many teaching are not integral…they are cartesian The Ignatian process is context, experience, reflection, action and evaluation. Currently ‘issues’ in Jesuit schools are dissected anthropocentrically so context is interpreted as the ‘issue’ in the students environment (meaning life situation but devoid of overall context).
When I wrote my dissertation I was tracing the narratives of the patterns of body/Earth/Cosmos alienation, awakening, and connection through the fourfold wisdom conversation (science, religion, women and indigenous peoples). In religious terminology that movement, that story, is called ‘conversion’, awakening, metanoia….each tradition has a name for it…..the great epics of the west and some of the East also reflect stories of ‘homecoming’ . That research was completed in 2009..then I thought for a while.
I know pedagogy needs to be grounded in an evolutionary universe to foster integral understanding. that is what humanity needs. I routed out some materials and then began to read articles on Jesuit Pedagogy because I had received my PhD from a Jesuit School , in the department of Religion and Religious Education, but was unaware of IPP…so far has the fundamental vision of Ignatius gone astray, perhaps like the vision of Montessori.!! Then it struck me one day ……how perfect the IPP was for the work we do….we are following IPP itself…we start with context, but the fundamental context…of which is still being ignored by the teachers in most Jesuit schools.
We’ve been given the task to redesign the ‘environment course’ a mandatory course all freshmen take. We did it this semester and clumsily inserted the Story, we have no texts etc etc. They are not going to buy a text even if there was one available. I am looking for some pdf’s i can distribute so if any of you have any you want to forward please do so! I have downloaded much of the material on dtj and will use some of it for the next mandatory course on ‘giving voice to values’…it is a perfect combination when we redesign the curriculum..the first semester is the integral story and then the next one would be ‘giving voice to integral values’….identifying them and then putting them into practice in community service (they now have mandatory community service (ie social work) so now with an expanded notion of what the term ‘social’ means with ‘all our relations’ we are asking that environment issues be added to the choice students have of service education.
Lyle, you had asked about cartesian cosmology…the best thing to do is to read my article on the web ‘awakening the Cartesian Dreamer’ and it is on page 153. It is a good article summing up the work we do, and putting it into a framework of ‘education/cosmology and understanding/practice. At the time i wrote it I was not as articulate as i am now with IPP. Tomorrow, hopefully, you will see the beauty of the IPP model to describe the work we do when i can upload that document !!
Rich….I would be interested in how your research model can be applied to the narratives in the IPP document. I divide the narratives according to the shift in perspective etc..because my research style is narrative and I am showing the ‘religious’ (ie integral) shift. It would be good to somehow quantify the data as well but I do not know the methodology. I have a pre and post course survey students take but I don’t know how to make sense of the data collectively.
I have not digested the materials yet from our dtj artist community, but will by tomorrow. We have an annual student event at Xaviers called Malhad which is arts based. This year we asked the environment class to observe (when they were developing their projects and events etc) how ‘green ‘ were the activities, how green was the intention behind the project, what were the social justice issues….how could they take what they were learning in class out into the festival itself. They came back and put on a debate on banning plastics on campus!!
Jennifer: Now that I am ‘out’ with Jesuit Pedagogy you will need to add Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm to the framework choice of reading selections along with Montessori. Hopefully others will come along!
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Thank you Jennifer and Imogene, Andrea, and Laura! It feels as if we are starting from scratch in our understanding of ‘pedagogy’, the form of education in schools. The other forms of education are in family, work and recreation. Imogene- you and other artists have a huge role as art spans all four educational forms!!!! I think all of us can reflect back on some moment when we ‘understood’ the truth of existence- its integral nature and how, in our school room, that experience of awe and wonder was oppressed and our fire quelched in favor of another type of knowing …instead of a sense of interconnection, we developed in other ways appropriate to our cartesian culture…..the results surround us in our social injustices, our environmental devestation and our sense of anomie- aka spiritual alienation.
My aha moment became the fuel of my phd dissertation…finishing it literally 40 years after the experience…sure did a lot of damage along the way! However, I did manage to put together a skeleton to view cosmology and directly link it to education……So cosmology/education (either cartesian or integral)
-is our understanding of existence and the practice or action that flows from this understanding),
– it is operational in four educational forms, family,school, work and recreation,
– it is intergenerational, interinstitutional, international, and interreligious,
Jennifer you have done a wonderful job showing the dynamic of cosmology ….understanding and action
and the experiential flow that goes on each side…one to foster understanding, the response of awe and wonder and then a life of action fueled by this integral understanding.
My role up until this time with the international field of deep time pedagogy and also the other forms of education seems to be one of advocacy for inclusion of this subject in schools…ie fostering understanding….ie this is our story and it needs to be told and subjects need to be placed in conversation with it. In India where the results of cartesian pedagogy are seen in the human and ecological devestation it has also meant a lot of figuring out other ways of living to have a light footprint. I am associated with the Jesuit school system and have had two courses amounting to only 25 classroom hours over four days but the transformations are lifelong. Unfortunatly the Jesuit Ignatian pedagogical paradigm is also cartesian (why would it not be….these are the waters we swim in) and the integral nature of our existence, let alone an emerging cosmogenesis is still not honoured. The bureacracy is reluctant to try new things because that would mean changes in curriculum, teachers are already overwhealmed etc etc and in the meantime the students are totally stressed with having to learn subjects and regurgitate them for the exam. Then the students go on to graduate and enter corporations with cartesian ideals of progress and development consuming Earth. It is one big eating disorder!
It is crucial for us all to be advocates in whatever system we work in……to squeeze in whereever we can into the cartesian curriculum and offer hope to todays young people…….there is so much negativity in the media and hopefull messages, stories and of course, our deep time journey together is not front page news.
Glad to be with all of you on the journey!!!!!
Orla
ps i will put up the results of the first course on the dtj later in the week . the next course finishes on 30th and that will take another few weeks to put together.
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Thank you very much Jennifer for starting this discussion and for the insights so far from our group Angela, Teri, and Duane. Duane, can I take a copy of the book to India? I can share it with the head of the Jesuit Education Association who is most appreciative of all of this and was just recently in Rome. The students loved the documents you shared with me before and I will use them again in the next course I am teaching in August when I go back again.
I also am so relieved the document is finally out. Many people I met in a few countries were waiting to do anything until the encyclical was out so as not to rock boats! Because it linked the social justice and ecological issues togethertime after time after time, hopefully it will heal divisions and superstitions within various communities dedicated to each -either social justice or ecology. I am sure it was not an easy document to put together but Pope Francis managed a good one!
I was delighted to see the term Ecological Conversion since that is what the fifth chapter of my thesis (download it from our resource list) described when I was tracing the narratives patterns of people awakening as a result of the fourfold wisdom conversation of science, religion, women and indigenous peoples. I have not used the term ‘conversion’ because its fundamental meaning has been lost through time- but now it is being retrieved and given renewed meaning……
Although Pope Francis is addressing all people in a homily, a call to action, his therapeutic language is from the Catholic tradition. Other traditions from across Earth can add in the therapeutic language from their wisdom banks and address their own communities. Although, as Angela noted, he repeated we were related, interrelated, he did not “show how” and that is the beauty of the academic languages those of us in the deep time journey use to tell the tale of our co-emergence in our interrelated cosmogenesis. He addressed cosmology stating “the same mindset which stands in the way of making radical decisions to reverse the trend of global warming also stands in the way of achieving the goal of eliminating poverty” (175). Although ‘the west’ is always associated with patterns of consumption causing our problems I was glad to see that in (172) he called on ‘poor countries’ to “acknowledge the scandalous level of consumption in some priveledged sectors of their population and to combat corruption more effectively”….In India this is a huge problem…and often it is the same people of privilege pointing the fingers at ‘the west’.
As I said earlier about words……in some parts he was able to give new definitions to another word, the moribund language of sin ….in one place he described it as being a sense of separation or turning away- but in other places he places it on the deed of destruction…as if to add another ‘sin’ to the 7 deadly sins we already have in Church history. Interestingly, these 7 sins of consumption have now been incorporated into the medical field/addictions…..Ecopsychology is a corrective currently in place for that development—Still it is nice to see the Christian faith being renewed by integral understanding….that is fundamental to any ‘religious’ understanding across Earth since ‘religare’ means ‘bound’.
He also used the term education- that we had a problem of education and that education also was shown to be happening outside the classroom…in families, work and everywhere. I have always linked cosmology to education…a process that happens through the generations in four educational forms…family, school, work and recreation. Then he goes back to education as pedagogy (unfortunately pedagogy has overtaken the term education and schools have been given the responsibility for teaching nearly everything now …a lot of stuff that used to happen in families). Starting in #209 the document points to the importance of addressing our cultural myths and that current forms of environmental education ‘fails to instill good habits’. The reason for this is that a lot of environmental education does not include the story behind how ‘the environment/humanity’ came to be…..until folks recognize they are integral- that they ‘understand’- good habits will not be practiced. Cosmology has two sides…understanding and practice.
Those of us in the deep time journey can offer a corrective to these shallow environmental education courses. I hope curriculum designers will choose to supplement what they are already doing with what we can offer so our communities are ‘personally transformed to respond’…..grab Duanes book and begin to live lives of meaning!
He also honored the wisdom of indigenous peoples, wonder and acknowledged the Earth Charter.
I plan to use the document as a resource in the environment course I am teaching in August. In India there are a variety of faith traditions in each class so students will be able to supplement what they read of the Catholic tradition with their own that will be a great learning for me.
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Thank you very much Steve!
I am aware it is being done and it is great to see ‘how’ it is being done. My usual site for sharing the story has been at retreats or to teachers in seminars encouraging them to engage with the material….never in a regular semester length course with the institutional requirements. It will be a challenge at the beginning because i do not get back to India from vacation until 4 august and the courses begin late june so my colleague will need to begin on his own but we are meeting tomorrow to start working on how to pace the courses to accomodate that. Unfortunatly the students don’t even want to hear the word ‘environment’ anymore, don’t buy the book and only cram at the end for the exams……In a way that is good- we will offer them something completly new and different and fun- but the word is out that the course is ‘bad’!
The values one will surely be deepened by what strategy we did with the other course, and like you said, the Earth Democracy/Council of all Beings takes ‘rights and justice’ and topics of ‘ownership and makes current understandings redundant and evokes others.
thanks again!
Orla
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Yes, indeed! It seems as if we are ‘lost in translation’ and perhaps muddled within the reframing process. It is not the first time humans reframed themselves at fundamental levels. A comprehensive exploration of these times in history is crucial if we are to avoid the increasing mis-perceptions of what the term ‘religion’ means and can begin to embrace oneanother in celebration for the work that needs to be done.
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Good Morning, Namaste from India! This morning I attended the AMS sponsored course taught by our own DTJ member Michael Duffy named ‘Using Cosmic Education to teach Peace and Social Justice’. Michael stressed the importance of Maria Montessori’s original vision of Cosmic Education and how that signature pedagogy supports and fosters integral understanding….and a resulting life practice of peace and social justice. The Montessori method of cosmic education recognizes that each child has a cosmic task. From our understanding (in this case of our common ancestry based on our Universe Story/Big History etc) we have a cosmic task based on our common ancestry, unity in diversity and our interdependence. My interest is in cosmology…the two sided process of understanding and practice that we pass on through the generations. It is either integral or ‘Cartesian’. Michael offered the global community the original integral vision of Montessori and her pedagogical method to foster it in schools. It is only through an integral cosmology that young people today will be able to understand and practice lives supporting Earths flourishing with peace and justice for all. In the question and answer session Michael conveyed the importance of fostering ‘understanding’ and not ‘guilt’ in relation to life practices e.g. what are the consequences of consumptive behaviors for environmental and social justice issues….always coming back to understanding …so that the child develops skills of discernment based not on ‘shoulds’ but on an integral understanding…and each age group has interventions based on their capacity for understanding (these levels/panes of development are part of the DTJ conversation already)
Thank you DTJ network for facilitating and promoting the various strands active around the planet for promoting integral understanding ..our hope for the future as we each practice our cosmic task supporting the flourishing of all.
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It is wonderful to have parallel models to integrate and make our classroom experiences richer, appropriate and transformative.
The Earth Charter is a crucial document because it outlines principles for life practice based on the understanding of our evolutionary universe and integral understanding. I have used it in retreat settings and with a few school teacher training programmes and one CSR programme only after spending extensive time with the story…the understanding has to be there before the integral principles can be practiced. The Earth Charter Plus 10 conference was in India a few years ago…a simultaneous one with others around the world. I had submitted a paper showing Tarumitra as a model of honoring the Earth charter in both understanding and practice but it was not accepted. The conference was devoted to ‘environmental ‘practices of various schools and a few industries and some arts but I doubt if the children knew at a fundamental level ‘why’ they were doing what they were doing, becuase the integral understanding is not there. Once they graduate and move out of school they will enter corporations with visions and practices not based on the understanding of our integral nature. Ireland has the highest number of Green flag Schools (see FEE international programme)yet also the 6th highest carbon footprint. The major cause of death there in young men now is suicide…so using homiletic language and practices to care for Earth, without the integral understanding is not good. The Montessori Cosmic Education would be a perfect place to embellish life through the principles of the Earth Charter. -
I watched cosmos last night back in India. He certainly addressed all the theories of the deniers. I found the visuals very dramatic and evocative– in particular the blue colour given to gasses as they emerged from industry, planes cars and bldgs-making the invisible visible. He also brought up the issue of responsiblity…which of course is the the response value from the reverence value all of us share once understanding ourselves within the big history of the deep time journey. How many more episodes are there left?
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thank you Rich for developing this resource. I have a dinosaur phone but will get my husband to download it to try it out where we are in India. Last year I had met a woman who was a tour guide and writing walking tours of Mumbai for APP download- you are writing a walking tour of the cosmos. Perhaps your project could be developed for geological walking tours of various areas….eg the little big history of Mumbai or Kolkata or San Rafael etc etc. Regarding education please read my thesis from the resource list. I was addressing somatic and narrative ways of knowing, ‘sonar’…the particular sense of unity we have culturally supressed. Evoking that vestigial sense is what we are all about. There are other educators far more explicit than Dewey in regards to ’experience’ included in my thesis. The other limitation with Dewey is that he does not recognize other educational forms in culture which also teach ( family, work and recreation). This limitation is not just with Dewey. The limitation is a big one because it ignores the larger teaching network of culture, the cosmology of a particular culture (either an integral one or a segmented one) and how it is passed on from generation to generation in life practice within the four forms. Thanks again for your creative idea and the importance of getting folks outside…..no child or any folks should be left behind inside! Orla
ps….i love the visual of the big bang aftermath of us at the age of 300,000 years. I always point out that it is our ‘sonagram’! -
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Hello Noha and Di
When I am using the term integral in my mind……..it is what the name of the experience/sense of unity is called. (you can see the search of that sense in my PhD in the resource section. Its also in other documents I have on DTJ.
I am somewhat familiar with the work of Ken Wilbur but he has not shaped my thought process. Integral systems thinkers (in my intro section) have shaped me (those we think of as scientists now) particular poets, and mystics from various traditions through the years. Integral is kind of a buzz word now in the community I am associated with professionaly (Jesuit) eg Laudato Si …Integral Ecology….In order to try and make any inroads, make sense to people, I need to use terms they are using…..and then to deepen and broaden them if possible.Noha I am giving you the link for the PDF film discussion guide of the film, The World Before Her.
http://pov-tc.pbs.org/pov/downloads/2013/pov-worldbeforeher-discussion-guide-color.pdfI love the film as an entry point of discussing our issues,of fundamentalism, culture lite etc etc, but have not had the opportunity to do so. You can see, from the PDF that the questions are obviously anthropocentric. Its so sad……..nothing will change if a discussion following the film flows along these lines. However we could work on developing questions more ‘integral’ in quality. The women are ideologically tied to descriptions we have made culturally down through time…to such an extent that we have no tie with aspects of bodily experience (integral) Earth, Universe.fundamental Mystery. (as process)
Our faith traditions emerged in bioregions to explain Mystery/existence…communal systems of harmony and balance with human/nonhuman…..but we are far from that now. The Mystery, told in the language of science ,offers humanity a solid place to stand…..and even watch as the faith traditions emerged, and what is necessary now …as we engage the fourfold wisdom conversation science, religion, women and indigenous peoples.
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