Posts labeled Cosmology
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"Even the African concept of time found its way into southern 'timelessness" and slow pace of life, explaining in part a southern interpretation of time that is strongly rooted in the African concept of time. We can conclude that much which is 'American' was at one time 'African.'
--Joseph E. Holloway, Africanisms in American Culture" (2005)
"It is hard to imagine what human life would be like without oral narrative, for it is chiefly through storytelling that people possess a past. It is through prized stories, often enshrined in a ritual context, that a complex religious dimension is added to life."
--John D. Niles,
"Homo Narrans: The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature" (1999)
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
You're Invited to Drew Dellinger's Ph.D. Dissertation Defense!
Friday, April 27th, 2-4pm
CIIS -- California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission St., (between 10th & 11th) Room 306
San Francisco, CA
Open to the public! Come early; space is limited.
(This is the abstract for my doctoral dissertation. I am finishing a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion, with a concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, at CIIS -- the California Institute of Integral Studies.)
The Mountaintop Vision:
Martin Luther King’s Cosmology of Connection
This dissertation asserts that Martin Luther King Jr.’s social justice vision was based on a worldview of interconnection. This work examines cosmological and ecological dimensions of King’s thought that have been largely overlooked in previous King scholarship.
King’s vision connected racism with war and poverty, stressed the unity of peoples and movements around the planet, and recognized the interwoven nature of the universe, which he described as, “the interrelated structure of all reality.” His holistic view of the cosmos and society is the hallmark of what I call his Mountaintop Vision.
In the last years of his life, which I call his Mountaintop Period (1966-68), King identified systemic links between social justice issues that were largely viewed as separate, fusing them into a unified critique that fundamentally challenged the modern system. This work articulates six aspects of King’s Mountaintop Vision: (1) connecting justice to the cosmos, (2) emphasizing economic justice, (3) confronting systemic racism, (4) challenging U. S. militarism, (5) exemplifying the prophetic path, and (6) building a global movement.
King’s worldview constituted a cosmology of justice in which interdependence and compassion are woven into the fabric of the cosmos itself. In King’s view, “the universe is on the side of justice.”
This dissertation examines King’s speeches, sermons, and writings to demonstrate his vision of radical connection. I argue that King’s view of existence as a “network of mutuality,” in which “all life is interrelated,” should be recognized as an early expression of systems thinking and ecological consciousness. King’s Mountaintop Vision linked social justice, cosmology, and ecology in a way that may yet provide guidance for our future.
Drew Dellinger
©2012
"A realization of the inter-relationships within an ecosystem is essential for man's continued occupancy on earth. We cannot go on polluting our air or our rivers without affecting all life. We cannot, for example, continue with impunity to increase the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere at the rate it has been increased over the past fifty years. The consequences of such interference with the biosphere, the world ecosystem, would be disastrous climatic change."
--Raymond F. Dasmann, A Different Kind of Country (1968)
#drewdellingersluminouslibrary
"We see, with deep feeling, that if Man is no longer (as one could formerly conceive him) the immobile centre of an already completed world--on the other hand from now on he tends, in our experience, to represent the very leading shoot of a universe that is in process, simultaneously, of material 'complexification' and psychic interiorisation: both processes continually accelerating.
It is a vision whose impact should strike our minds with such force as to raise to a higher level, or even to revolutionise, our philosophy of existence."
--Teilhard de Chardin (January 10, 1950)
Man's Place in Nature
“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing them with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
--Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System" (1965)
"Crompton argues that environmentalists need to do more to challenge the individualistic worldview in their campaign work.... The research coming out of Yale's Cultural Cognition Project...has found that a major determinant of whether a person rejects the scientific consensus on climate change is whether they have a strongly 'hierarchical' or 'individualistic' worldview...78 per cent of subjects who display an 'egalitarian' and 'communitarian' worldview believe that most scientists agree climate change is happening (which is true) - compared with only 19 per cent of those with a 'hierarchical' and 'individualist' worldview.
For me, it follows from this that part of being an effective environmentalist is trying to win more people over to a worldview in line with the laws of physics and chemistry, rather than offering shopping advice and touting 'market-based solutions."
--Naomi Klein (NY Times, December 7, 2011)
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#readthomasberry
Bill Twist, Pia Banerjee, Lynne Twist, John Perkins, Drew Dellinger, Jon Symes. Here's a photo from the panel that followed the Awakening the Dreamer "Super Symposium." Yesterday's event was the unveiling of the newest version of the Symposium.
In 2003-2004, Drew was a key member of the team that developed and designed the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium. The Symposium has now been used in 60 countries, in 14 languages.
"To me, cosmology and empire are antithetical. Empire becomes a cosmology. It's a pseudo-cosmology."
--Matthew Fox
(Nov. 4, 2004. From the journals of Drew Dellinger)
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Esalen workshop - Drew Dellinger Join Drew Dellinger at Esalen in the beautiful area of Big Sur, California for an amazing workshop "Living the New Story: Cosmology, Justice, Poetry, and the Planet". Sept. 23-35, 2011
*NEWSFLASH!: This workshop will include a "surprise" presentation by Drew and the incredible Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche.
For registration and information: http://webapp.esalen.org/workshops/9770
“Instinctively rather than reflectively he had reached the conclusion that the whole universe was for him not object but subject—it was he."
--Romain Rolland, on Walt Whitman, in The Life of Vivekananda (1931)
"Myths grow like crystals, according to their own, recurrent pattern; but there must be a suitable core to start their growth. Mediocrities or cranks have no myth-generating power; they may create a fashion, but it soon peters out."
--Arthur Koestler (1959)
"Jesus Christ was not a white man."
--Martin Luther King Jr.
Scope the stars and contemplate the cosmos. I dare you to watch this and remain unmoved. (Great music too.)
February 11, 2011 MSNBC anchor, Tamron Hall, speaking to Egyptian opposition leader, Moustafa El Gindy, on Egyptian Independence Day:
Tamron Hall: You used the word 'dream.' Did you ever imagine this dream of the leadership being ousted there could actually happen in the hardest days that we've watched?
Moustafa El Gindy: Yes. Yes, I dreamed. Yes, I will keep on dreaming and I will teach my kids to dream. Yes, I was one of not-a-lot of people who still had hope. And I was telling them, 'Believe in your country. Believe in your country.' I will teach my kids to dream. Anybody that I will meet, I will tell them, 'dream.' Dream means you live. Dream is life. And we will dream. We are 5000 years old civilization and we are still dreaming, and we will keep on dreaming. Egypt is a dreamland. Like America is a dreamland, Egypt is a dreamland."
[News Nation with Tamron Hall, MSNBC, Feb. 11, 2011]
It would not be correct to say that a creation myth explains existence, for the function of myth is not to explain, but rather to connect the known and the unknown; to connect our everyday world with the Unfathomable Beyond that initiates, informs, infuses, and enfolds this world.
[See Scheub, The Poem in the Story, p. 184]
The Starry Night (1889) "First of all the twinkling stars vibrated, but remained motionless is space, then all the celestial globes were united into one series of movements....Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained."
--Vincent Van Gough
Check out my new article in Tikkun magazine, "Five Lessons from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement."
We need to act logically. And mythologically.
wow. if you take a nap on the shortest day of the year then it becomes even shorter.
i think the stars are waiting for something to happen.
"We were made for the stars."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1966)
Thomas Berry at Prescott College (Feb. 14, 1992):
"I have been deeply interested in the small American college for some time, and for the last 10-15 years I've been saying that...the small college that declares itself to place its teaching within the comprehensive story of the universe and within the dynamics of the natural life systems of the planet Earth, would have a significant future.
I am proposing Prescott College as the first Ecozoic college known to the human community.
I have a feeling about Prescott College....The future belongs, in every profession, to those who are integral with the natural world, particularly, I think, education.
What I suggest to small colleges is that they work out their program, articulate their identity, and write up the thing, and then take out a full-page ad in The New York Times: 'Prescott College is based on the story of the universe and the survival of the planet Earth...and is the best possible preparation for all professions,'
The universe, throughout its vast extent in space, and its long sequence of transformations in time, is a single, multiform celebratory event. So the key issue at Prescott College has to be celebration. Celebration is the key to the future. It's the key to human energies. You can't have energies if you don't celebrate. Prescott College should be a place that celebrates the universe, that celebrates the deep mystery of things, in a meaningful way. And that is what education is. It's knowing how to enter creatively in celebration. It's knowing the universe, and knowing how to celebrate because we know the Great Celebration.
...What we need to do is to move into the future as a group, as a community, as the community of Prescott College. No one of us can do very much without everybody else."
--Thomas Berry at Prescott College,
February 14, 1992
(from the notebooks of Drew Dellinger)
"We have built...instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space....But in spite of this something basic is missing. In spite of all our scientific and technological progress we suffer from a kind of poverty of the spirit."
--Martin Luther King Jr., "Sense of Priorities," Feb. 6, 1968, Washington, DC
love is the substance of the soul. soul is the substance of the universe.
come into the consciousness of clouds. enter the frequency of the flickering flame.
We need stories that can reconcile us to our history. Stories that show how the past lives in the present are necessary for freeing the future.
"The historical and the cosmic can be seen as a single process."
--Thomas Berry
"Mythological thinking is striving for a total world view.'
--James Barr
OK, this is becoming one of my pet peeves.
I've been in conversations about the ecological situation, and the fate of the planet, at least since I started college 20 years ago. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say something like this:
"You know, the Earth will be fine; It's humans who will be extinct."
Or "The planet will survive just fine, it's just that humans won't be around." Or something like this.
I'm sure I must have heard this 45 times or more. In fact, I think I've even said it myself. Year after year, it keeps getting repeated as if it's a clever, insightful, or accurate rejoinder.
But it's not.
Just last Saturday night I heard it said by a noted environmental thinker, Stewart Brand. Brand is the visionary who created The Whole Earth Catalog and called for a photograph of Earth from space. Brand is also a bit of a contrarian. He's not afraid to advocate a controversial idea, such as nuclear power or GMOs. But even knowing the contrarian side of Brand, I was stunned to hear him repeat the old canard about how 'the Earth will be fine..."
Here's the context:
This was a panel of ecological folks that followed a screening of an excellent new documentary, "Climate Refugees." Brand and others were discussing the immense threat that climate change poses to humanity and civilization. This is, of course, a clear and compelling point that we all need to understand. But to my mind, Brand stretched the point too far when he implied that the only threat or primary threat was to civilization. Specifically he said "Life will be fine." And later, "The planet's OK."
This was more than enough to send my pet peeve sensors into high alert.
But it doesn't matter who's recycling this golden oldie, because whether it's an environmental legend, your earnest college roommate, or an annoying co-worker, here's why it's totally wrong.
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"The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human--at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience."
--Thomas Berry, who passed one year ago today.
"It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (Dec. 24, 1967)
"The earth community is a wilderness community that will not be bargained with; nor will it simply be studied or examined or made an object of any kind; nor will it be domesticated or trivialized as a setting for vacation indulgence, except under duress and by oppressions which it cannot escape. When this does take place in an abusive way, a vengenace awaits the human, for when the other living species are violated so extensively, the human itself is imperiled."
--THOMAS BERRY (The Dream of the Earth, p. 2)
Photo: Bret Webster
Martin Luther King Jr.:
Along with the scientific and technological revolution, we have also witnessed a world-wide freedom revolution over the last few decades….In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation. But on another and more important level, what is happening in the United States today is a significant part of world development.
We live in a day, said the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, “when civilization is shifting its basic outlook; a major turning point in history where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed.” What we are seeing now is a freedom explosion, the realization of “an idea whose time has come,” to use Victor Hugo’s phrase. The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses….All over the world like a fever, freedom is spreading in the widest liberation movement in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the exploitation of their races and lands. They are awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave….For several centuries the direction of history flowed from the nations and societies of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in “conquests” of various sorts. That period, the era of colonialism, is at an end. East is moving West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are “shifting our basic outlooks.”
--Martin Luther King Jr.
"Chapter V: Where Are We Going," pp.169-70, from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, (1967)
Here's a quote someone sent me recently, from a talk I gave at Esalen in October.
"To look at the worldview that has brought us to the current planetary moment, we have to look at racism, systemic racism, as well as misogyny and patriarchy, classism, militarism. But I think we really have to take a long, hard look at systemic racism in order to understand the worldview that we're in right now, and the transformations that are happening. So I think that looking at a wider range of voices and looking at the history of genocide and oppression and slavery and segregation and the struggles of resistance against that, to build liberty, compassion and justice, is integral to the work of [the] Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness department...."
--Drew Dellinger,
Oct. 26, 2009 - presentation with Richard Tarnas on "Martin Luther King Jr.: Life and Transits." Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA.
I think it is true, as someone said recently, that as brilliant as Obama is as a communicator, the administration has too often lost control of the narrative in this first year, or ceded control of the narrative to others.
It's been distressing to see the most lunatic narratives gaining power in these fearful and anxious and economically desparate times. And to see the right wing's rabid sway over the corporate mainstream media. Right-wing fearmongers have had far too much control of the narrative, from health care, to climate change, to Van Jones, to ACORN, and on down the line. All to the detriment of our discourse and democracy.
The concluding paragraph to this piece by Robert Reich illustrates the president's struggle to sculpt the story:
"But our President is not comfortable wielding blame. He will not give the public the larger narrative of private-sector greed, its nefarious effect on the American public at this dangerous juncture, and the private sector's corruption of the democratic process. He has so far eschewed any major plan to get corporate and Wall Street money out of politics. He can be indignant- as when he lashed out at the "fat cats" on Wall Street - but his indignance is fleeting, and it is no match for the faux indignance of the right that blames government for all that ails us."
--Robert Reich
Obama, following his often noble, sometimes futile, instinct toward reconcilliation, has thus far failed to craft a compelling narrative with the emotional, rhetorical and spiritual power that animated the campaign and electrified the world.
The success of his policies and his presidency, as well as the hopes of so many struggling people, depend on Obama's ability to wield the power story and activate a narrative that will motivate the nation.
If we could speed up time we’d see that the universe is an insane flashing blossom; a fireworks burst of light-stars-galaxies-planets-oceans-life-awareness, in the blink of an eye, like a deity winking.
A friend recently emailed me asking for a simple definition of "cosmology." Below is my reply.
--Drew
It's not always easy to find a simple definition of cosmology that covers it fully, so when I present, I generally throw out a flurry along these lines (and some of these definitions are influenced by the ones used by Brian Swimme and Miriam MacGillis over the years):
Most simply, "cosmology" is the study of the cosmos. (Or the study of the universe.)
In terms of modern science, "cosmology" is the study of the origin and development of the universe as a whole ("in its totality" also works, and avoids any confusion that could arise from the fact that "whole" and "hole" are homonyms.)
Swimme would add this: "Cosmology" is the study of the origin and development of the universe in its totality, and the role of the human in the universe. Science would tend to ignore that last part about "the role of the human in the universe." To a 'new cosmologist' like Swimme, that dimension is crucial.
But the scientific study of the origin and development of the universe (the "Big Bang" theory; the study of the galaxies, and the large-scale structure of the cosmos; astronomy and astrophysics) is only half of a full definition of "cosmology."
"Cosmology" is also a worldview or 'cultural story.' (A paradigm or "cosmo-vision")
To capture this sense, I say, "cosmology" is the story that a culture tells itself about how the world came to be, and how we fit into it.
So I think that a complete definition of "cosmology" (even a simple one) should include these two major aspects: the 'scientific' and the 'cultural'. "Cosmology" is both 'scientific study' and 'cultural story.'
So to reiterate,
"Cosmology" is the study of the origin and development of the universe as a whole, and the role of the human in the universe. It is also the story that a culture tells itself about how the world came to be, and how we fit into it.
(One last wrinkle is that the mainstream definition of "cosmology" and particularly "cosmologist" leans toward the 'scientific study' part, so almost any time you hear the word "cosmologist," it would be in reference to a physicist, astronomer, astrophysicist, scientist, etc. The 'cultural story' aspect of "cosmology" is less understood, though that is changing.)
Hope this is helpful,
Drew
"If we are to have peace on earth…we must develop a world perspective."
--Martin Luther King Jr., December 24, 1967
"Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!"
--Commander Frank Borman, Apollo 8, December 24, 1968
Forty years ago, on Christmas Eve 1968, an astronaut orbiting the moon took a photograph that changed the world. As we near the end of the 40th anniversary of one of the most heart-breaking years in our history, it is worth remembering that the year of trauma ended in triumph.
As '68 dawned, the Tet offensive dispelled illusions of easy victory in Vietnam. Later that spring, in the early evening of April 4, one of the world's most visible and visionary activists for justice was shot down in Memphis, triggering waves of outrage and sadness, as more than 100 cities burst into flames of despair and rebellion. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles.
Throughout '68, student protests and general uprisings broke out in Europe, the Americas, and elsewhere. In Mexico City, the Summer Olympics set the stage for the raised-fist defiance of John Carlos and Tommie Smith. In August, police and demonstrators clashed violently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
This was the troubled world that the crew of Apollo 8 left behind in December, as they became the first humans to journey around the moon. Just as it seemed the world was falling apart, the astronauts on Apollo 8 took a photograph that would bring us all together, and forever change our image of the planet and ourselves.
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Thomas Berry at the Temple of Minerva, Assisi, Italy, 1991 Thomas Berry at the Temple of Minerva, Assisi, Italy, 1991 (Photo: Drew Dellinger)
The Center for Ecozoic Studies has published a special issue of their journal, "The Ecozoic," focused on Thomas Berry, the influential environmental writer and thinker. Over 150 of Berry's friends, students, and appreciators contributed reflections on Thomas and his work, including noted activist Joanna Macy and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai.
I was grateful to be able to contribute the following piece, "Travels with Thomas Berry," in honor of Father Thomas and his immensely significant work and profound cosmological vision.
--Drew
Travels with Thomas Berry
By Drew Dellinger
Thomas Berry can shift your worldview with a single sentence.
For example, imagine that one minute you are just a simple person, thinking simple thoughts, and then the next minute you hear Tom Berry say: "The universe--throughout its vast extent in space, and its long sequence of transformations in time--is a single, multiform, celebratory event." And furthermore, Berry says, you, as a human, "are that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself."
(Say what? The universe is a celebration . . . and I am the universe thinking about itself?)
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Tom Berry -- Greensboro, North Carolina Tom Berry -- Greensboro, North Carolina (Photo: Drew Dellinger)
This weekend, the Sophia Center in Oakland, CA, hosted a wonderful conference called "Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology," honoring and exploring the work of Father Thomas.
Brian Swimme opened the gathering with a great talk, chronicling his personal journey with Tom and elucidating the remarkable experience of being in the presence of a sage. One of the signs of a sage, said Brian, is that, in their company, you recognize who you are. They awaken in you a fuller, deeper sense of self.
Swimme told a story of eating at Thomas' favorite spot, the Broadway Diner in the Bronx. As the waitress refilled their coffee cups and walked away, Thomas said to Brian, 'There's no way you can repay her for that act. That isn't a monetary transaction. That's an infinite act of kindness. She has just poured her life into our lives.' Like Dante, perceiving the Divine in the person of Beatrice, Thomas Berry had the ability to see the infinity in an ordinary instant.
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