Democratic Forest Trusts (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.Democratic trusts with leadership elected by citizen-members promise to solve many of the problems afflicting both traditional government and corporate ownership of forestlands. This article explores these issues in some depth.Complexity and the Dream of Human Control of Eco-Systems (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.The title captures it. I then explore the kinds of institutions compatible with both nature and the modern world that are implied from this analysis.Rethinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully With Nature (PDF)The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Winter, 1997.Modernity is usually considered a wrong turn in terms of respect for and sustaining the environment. I argue the reality is more complex, for modernity has freed us from personal dependence on agriculture, ended the economic value of children, radically reduced the likelihood of large scale wat, and shifted much production to intellectual rather than material capital. This partially decouples society from nature, which gives us important opportunities as well as problems.Towards an Ecocentric Political Economy (PDF)The Trumpeter, Fall, 1996.This paper begins my effort at showing how liberal modernity can be harmonized with an ecocentric perspective on our relationship with the natural world. It is a corrective to much “free market environmental” literature that sacrifices Nature to money as well as to anti-liberal attacks by well-meaning but economically naïve environmentalists.Unexpected Harmonies: Self-Organization in Liberal Modernity and Ecology (PDF)The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, 10:1, Winter 1993This is my initial paper exploring how what I term ‘evolutionary liberal’ thought can be an important means by which society and nature can be brought into greater harmony. The other Trumpeter papers build on it.Deep Ecology and Liberalism: The Greener Implications of Evolutionary Liberalism (PDF)Review of Politics, Fall, 1996.Liberal thought and deep ecology are usually regarded as mutually exclusive. But the “evolutionary” tradition offers a way to integrate the two through commonalties in the work of David Hume, Michael Polanyi, Arne Naess, and Aldo Leopold, providing a stronger foundation for liberalism while strengthening the case for an ecocentric ethic.(Related subjects: Ecology)Saving Western Towns: A Jeffersonian Green Proposal (PDF)in Writers on the Range, Karl Hess and John Baden, eds., University Press of Colorado, 1998.Developmental pressures in the rural and small town West involve three groups: long term residents, new arrivals, and environmentalists. Today their interests often conflict. This conflict is in part the outcome of institutions which prevent harmonizing competing interests. The concept of developmental trusts, both for rural regions and for small communities offers a means whereby these interests can be harmonized for the benefit of all concerned.(Related subjects: Politics)Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism (PDF)Critical Review, 6: 2-3, 1992.Murray Bookchin is considered a leading radical environmental theorist. However, his analysis is incapable of leading humankind towards a more respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. Criticisms of Bookchin from both the deep ecology and evolutionary liberal perspective complement one another, pointing the way towards a better understanding of how modernity relates to the environment.The paper as a whole offers an early discussion of issues that are more clearly addressed in later papers, particularly Deep Ecology and Liberalism (1996) and the three Trumpeter articles in 1997, 1996, and 1993. However, there are other ideas in the article which have not been developed more thoroughly elsewhere.
Given the negativity that so easily can come to seem the defining feature of this society, it’s good to be reminded of why so many of us push back against the forces of dark ignorance.
Drew Dellinger’s poem is a wonderful statement of why, and a reminder to us all that good people of great wisdom are found in every spiritual community.
Carolina Prophet
Poem for Thomas Berry
we were dreamed
in the cores
of the stars.
like the stars,
we were meant to unfold
we were dreamed in the depths
of the undulating ocean.
like the waves,
we were meant to unfold
like bursting supernovas, birthing elements,
which crucibles give rise to creativity?
the world makes us
its instrument.
Father Thomas,
speaking for stars, in a voice
old as wind: ‘origin moments
are supremely important’
what are the origins
of a prophet?
found in syllables of Sanskrit,
or Chinese characters?
in a decade of midnight prayer?
in childhood epiphanies
rising like heat?
blue Carolina sky;
dark pines;
crickets;
birds;
sunlight
on the lilies,
in the meadow,
across the creek.
born in Carolina
on the eve of the Great War,
Saturn conjoining Pluto in the sky.
raised in a world of wires and wheels,
watching dirt roads turn to pavement.
brooding intensity,
measuring loss
when others could see only progress.
white hair communing with angels of Earth
Father Thomas, reminding us
we are constantly bathed in shimmering memories
of originating radiance
we are constantly bathed in shimmering memories
of originating radiance
the psychic stars:
the conscious soil:
this thin film of atmosphere;
and only gravity
holding the sea from the stars.
when a vision of the universe takes hold
in your mind, your soul becomes vast as the cosmos.
when the mind is silent,
everything is sacred.
like the spiral
like the lotus
like the waves
like the trees
like the stars,
we were meant to unfold.
posted June 2, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Drew has written a wonderful tribute to Thomas Berry. Thank you for sharing it here.
posted June 2, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Nice that the first person from whom I’m hearing about Thomas’s passing away is a Pagan (though I have good friends who are Christian followers of his). Thanks for passing that on, Gus. He was a remarkable figure.
posted June 4, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Wow! Uncle Brother would have cherished your keen insight and the magnificent choice
of words in your poem. I will share it with others in our family.
Thomas was my uncle. For eight years, he lived 100 yards from my daughter and me at the end of Four Farms Road.
I want you to know that he had interviews and guests up to a week before he died.
Last weekend, he developed nemonia and passed quietly Monday morning. My sister was with him and said he had a happy death…