A Conversation Piece for April 20th: discussions could offer an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of “Earth, our Home” triggered by this first paragraph in the Earth Charter Preamble:
“Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life’s evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all peoples. The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust. “
This session will generate an exchange of ideas on the importance of nurturing our capacity to care for our Home and the well-being of all life on this beautiful planet. We will look at the essential role of education in supporting this process and identify a few steps that are taking place (what and how) to reorient our efforts towards a more caring and planetary conscious society.
This exchange is an aspect of re-spect – i.e. regaining perspective on the meaning, matter and manner of life.
Date of some key books
1972 Only One Earth – Widely networked
1979 Gaia – Lovelock with Magulis
1985 Gaia Atlas of Planet Management – Widely networked
1998 The Symbiotic Planet – Margulis with Lovelock
2000 Sacred Gaia – Primavesi – Fwd by Lovelock
GARFOSS* offers another plunge into wisdom diffused throughout our Gaian sphere
EARTH DAY
To unearth harmony from our planetary disarray,
Penetrate the Babel of human voices throughout our planet,
Avoiding panicking before poor pronunciation
To detect within the flow of languages
The essence of life’s meaning, and so
Much-needed Indigenous wisdom and compassion.
A word from Africa, ‘Ubuntu’, ‘I am because we are’
Two from Native America, ‘N’dilnabamuk’—’All my relations.’
And ‘Kciye’—’Harmony with the natural world’
Others to be savoured from Greece and Italy,
Or glimpses of wisdom everywhere from Alaska to Zambesi,
Though it be hard pronouncing what we learn from others:
But the significance is mind expanding.
Eternity’s profound reality lies in wise interpretation,
Evolving endlessly through the kin-dom of this symbiotic
Earthed-paradise, the forgotten ‘G’ declaring it to be
Creativity in the ‘ground of all being;
Reconnecting all local kith and kin to the global family.
Indeed, reconnecting to the cosmic domain benign.
So, expand your imagination,
Let your imagery run free, that you might discern,
What it is to be in dialogue with every inspired agency
Of the world now known anew as one Kin[G]dom
within its timeless cosmic whole.
GARFOSS 22/04/21
*Gathered & Refashioned From Online’s Sundry Sources
