Posts on deep ecology

All of us are walking communities of bacteria

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

All of us are walking communities of bacteria. The world shimmers, a pointillist landscape made of tiny living beings.

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile.

Each being in the universe is the result of 13.8 billion years of creative development

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Each being in the universe is the result of 13.8 billion years of creative development.

Earth Democracy connects the particular to the universal, the local to the global

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Earth Democracy connects the particular to the universal, the local to the global.

Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight.

Gaia theory forces a planetary perspective

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Gaia theory forces a planetary perspective. It is the health of the planet that matters, not that of some individual species.

Humans are that part of the Earth that has awakened to itself

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Humans are that part of the Earth that has awakened to itself.

Humans on Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Humans on Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention.

I'd look for life on Mars in the composition of its atmosphere, not by crawling around looking for bugs

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’d look for life on Mars in the composition of its atmosphere, not by crawling around looking for bugs.

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

If you understand that you are made of stellar material, you understand your kinship with every other being

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you understand that you are made of stellar material, you understand your kinship with every other being.

Independence is a political, not a scientific term

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Independence is a political, not a scientific term.

Indigenous knowledge is sophisticated knowledge, not primitive knowledge

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Indigenous knowledge is sophisticated knowledge, not primitive knowledge.

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Instructions for living a life: / Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Life on Earth is an elaborate and intricate symbiotic phenomenon

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Life on Earth is an elaborate and intricate symbiotic phenomenon.

Philosophers and scientists have made the same mistake: they assumed the environment was fixed

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Whenever philosophers and scientists have tried to explain how life evolved, they have made the same mistake: they’ve assumed that the environment was fixed and that the organisms simply adapted to it. But that’s not how it works.

Seed is not commodity. It is the embodiment of millions of years of evolution

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Seed is not commodity. It is the embodiment of millions of years of evolution.

Symbiosis, living together in physical contact, is a concept neglected in evolution

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I think the concept of symbiosis, of living together in physical contact, is a very important concept in evolution that has been neglected.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.

The concept that the biosphere is able to regulate the climate is the Gaia hypothesis

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The concept that the biosphere is able to regulate the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable level for life is the Gaia hypothesis.

The Earth is more than just a home, it's a living system and we are part of it

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Earth is more than just a home, it’s a living system and we are part of it.

The Earth is not just our environment. The Earth is our mother

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Earth is not just our environment. The Earth is our mother.

The enclosure of the commons began with land; today it is being extended to life itself

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The enclosure of the commons began with land; today it is being extended to life itself.

The future depends on whether we can learn to see ourselves as Earth

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The future depends on whether we can learn to see ourselves as Earth.

The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears.

The greatest discovery of the scientific enterprise is that we live in a developing universe

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The greatest discovery of the scientific enterprise is that we live in a developing universe.

The romantic vision of biotic nature as a cooperative venture is scientifically accurate

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The romantic vision of biotic nature as a cooperative venture is far more scientifically accurate than the view of nature as violent and competitive.

The universe is not a collection of objects but a communion of subjects

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The universe is not a collection of objects but a communion of subjects.

The universe is the primary sacred community, the primary revelation, the primary text

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The universe is the primary sacred community, the primary revelation, the primary text.

The view of evolution as chronic bloody competition dissolves before a new view of cooperation

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The view of evolution as chronic bloody competition among individuals and species, a popular distortion of Darwin’s notion of ‘survival of the fittest,’ dissolves before a new view of continual cooperation.

The world offers itself to your imagination

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The world offers itself to your imagination.

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

We abide in a symbiotic world

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We abide in a symbiotic world.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

We are the first generation of humans to know the story of the universe

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We are the first generation of humans to know the story of the universe.

We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years.

We inter-are with the rain forests, the water table, and the atmosphere

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We inter-are with the rain forests, the water table, and the atmosphere.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over.

You do not have to be good...

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.

Profile: Alan Drengson

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Alan Drengson (1934-2022) was a Canadian philosopher and educator who served as close collaborator with Arne Naess and founding editor of The Trumpeter journal, becoming a key voice in articulating and spreading deep ecology philosophy in North America.

As Professor of Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Drengson founded The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy in 1983, providing the first academic journal dedicated to deep ecology and ecophilosophy. Through decades of editorial work, he created space for diverse voices exploring relationships between philosophy, ecology, and spiritual practice.

Profile: Bill Devall

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Bill Devall (1938-2009) was an American sociologist who co-authored Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (1985) with George Sessions. The book introduced deep ecology philosophy to North American audiences and examined the philosophical, psychological, and sociological dimensions of the environmental movement.

Born in Kansas City, Devall earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas and graduate degrees from the University of Hawaii and the University of Oregon. His doctoral thesis examined governance in the Sierra Club. He taught briefly at the University of Alberta before joining the Sociology Department at Humboldt State University in 1968, where he remained for his teaching career.

Profile: Fritjof Capra

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Fritjof Capra (born 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist and systems theorist. His work examines connections between physics, biology, systems theory, and ecological philosophy.

Born in Vienna, Capra earned his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Vienna in 1966. He conducted research in particle physics at the University of Paris (1966-1968), University of California Santa Cruz (1968-1970), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1970), Imperial College London (1971-1974), and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (1975-1988).

Profile: George Sessions

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

George Sessions (1938-2016) was an American philosopher who co-developed the Deep Ecology Platform with Arne Naess. He taught philosophy at Sierra College in Rocklin, California for nearly fifty years, where he served as department chair.

Sessions co-authored Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (1985) with Bill Devall, one of the first comprehensive presentations of deep ecology philosophy for North American readers. The book examined the philosophical, psychological, and social dimensions of the environmental movement, proposing an ecocentric rather than anthropocentric approach to nature.

Quote: "We must find and develop therapies which heal our relations..." Arne Naess

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“We must find and develop therapies which heal our relations with the widest community, that of all living beings.” —Arne Naess

"the major problems in the world.." - Gregory Bateson

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works, and how people think” - Gregory Bateson

Obituary: Stephan Harding and his more-than-planetary legacy

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

September 5, 2024

Harding left us this week, but not without first fulfilling his legacy of touching the hearts of thousands of students from all over the world with his way of teaching about the life of our planet.

My first conversation with Stephan Harding was in England, where I was introduced to him by the visionary monk, author, and activist Satish Kumar. Satish had just invited me to study a master’s program called Holistic Science at Schumacher College, a school he co-founded with Stephan. Sitting across from each other in the garden, full of energy, Stephan asked me, “So, you want to do the master’s program?” Yes! From that afternoon in 2015 onward, he became my mentor, friend, professor, and the supervisor of my thesis, which explored ten possible ways to foster emotional connection with the Amazon rainforest.

Please Call Me by My True Names

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Please call me by my true names, \ so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once, \ so I can see that my joy and pain are one.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

Profile: Aldo Leopold

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Aldo Leopold was an American forester, ecologist, and environmentalist whose concept of the “land ethic” revolutionized conservation thought. His posthumously published masterwork “A Sand County Almanac” (1949) transformed conservation from an economic endeavor into an ethical and spiritual practice, establishing that humans are “plain members and citizens” of the biotic community rather than its conquerors.

Leopold began his career with the U.S. Forest Service in the early 20th century when conservation was primarily economic and utilitarian - focused on resource management for human benefit. Through decades of field experience and philosophical reflection, he developed an ecological approach that recognized the intrinsic value of all members of the biotic community, becoming one of the first to popularize ecological thinking in environmental policy.

Profile: Baruch Spinoza

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch philosopher whose pantheistic philosophy influenced Arne Naess’s development of deep ecology. Writing in the 17th century, Spinoza proposed a monistic view of reality in which God and Nature are identified as one substance.

In his major work Ethics, completed in 1677, Spinoza uses the formula “Deus sive Natura” (God or Nature). He proposes that only one infinite substance exists, and that everything we experience is a mode or expression of this single reality. This view dissolves distinctions between the divine and the natural world.

Profile: Bayo Akomolafe

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Bayo Akomolafe is a Nigerian psychologist, author, and philosopher who offers decolonial perspectives on mental health, spirituality, and environmental activism. Trained in Western psychology but rooted in Yoruba cosmology, he proposes “post-activist” approaches that examine assumptions about agency and social change.

Akomolafe’s philosophy emphasizes “slowing down” and “composting” - allowing old systems and identities to decompose so that new possibilities can emerge. Through The Emergence Network, he facilitates conversations about decolonizing research, education, and activism. His work examines how indigenous African philosophies can contribute to environmental movements while maintaining cultural sovereignty.

Profile: Gary Snyder

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Gary Snyder (born 1930) is an American poet, Zen Buddhist practitioner, and ecological philosopher whose work integrates Beat poetry, Buddhism, and bioregionalism. His collection Turtle Island received the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

Snyder developed his ecological perspective through direct experience - working as fire lookout in the North Cascades, studying anthropology at Reed College, and living in backcountry environments. Fictionalized as Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, he participated in the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement through poetry readings organized with Allen Ginsberg.

Profile: Helena Norberg-Hodge

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Helena Norberg-Hodge is a Swedish author, filmmaker, and activist who promotes economic localization as an alternative to industrial globalization. Through Local Futures, the organization she founded, she advocates for community-based economies that support both ecological sustainability and human well-being.

Norberg-Hodge’s seminal work “Ancient Futures” chronicles 16 years living in Ladakh, a traditional Himalayan society, where she witnessed the devastating impacts of Western-style development on both ecological systems and cultural traditions. This experience revealed how globalization destroys local knowledge, self-reliance, and environmental harmony that indigenous communities maintained for centuries.

Profile: Mohandas Gandhi

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), known as Mahatma (“Great Soul”), developed the concept of satyagraha - nonviolent resistance - during the Indian independence movement. His philosophy of ahimsa (nonviolence) and simple living influenced subsequent social and environmental movements, including Arne Naess’s deep ecology.

Gandhi developed satyagraha while working in South Africa (1893-1914), where he organized resistance to discriminatory laws. The term combines satya (truth) and agraha (firmness or force). He distinguished satyagraha from passive resistance, proposing it as an active form of moral confrontation that seeks to appeal to an opponent’s conscience rather than to coerce through violence.

Profile: Rachel Carson

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose 1962 book “Silent Spring” launched the modern environmental movement by revealing the devastating environmental and health impacts of pesticides. Her courage in challenging the chemical industry transformed how society understands the relationship between human actions and ecological health.

Carson first gained recognition through her lyrical trilogy on the ocean: “The Sea Around Us,” “The Edge of the Sea,” and “Under the Sea-Wind.” These books introduced readers to marine ecosystems’ wonder and complexity, demonstrating interconnections within natural systems.

Profile: Satish Kumar

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Satish Kumar (born 1936) is an Indian-British activist, educator, and editor who founded Schumacher College and edited Resurgence & Ecologist magazine for over forty years. His work integrates ecological sustainability, spiritual values, and nonviolent social change.

Kumar trained as a Jain monk in India, learning principles of ahimsa (non-violence) and reverence for all life. In the 1960s, he undertook an 8,000-mile peace walk from India to America without money, relying on hospitality. This journey demonstrated his commitment to Gandhi’s philosophy of simple living.

Profile: Sulak Sivaraksa

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sulak Sivaraksa is Thailand’s most prominent Buddhist social critic and one of the founders of the international Engaged Buddhism movement. For over five decades, he has articulated a Buddhist approach to social, economic, and environmental issues that directly challenges both Western materialism and traditional Buddhism’s perceived detachment from worldly concerns.

Sivaraksa’s work demonstrates how Buddhist principles of interdependence, non-violence, and mindful consumption offer profound alternatives to industrial capitalism’s destructive relationship with nature. His concept of “Buddhist economics,” developed alongside E.F. Schumacher, proposes development models based on sufficiency, sustainability, and spiritual well-being rather than endless growth.

Profile: Thich Nhat Hanh

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022) was a Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and peace activist whose teachings on “Interbeing” examined the interconnectedness of all phenomena. His development of “Engaged Buddhism” integrated contemplative practice with social and environmental action.

During the Vietnam War, Thich Nhat Hanh worked with war refugees and advocated for peace, leading to decades of exile. He established Plum Village in France, which became one of the most visited monasteries in the West. His “School for Youth and Social Services” helped rebuild villages bombed during the war and later became the Order of Interbeing, a worldwide lay practice community.

Profile: Tyson Yunkaporta

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal Australian scholar and member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He founded the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University and wrote Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2019), which examines how Aboriginal methods of inquiry address contemporary ecological and social challenges.

Yunkaporta’s work brings Aboriginal ways of knowing into dialogue with complexity science, examining how Indigenous thought represents systems thinking developed over tens of thousands of years. His methodology honors Aboriginal traditions of knowledge creation through “yarning” - collaborative dialogue through stories and mutual respect - and “sand talk,” the practice of drawing symbols in earth to convey complex ideas.

Profile: Val Plumwood

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Val Plumwood was an Australian ecofeminist philosopher whose rigorous critique of dualism revealed how Western philosophy’s hierarchical separation of reason from nature, mind from body, and human from animal justified both environmental destruction and social oppression. Her work demonstrated that ecological and feminist struggles share common philosophical roots.

Plumwood’s masterwork “Feminism and the Mastery of Nature” (1993) analyzed how Western thought constructs dualisms that enable domination. Pairs like reason/nature, male/female, and human/animal reinforce each other in what she called “the logic of colonization” - where the inferior (nature, women, animals) becomes resource for the superior.

Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Humanity is the mold to break away from, the crust to break through, the coal to break into fire, / The atom to be split.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Humanity is the mold to break away from, the crust to break through, the coal to break into fire, / The atom to be split.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Hurt Hawks cannot be mended: the wild God has turned / His back on them.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Hurt Hawks cannot be mended: the wild God has turned / His back on them.”

— Robinson Jeffers

I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential.” – Vandana Shiva

I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is / Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is / Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Profile: Mary Oliver

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was an American poet whose accessible nature poetry examined attention to the natural world. Her work invited readers to observe closely the ordinary aspects of nature - grasshoppers, bears, wild geese. She suggested that sustained attention to nature can cultivate direct experience of interconnection.

Oliver’s poetry presented birds, flowers, trees, and animals as subjects that reveal patterns of existence. Her question “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” from “The Summer Day” has become widely known. She proposed that humans are participants in natural processes rather than separate observers.

Profile: Rainer Maria Rilke

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was an Austrian-German poet whose work explored nature, solitude, and human existence. Writing in the early 20th century, Rilke articulated a sense of intimacy with the natural world that examined relationships between self and environment.

Rilke’s work depicts trees, animals, flowers, and mountains not as objects but as presences with whom one shares existence. His concept of “world inner space” (Weltinnenraum) suggested that knowledge comes from allowing the world to arise within consciousness through deep attention and openness. This phenomenological approach to nature proposed a participatory relationship between human awareness and the natural world.

Profile: Robinson Jeffers

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) was an American poet whose philosophy of “inhumanism” examined the non-human world and rejected anthropocentrism. Writing from his stone tower home in Big Sur, California, Jeffers articulated perspectives that influenced deep ecological thinking.

Jeffers’ “inhumanism” proposed shifting attention from humanity to the non-human world. He suggested that human self-focus diminishes capacity to appreciate mountains, oceans, and wild processes of nature. His poetry depicts nature with geological and cosmic scope, situating human events against backgrounds of deep time and vast space.

quote-we-are-the-universe-becoming-conscious-brian-swimme

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“We are the universe becoming conscious of itself” - Brian Swimme

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heart-breaking beauty / Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heart-breaking beauty / Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.”

— Robinson Jeffers

The greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that.”

— Robinson Jeffers

The poet is not an important fellow. There will be no harm done if he never gets born.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The poet is not an important fellow. There will be no harm done if he never gets born.”

— Robinson Jeffers

The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me / Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me / Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.”

— Robinson Jeffers

The world's as the world is, and the animals / Re-knowing their roads. All's well.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The world’s as the world is, and the animals / Re-knowing their roads. All’s well.”

— Robinson Jeffers

This coast crying out for tragedy like all beautiful places.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“This coast crying out for tragedy like all beautiful places.”

— Robinson Jeffers

Profile: Brian Swimme

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Brian Swimme is a mathematical cosmologist and cultural historian who examines the implications of modern cosmology for human meaning and purpose. Trained as a mathematician at the University of Oregon and in gravitational dynamics at the University of California, Swimme shifted from technical research to communicating how scientific understanding of the universe relates to human consciousness and culture.

Swimme collaborated with cultural historian Thomas Berry to write The Universe Story (1992), a synthesis of scientific cosmology and cultural wisdom. The work presents the 13.8-billion-year evolution of the universe as a narrative framework for examining human place within cosmic processes.

Profile: E.O. Wilson

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-2021) was one of the world’s leading biologists whose groundbreaking research on biodiversity, evolution, and human nature profoundly influenced both scientific understanding and environmental consciousness. Through concepts like the “biophilia hypothesis,” Wilson demonstrated how deep evolutionary time shapes contemporary human relationships with the natural world, providing essential foundations for deep ecological thinking.

Wilson’s early career studying ants led to revolutionary insights about social behavior, chemical communication, and evolutionary strategies that transformed understanding of complex ecological relationships. His meticulous fieldwork revealed how intricate networks of relationship and cooperation have evolved over millions of years, challenging simplistic competitive models while demonstrating the profound intelligence embedded in natural systems.

Profile: Francis Weller

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Francis Weller is a psychotherapist, author, and ritual elder who examines connections between grief, ecological crisis, and community healing. Trained in depth psychology and influenced by indigenous wisdom traditions, he bridges Western therapeutic approaches with ritual practices of community healing.

Weller’s work on “ecological grief” proposes that sorrow for environmental destruction represents natural response rather than pathology. He suggests that capacity to feel this grief relates to ability to act on behalf of ecological systems. Through development of grief rituals, men’s initiation work, and community healing practices, he has created supportive containers where people can process both personal and collective trauma.

Profile: Francisco Varela

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Francisco Varela (1946-2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, and cognitive scientist who developed theories of autopoiesis and enactive cognition. His work integrated biological research with contemplative traditions to examine the nature of life and consciousness.

Working with Humberto Maturana, Varela developed the theory of autopoiesis - the process by which living systems continuously create and maintain themselves through recursive interactions with their environments. They proposed that life involves co-creation of organism and world through ongoing structural coupling rather than simple adaptation to pre-existing conditions.

Profile: Gregory Bateson

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) was an anthropologist, biologist, and cyberneticist whose groundbreaking work on systems thinking, learning theory, and the “ecology of mind” provided essential foundations for deep ecological understanding of consciousness and communication. His interdisciplinary approach revealed fundamental patterns connecting psychological, biological, and ecological systems.

Bateson’s early anthropological work led him to recognize that culture, mind, and nature operate according to similar systemic principles. His studies of communication patterns in humans and other animals revealed that information, not energy or matter, is the fundamental organizing principle of living systems - directly paralleling deep ecology’s understanding that all beings participate in networks of relationship and communication.

Profile: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and visionary thinker who pioneered the integration of evolutionary science with mystical spirituality, articulating cosmic evolution as a fundamentally spiritual process moving toward greater consciousness and unity. His cosmic vision provided essential foundations for contemporary approaches to ecological spirituality and planetary consciousness.

Trained as both paleontologist and theologian, Teilhard spent decades studying fossil evidence of human evolution while developing a mystical understanding of cosmic development as the unfolding of divine creativity. His work in China during the 1920s-1930s, including participation in discovering Peking Man, grounded his spiritual insights in empirical paleontological research. This unique integration anticipated many themes in contemporary cosmology while offering spiritual interpretation of scientific discoveries about universe evolution.

Profile: Thomas Berry

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Thomas Berry (1914-2009) was a cultural historian, cosmologist, and self-described “geologian” who examined human-Earth relationships through the lens of both scientific cosmology and spiritual traditions. His concept of the “Universe Story” proposed that cosmic evolution provides a framework for examining human purpose and ecological consciousness.

Trained in history and theology, Berry studied Asian cultures and religions throughout his early career. His encounters with indigenous worldviews and Eastern philosophies suggested alternatives to Western approaches to nature, informing his work on articulating new cultural narratives.

quote-this-is-the-first-wildest-and-wisest-thing-I-know -mary-oliver

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“This is the first, wildest and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness” - Mary Oliver

A temperature rise of more than two degrees C risks altering the Earth system irreversibly.