Being in Place
The Place of Story as the Story of Place
In the Old Western Way,
The receipt of story by eyes or ears was regarded as a vital pathway of blessing, if the reader or listener were in a state of proper attention and respect. Those who merely siphoned the words off the page like a vacuum cleaner, those who sat inattentively, mentally wool-gathering did not receive the blessing. Our own saturation with printed materials sometimes renders us insensible to the sacred blessing of story and its many gifts.… But when we memorize a story, its blessing works at a deeper level within us. It is then that we enter fully into its workings; it is then that we become the story. When we become garments of story, we are able to clothe others with blessing1.
The process of participating in “sacred space” – conscious ritual – is different from simply being lectured to or told something, or from having a discussion. In sacred space, the whole being is engaged; we are able to speak and hear the depths of our felt knowings. In sacred space, we are close to the blueprint of our lives, as close as each is able to be; and that ability within each is varied and complex and unknowable. The variation of ability to approach the “blueprint”, from time to time within the same person, and then from person to person, affects what a participant will gain and possibly integrate. But the reaching for it, co-creates the very receptor that is required – as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.
Personally this practice has taken me from fragmentation and alienation to wholeness and belonging, as I reached for She Who Is, She Who Will Be, and She Who is the Transformation of the Ages. It has brought me through so much, sustained my personal evolution. It has been “geotherapy” – a term Brian Swimme uses to speak of how the vision of the whole story of Earth, of the Universe may enable the human to proceed from the present alienated pathological mode of being to wholeness – as we learn our Story2. I have personally responded to the re-storying of the Female Metaphor, associating Her with Cosmogenesis – the Unfolding of the Cosmos, and embodying Her in Seasonal ritual. My Search has been an intensely personal one, but it has been earthed and patterned in an ecological psychology that has been able to bless and “clothe” others as well. This blessing has been a completely reciprocal process, wherein they blessed me as they resonated with the story within me, and I resonated with their response – I unfolded, they unfolded, we were delighted … as something new came into being. We found and expressed a resonance with Gaia’s Seasons and Her Creative Unfolding, we noticed Her more – around us and in us. It is deeply personal yet related, each one’s unique poetry and life story finding a Place in other and all-that-is, and vice versa.
Some personal journal notes from different years:
WINTER SOLSTICE:
As I walk the spiral at the Winter Solstice with a candle in my hand, images flash to mind of walking the spiral in this same space at Summer Solstice, with a rose in my hand. The experience and the images – the candle, the rose, the spiral, in the same space – is a Sense, a Knowing of a pattern, that is forming in me. As I look at the tree in my backyard with her Winter nakedness, I remember her Summer dress, and how I have celebrated both – I have not let her beauty and her phases pass by without note. As I put the candle of Winter on the altar and express my wish for the world – “the flame in my heart”- images of past Winter rituals arise; I spontaneously recall the same moments of putting the candle down, or lighting the candle, and the intentions I expressed then … and I wonder at the magic I have witnessed in that time, how I feel the movement, the growing strength and capacity in me, and the keen delight of others. I spontaneously “see” and feel the movement we have celebrated into Light and into Dark, the Pattern we have danced many times. It is a rhythm I am coming to Know.
EOSTAR:
Walking – instead of driving – has become part of the practice, a way of coming to know. As the poem quoted by Fransisco Varela says “Wanderer, the road is your footsteps, nothing else; wanderer, there is no path; you lay down the path in walking3 …”. We step into power, leaving behind the binds of the past, co-create the present and future.
BELTANE:
As I do the breath meditation in preparation for the ritual, I know this as the Beltane Moment of the breath … images and memory flash in my mind of the Eostar breath meditation, the Imbolc breath meditation … I sense these other Moments in relation to this one in my breath.
SUMMER SOLSTICE:
Standing in the same location at Summer Solstice as at Winter Solstice, and stating the purpose for our gathering – to celebrate the time when the light part of the day is longest. There is a clear sense of it, as I recall in the instant the darkness and cold of the Winter Solstice in this exact location and similar time of day.
Often when we humans can describe gravity, the weather, our bodyminds and more, we think we know what they are – we can sum these things up. But it is simply a different kind of knowledge of Her; it is not Her sentience, which must be felt. This cosmology is about sensing an organic space and time, Being in Place – knowing that the dimensions of Self-place, Earth-place, and Universe-place are not separate; that this is all one’s “country”. Another word for this “country” may be the Welsh word “cynefin” (pronounced KUN-EV’IN). It has been literally translated into English as “habitat” or “place”, but the sense of it is more: the word articulates a reciprocal relationship with one’s particular place, and may be understood to consciously include the multivalent dimensions of this nested reality of Place. “Cynefin”, like ”country”, includes the stories of one’s multiple belongings – personal, cultural, geographic, cosmic … they are allreligious in the sense of connecting, and more than we can know4. This “cynefin”, this “country” – a PaGaian sense of habitat – includes knowing that one IS a Place, a place of the Sacred Interchange of Life – with all the complex web of stories, to which one belongs, and with which one acts. It is an intimate reality, but remains mysterious and unknowable in its infinite dimensions of belonging and action. The breath comes in – a gift of all that has gone before. You are the Place where it is received, changed and given forth again; your organism is the Dynamic Place of this exchange. You are then the gift as your breath is released.
This Place of Being is not static, it reaches in and reaches out – a place of reciprocal interchange. Perceptual psychologist, Laura Sewall advocates awakening our sensory systems, which are “exquisitely evolved channels for translating between ‘in-here’ and ‘out-there’” and she describes this skillful ecological perception as a “devotional practice5”, of coming to recognize Earth’s call6. Sewall lists five “perceptual practices”:
(1) learning to attend, or to be mindful, within the visual domain; (2) learning to perceive relationships, context and interfaces; (3) developing perceptual flexibility across spatial and temporal scales; (4) learning to reperceive depth; and (5) the intentional use of imagination7.
The practice of celebrating the PaGaian Cosmology as it has been described in this book may meet all of these practices, (re-)developing ecological perception. It is a “devotional practice” – of becoming receptive to Gaia’s speech, heard deep within and deep without. Her speech is like a ghetto-blaster really when we pay attention, find an art form to receive Her, a place to hold a Conversation or a Dance. We come to feel the infinite belonging and to act in accord. And there is no need to go to Eleusis to find this place, or rely on external authorities … this practice is Home-ly8.
Desire
Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed; in a Con-text, a Story, where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other.
I begin to understand Desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of this religious practice. The Poem of Old says She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” I begin to realize how Desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes, form/life builds in Desire. At Beltane, Desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into Creative Fullness, Union … and breaks Open into the Dark part of the cycle – Dissolution. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of Desire.
It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight, towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the Dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia.
Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s Gift. The increasing Light is Received, and causes the Opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like. This is Beltane – the Desire that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain celebrates Re-solution which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing Darkness is received. It seems it is Darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is Light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also.
I think of how there is a desire for this work, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the Desire for it is already there, and perhaps the Desire made it manifest. Perhaps the Desire draws forth Manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc, as we head towards Beltane – it is Desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that Process around. Desire is already receiving, it is Open. Its receptivity draws forth the Manifestation. And then the Manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the Manifesting, which is perhaps where the Desire is coming from – the Desire is in the Darkness, in the Dark’s receptivity9. It becomes very active at the time of Beltane, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltane is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of Life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the Glue, the underlying Dynamic that streams through it All – through the Light and the Dark, the Virgin-Mother-Crone, Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis.
If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity as Swimme suggests10, then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity11. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth12.” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to13”. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this
relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world14.
Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient.
A Meta-religious Metaphor
Thomas Berry has said that we need to understand that the challenge of our time – that is, the apparent planetary siege by the human, is not just an outcome of the last few hundred years of Western scientific thinking. It is not just Cartesian, it is not just economics; this moment, he says, has required everything. He calls the challenge of this moment, “meta-religious15”. He says that we, as a species and as a planet, are in a “moment of transformation”. It is my understanding that part of what that means for humans, is to realize that we are not in control – we never have been, and never will be. While it is true that we participate, that we are in it, that it is our Story, we are not the Story. It is Gaia’s Story. We are participants through whom Creativity proceeds … whether consciously or not, whether as compost or new growth, we participate, and She proceeds with Her Creativity.
Berry lists three rights of all creatures: the right to Be, the right to Habitat, and the right to Fulfill its role in all existence16. In my mind these three rights correspond to the three faces of the evolutionary cosmic dynamics: it is an ethics based on the Creative impetus of Gaia, an ethics that may enable Life as we know it and as we don’t yet know it, to proceed. Intrinsic to it is a balance and a recognition of, Love of Self, Love of Other, and Love of All-That-Is. It is based in a balance and recognition of, Urge to unfold, Place to be, and Subjective Space. Deep in the present moment, all the Creativity that is necessary, is present.
I notice in myself and others who continue to participate in the seasonal ritual celebrations, an opening to subtle perceptions and sensitivities that do enable and evoke a passion for adopting everyday changes to our domestic lives; that is, how we relate to the water we use, the food we eat, the methods of transport we choose, the social and cultural context. It seems that as each actually feels what Charlene Spretnak calls “the unitive dimension of existence17” – as one may in ritual over time, feels themselves to be “a node within a vast network of creative dynamics18”, becomes more mindful of flux, wonder and awe19 – as one may with artful practice of this Cosmology, that we do in fact begin to devise strategies for change in our lives. The strategies for change are ones whereby we may be more authentic in our relationship with this expressly sentient Earth and Cosmos. Some participants have given up their cars, found ways to reuse water, are learning how to garden organically, relate more consciously with the flora and fauna around them – care more, and feel that their small care does make a difference.
This translates on a broader scale to an increasing ability in the hearts and minds of participants to step outside the anthropocentric frame, as increasingly each one becomes more conscious of an “Earth Jurisprudence20”, that is, that Earth Herself has innate wisdom and integrity. It is a wisdom that they can sense and come into relationship with, that is primordial, as they do constantly express and enact in the rituals. There is in participants more humility about the place of the human in the scale of things, more willingness to step back from the human impress on the planet and other beings, and to reframe more inclusively.
There is nothing comprehensive about this particular “re-inventing” as I have described it so far herein – it is a beginning, as other participants and I are aware. We are novices, most of us. Each year that I celebrate the Sabbats, I understand a little more. And it is new as well as old. In these times, any of us comes to it all with different minds than our forebears did – this is somewhat of a disadvantage, but the novice has a freshness too.
The Snake Bites Her Tail – the Circle Comes Around
In Chapter 1 I stated that “This book itself, as with any creative work, as it progresses, is ordered, structured and organized by these features21” – the threefold creative principle. This work had so many disparate parts at the beginning (differentiation) … and where was its beginning (in the complex plenum – autopoeisis/subjectivity)? It had many threads, and each of those threads had their own three features of creation. Each was complex, and the threads criss-crossed in no perceivable pattern. Part of the Search process was allowing the disparate parts to reveal their relationship, to show their resonances. This was largely conceptual at first, then another part of the Search was taking the courage to weave the threads (communion), and see how they responded. The weaving into a fabric was a work and a skill – a crafting – and then watching – “did it sit well?”, and perhaps “did it take on an energy, a life of it’s own – was there a communion into which they arrived, a deeper relationship that already existed there?” This was the production – done with receptivity. Then there was allowing and witnessing the synergy, the self of the work to come through – witnessing the conflagration, the transformation of the parts into one, a gestalt, becoming its unique self. This was active receiving of the work’s autopoeisis, which flowed back into a new differentiated being.
Now as the Wheel continues to turn, and the work is given over again to something Larger – it disperses. It becomes many seeds in the minds and hearts of readers who may take it further. This is the Return of the “finished” work. It is consumed by the reader – the audience. It loses itself in a new context, many new contexts – it becomes many seeds – to come to life in a new way, within others. The cycle begins again in many new Places.
“ToGaianess”
Re-inventing language is something humans have always done – it is a most fluid medium, like the ocean we once swam in as early creatures. Language, Poetry, pattern and symbols are the seeds in our psyches, the transgenetic codings with which humans – personally and collectively – have expressed and shaped the world, our habitat; and we continue to.
“ToGaianess” is a term coined by my partner and beloved, for how in relationship we draw each other into Gaia, into Her True Being – real space and time, into the seamless Whole. We encourage each other in our practice, lure each other more deeply each day. Communities may do this for each other; I have come to know this experience particularly with my beloved. In Summer Solstice process one year, I noted how we lure each other into clear eyes, into seeing with clear sight. I felt “clear sight” to be knowing that we are “flashes”, “events”, passing through this place; and then being able to make it as creative and joyful as possible – why not? – it seems better for self and other certainly, and we can only assume the ripples go on indefinitely to all-that-is, from whence it comes. Thus it goes full circle.
An Australian Aboriginal expression that seems similar in meaning is “Ngapartji-ngapartji”. It has generally been translated into English as “giving something in return” – taking turns at being given to22; but this is really a very poor sense of it. “Ngapartji-ngapartji” is more like being pleasure’s source and pleasure’s home at the same time23 – not knowing when one is “giving” or “receiving”: receiving is a giving, and giving is a receiving24. The closest translation of the Aboriginal term (and mode of being) may be “reciprocity”: it is an exchange that happens simultaneously like it does in the peaking of the breath. It is not considered, it simply happens – is done. “ToGaianess” is like this; it is knowing self and other are one in the ground of our being (Gaia) – we are in the same breath – feeling it, and being able then to act accordingly.
“Careflow”
This is a term for going carefully with the flow25. The flow is the ongoing flow of Creativity. We may build care into our flow. We may slow down to care, to co-create what is important to us. We may decide to be care-full, to act because we care, and to not allow the distractions – the distractions from our true heart’s desires. It is more easily done as we align ourselves with Her rhythms. Brian Swimme speaks of the “care in the curvature26”: how the exquisite balance of the curvature of space-time that brings all forth, that allows the form-ation of being, may be described as “care” – that it has “care” built into it. This is not anthropomorphizing the Universe, this is articulating a power of the Universe that has been noticed as innate and unfolding: we may call it a dimension of “care” which we as some of its creatures have come to perceive27. “Careflow” is participating consciously – decidedly – in this power.
In a similar way one may come to use the word “organ-ised”. If shifted in meaning, “organised” may be an alignment with one’s organism or behaving organically; that is, a conscious participation in the self-organising creative cosmos. It may be understood as a kind of “careflow”. “Organ-isation” can become an identification with the Organism-Universe even as we speak – a recognition of an wholistic state of being.
Language began with an “organ-ic” basis, and we may become more conscious of that again, as we now extend our sense of the “organic” to the Universe, as we extend our sense of “country”.
A Prayer in Process
Sometimes it has been a useful exercise to re-write prayers or songs that I learnt perhaps too well as a child or later, to re-speak them and imbue them carefully with my new understandings. It is another way of spelling one’s self, of changing one’s mind – to articulate one’s own prayers and with each word and phrase to honour what one now truly believes to be so. It is also the case that many of the prayers and praises that are found in the patriarchal religions of recent human history are quite often founded upon the expressions of some earlier Earth-based Goddess religion that is now unmentioned and buried. So any re-writing and listening to one’s own interpretations of the pattern of the prayer may end up being closer to its original sense, as well as speaking a new moment.
One of the prayers I re-wrote for myself is one that is central to anyone of Christian heritage28. I continued to change it as my understandings shifted, so that over a period of years I could see an evolution, an unfolding of perception. Following is the latest rendition of that prayer. I named it a “Goddess Prayer” and dated it each time I re-wrote it.
Goddess Prayer 2005 C.E.
Mother – She who I am Who is deeply related
Virgin – She who I am Who is ever new
Crone – She who I am Who is creative return to All
Holy is my Being.
This Mystery pervades all.
May I understand my Inner Guidance,
and graciously receive the infinite daily abundance.
May I forgive my insensitivities and lack of skill – and forgive others the same.
May I respond to my Divine Passion.
I am in Awe … and give thanks to the Light&Dark within.
There is also another version that cropped up recently, that was inspired by a re-scribing of the word “Kingdom” to form “Kin-dom29”. So I wrote the following in collaboration with my partner, addressing the Universe as “Our Mother”. Some may find it useful as it is, and may also renew it further.
Our Mother
Who is with us,
Holy is Our Being.
Thy Kin-dom is present.
Thy Desire is received throughout the Cosmos.
We graciously receive your infinite daily abundance.
May we forgive each other our lack of skill and insensitivity.
May we understand our inner guidance,
and perceive each other’s needs.
For Thine is the Kin-dom, the Power and the Story,
forever and ever.
Blessed Be.
The Three Candles Meditation – resonances with the three phases/dynamics of the “Great Creative One”
This meditation was mentioned in the Introduction, as being part of my daily practice. The three candles with associated objects remain a permanent arrangement on my altar, and I usually light the candles with some version of the following – sometimes shorter or longer – or sometimes non-verbally, simply allowing the sense of each one. It has continued to evolve and simplify, and is really at the heart of the three-lined prayer that concludes this chapter.
Light the 1st candle:
I remember She within me Who is deeply related – the Mother – the Matrix, the Intricate Web – She Who Is – everything within me that connects me to the past, upon which the present is built – the Depth of this moment. I remember the Sangha, the community around the globe that supports Life, those in particular that have and do support my life – all those who have been my teachers.
Light the 2nd candle:
I remember She within me Who is ever new – the Virgin – the Urge budding forth – She Who will Be – the future, the children, the descendants of body and mind – the much More in myself and all selves. I remember the Buddha, the Self, the Shining One within all, for whom I refine the gold – for whom this life is given, those whom I support.
Light the 3rd candle:
I remember She within me Who returns me to All-That-Is, to the Great Subject – the Old One – She within Who creates the Space to Be, Who dissolves the old in every moment, Who is the transformations of the Ages – Who knows the Truth of all things – Who is the Sentience within all. I remember the Dharma, She within whose Wisdom is beyond all knowledge.
This is the Creative Context in which we are held – in the Context of all that supports this present moment, in the Context of the future that is being conceived and nurtured right here, and in the Context of the Old all-Knowing Compassionate One who receives all – all three present within each unique being … right Here.
A PaGaian Breath Meditation
Going within for the moment and becoming aware of your breath, feeling this cycle within.
With your imagination, remember all the breathing happening right now on the planet – feel/sense it with each breath.
The entire planet is breathing.
Remember the constant dawning and setting of the Sun – happening right now, as Earth turns … the constant dawn and dusk.
Remember the constant facing into the light of the Sun – our Star,
and the constant facing into the dark of the Cosmos, happening right now,
as She turns … the constant moving fullness of light and dark on opposite sides of the planet.
Remember the constant coming into being and passing away happening right now,
as She turns.
The entire Wheel as we have celebrated it is happening right now – all at once.
We are at the Centre of the Wheel.
She waxes into fullness, and wanes into darkness – She grows into form, and dissolves back into that great Plenum from which all emerges.
There is in every moment:
constant novelty – infinite particularity,
constant communion – infinite relationship,
constant dissolution – trans-formation … making way for the new.
Feel this breath, your breath. We participate in Her constant Creativity,
from this Centre.
A Creative Place of the Cosmological Unfolding
With the inbreath I remember that I am ever-new. I receive the Gift – the right to Be. I am Virgin.
With the peaking of the breath I remember that I am in this Place – this dynamic Place. I am the Place – the right to Habitat. I am Mother.
With the outbreath I remember that I am the ancient One ever-transformed. I am the Gift – the right to fulfill my role in existence. I am Crone.
Another version – because Virgin and Old One are particularly interchangeable … the clarity of the beginning and the end is not always apparent30: and the Three are always “fuzzy”.
With every breath in, I receive the Gift of All – the Transformations of the Ages, the Old One.
With every breath out, I am the Gift to All – again renewed, the Virgin.
I am the Sentient Place of Now, receiving All of the Ages, budding forth with it renewed, the Sacred Interchange, the Mother.
And very simply – and best done with expressive body movements, that perhaps call to bodymind, images (ancient or contemporary) of She Who is the Universe – as one feels them: remembering that you are Home.
I am the Ancient One,
ever-New,
in this Place.
(c) Glenys Livingstone 2005
To buy the book PaGaian Cosmology: Amazon or at Book Depository, or as an E-book at iUniverse, or donation for this work may be made in the sidebar. Thank you and blissings.
For edited versions (2018) of parts of this chapter, see Coming Home to Our Senses: Placing Ourselves with Story and Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity
NOTES:
1 Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Spirit, p. 334.
2 Brian Swimme, Canticle to the Cosmos, video 8.
3 A poem by Antonio Machado referred to by Sarah A. Conn, “The Self-World Connection”, Woman of Power, Issue 20, p.74.
4 At the website http://www.cynefin.net, “cynefin” is described as “more properly understood as the place of our multiple belongings;” … wherein our interactions are frequently determined by the patterns of our multiple experiences – personal and collective – “expressed as stories”. My understanding of the word as being similar to “country”, comes from Taffy Seaborne’s stories of his childhood experience in Wales and his later experience in central Australia.
5 Laura Sewall, “The Skill of Ecological Perception” in Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. p.203.
6 Laura Sewall, “The Skill of Ecological Perception” in Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. p.224-215.
7 Laura Sewall, “The Skill of Ecological Perception” in Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. p.204.
8 as this term is described in chapter 2.
9 Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep Truth.
10 Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43.
11 Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2.
12 Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2.
13 Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2.
14 Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2.
15 Thomas Berry, ”The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”, a paper delivered before the Divinity School and the University Committee on Environment at Harvard University, p.8. available at “http://www.ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm”: http://www.ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm
16 Thomas Berry defines these in a talk he gave on June 4 2000, at the Center for Ecology and Spirituality , Port Burwell Ontario. It was a 5 day colloquim on “The Cosmology of Religion”. He also suggests them in ”The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”, p. 5. available at “http://www.ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm”: http://www.ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm
17 Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22.
18 Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22.
19 Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22.
20 Mike Bell, “Thomas Berry and an Earth Jurisprudence”. available at http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/earth%20jurisprudence/Earth%20Justice.htm
21 Chapter 1, “Cosmogenesis – an Introduction”, last paragraph.
22 As it is translated for example in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara to English Dictionary, 2nd edition compiled by Cliff Goddard, p.84.
23 This is a state that Brian Swimme describes in The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.79, when he is speaking of “Allurement” .
24 Taffy Seaborne has this understanding of “Ngapartji- ngapartji” gathered from his own reflections and experience and conversations with Anangu elders of Uluru.
25 A term coined by Taffy Seaborne.
26 Brian Swimme, “The Care in Curvature”, a talk given at the Journey into Wholeness conference, North Carolina, Spring 2003. Available on audio tape athttp://www.JourneyintoWholeness.org/media/tapeset_brians.shtm
27 Brian Swimme describes this “care” as a Power of the Universe that he names “Interrelatedness”, in ??The Powers of the Universe?/, lecture 9.
28 It is known as “The Lord’s Prayer”.
29 Karen Davis, “A Peacable Kin-dom and the Ethics of Eating”, EarthLight, Issue 51 Vol 14 No.2, p.54.
30 as referred to in the last section of Chapter 5.
PaGaian Cosmology 