Group read - The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry

@johnthefireman recommended I read Thomas Berry, and one thing led to another, as it usually does here.

So I thought I'd get us started.
Here's Berry's wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Berry

It looks like besides an ebook version, this was published by The Sierra Club as the first volume in its Sierra Club Nature and Natural Philosophy Library, which isn't yet established as a publishers series here.

My copy has a forward by Brian Swimme and an introduction by the author.

Thanks 2wonderY. I had the Universe Story, and will have to go get the Dream of the Earth.

I'll follow as best I can as my copies of both books are in storage in UK. I studied both of them and indeed wrote my MA dissertation on Berry in 1994, but that was a long time ago. I'll chime in where I can.

Skipping the Forward, I'll try to summarize the Introduction, for my own benefit.

Berry sees significant historical patterns in thought over the centuries, and hits a few high points, starting with Augustine writing The City of God in response to the Goth's burning of Rome. He jumps to the 12th century to Joachim of Flores, who writes about the Age of the Holy Spirit in response to the rising importance of a money economy. Berry, and presumably Joachim, see this focus as a diversion away from the human community's authentic destiny. His next pause is Francis Bacon's emphasis on the scientific control of nature and Bernard Fontenelle's doctrine of "progress," which gave us the industrial age.

The industrial age has precipitated a change in the essential chemistry of the planet, making it imperative that we "move beyond democracy to biocracy."

He mentions the United Nations World Charter for Nature as an indication that we recognize the need for a more intimate earth community, including the welfare of the geological, the biological and the human.

It always pleases me to be introduced to another way of looking at things. It's one of the reasons I read science fiction. So, what does a society look like that is not based on a money economy? And how did that change the way things work?

I'm also reading Making Home by Sharon Astyk, and just came upon her reflection of a post-cataclysm market society. The chapter is titled 'Loving Your Neighbor.' She says this is a much more robust way of viewing exchange, rather than placing dollar values on everything. No one can provide for all of their own needs, so our interdependence is a given. But tit-for-tat is less productive than valuing others in a more charitable way.

A recent tie-in to the concept of biocracy is this Rights of Nature easement:

http://www.alternet.org/fracking/one-mans-clever-idea-fight-frackers-and-save-hi...

>4 2wonderY: I've now found my copy of The Dream of the Earth and begun rereading it. I've just read the introduction. I'll try and keep up with you.

In the last paragraph, Thomas Berry refers to our (ie human beings') "distinctive capacities for reflexive thinking", and I think this is a theme which comes up again and again in much of his writing.

In the introduction: "The time has come to lower our voices, to cease imposing our mechanistic patterns on the biological processes of the earth, to resist the impulse to control, to command, to force, and to begin quite humbly to follow the guidance of the larger community on which all life depends."

I understand that this is a theme in Pope Francis's first encyclical (on the environment, in preparation).

No doubt, it is just the first passage that I will mark in my copy of The Dream of the Earth! (Faintly, in pencil ;-)

Chapter 1 introduces "native" understandings of the earth, their myths and narratives. They may not be literally true, but there's a lot to be said for their stories.

Chapter 2 reflects its title, that the earth is a community, and also points to the cataclysmic change which humans are inflicting very rapidly on it. "We are changing the earth on a scale comparable only to the changes in the structure of the earth and of life that took place during some hundreds of millions of years of earth development".

Edited to correct chapter numbers

Chapter 3 reflects on the human presence. We need to rediscover (or create anew) an intimacy with nature.

When I go to Europe or north America I'm very aware of how disconnected people are from nature. Many people seem hardly to be aware that meat comes from animals or vegetables from the ground - all simply appear in supermarkets, wrapped in plastic and scrupulously clean. People are disgusted at the thought of having to slaughter and dress an animal. Water comes out of taps - few would know how to find water and make it potable. "Nature" is for tourism and recreational activities. In that sense many rural and traditional peoples are more intimate with nature.

Berry introduces here the concept that the human is the self-awareness of the universe, in terms of both scientific and mythic awareness: "the human is that being in whom the universe comes to itself in a special mode of conscious reflection". Or, quoting Brian Swimme, "The universe shivers with wonder in the depths of the human".

Berry also introduces the idea of the earth as a living organism and the concept of biosphere.

Edited to add: Chapter 4 begins with a reflection on energy and power. Berry then explores different visions of the earth, one of the industrialised "wonderworld" and one of a more natural relationship with the earth. Recognising that we can't just go back to a pre-industrial age, he nevertheless sees the need for a change of vision. In a way this is a precursor to another of the themes that permeate his work, that of story*. We need a new story, because the old one isn't working.

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* cf his other work, co-authored with Brian Swimme, The Universe Story.

Chapter 5: We are entering a new age, the Ecological Age. "We see ourselves now not as Olympian observers against an objective world, but as a functional expression of that very world itself"; "the earth is mandating that the human community assume a responsibility never assigned to any previous generation." Once again it's that idea of a new vision, a new story.

Here Berry introduces his three principles on which the universe functions: differentiation, subjectivity and communion.