The Gaia Community College Guestbook
Thanks for visiting and contributing to the reinvention of humanity into a mutually enhancing relationship with the rest of creation. Tell your friends and family! And while you’re at it, leave a message here. After all, Gaia is listening…
| (1) Anne Whitaker | |||
| Sun, 23 November 2008 14:25:15 -0700 |
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The Elegant or Ignorant Test
As part of undergraduate studies within the Gaia Community College, we have introduced the Elegant or Ignorant test to help align students with a planetary context of living. Throughout your day students are encouraged to evaluate whatever they are interacting with as either Elegant or Ignorant. It’s quite simple, and participation ensures a passing grade. To help students along (and to further help support the Gaia Community College), we have also introduced a series of bumper stickers with various Elegant or Ignorant evaluations. Whether you agree with them or not they are intended to provoke thoughtful appreciation for different potential facets of our existence. So onwards and ever upwards fellow communitarians, and take the test.
Biocracy
Curiously enough, Google “Biocracy” and there are numerous entries to choose from with mostly aligned definitions, yet try looking up the word in an online dictionary and you will find nothing. So we would propose:
BIOCRACY (bī’ ŏk ‘rə-sē) noun, A governing paradigm that recognizes the community of life as a whole as the prime context for establishing values, and to engage in decision making processes from within that context.
“One of the main characteristics of the emerging ecological period is the move from a human-centered norm of reality and value to a nature-centered norm. We cannot expect life, the earth, or the universe to fit into our rational human designs of how life, the earth, or the universe should function. We must fit our thinking and our actions within the larger process. We must move from democracy to biocracy.” ~Thomas Berry
The other term used throughout these pages and related materials that may not be familiar is:
ECOZOIC (ĕkŏ zō’ik) noun, As in Ecozoic Era. The term refers to the emerging era when humans live in a mutually enhancing relationship with the larger community of life systems. The Ecozoic Era could also be considered as the “ecological age”. Coined by Thomas Berry. The concept behind this is that we are at the termination phase of the Cenozoic Era, as the mass extinction event currently unfolding is the prime indicator of the end of our age. Berry says that we have a choice at this evolutionary crossroads, to continue blindly down the path of extinction or to reinvent what it means to be human in the greater context of the planetary community.
“Our difficulty is that we are just emerging from a technological entrancement. During this period the human mind has been placed within the narrowest confines it has experienced since consciousness emerged from its Paleolithic phase. Even the most primitive tribes have a larger vision of the universe, of our place and functioning within it, a vision that extends to celestial regions of space and to interior depths of the human in a manner far exceeding the parameters of our own world of technological confinement. The human at the species level needs to fulfill its functional role within this life community, for in the end the human community will flourish or decline as the earth and the community of living species flourishes or declines. ” ~ Thomas Berry
The New Story
“Although as yet unrealized, the scientific account of the universe is the greatest religious, moral, and spiritual event that has taken place in these centuries. It is the supreme humanistic and spiritual as well as the supreme scientific event. The sublime mission of modern education is to reveal the true importance of this story for the total range of human and earthly affairs. The greatest single need at present is the completion of the story, as told in its physical dimensions by science, by the more integral account that includes the numinous and consciousness dimensions of the emergent universe from its primordial moment. Once that is done, a meaningful universe, a functional cosmology, is available as a foundation for the total range of human activities in the ecological age.” ~ Thomas Berry
Until very recently, human beings have always had some sort of relevant story that we told each other to make some sense of the world we live in, and to give it meaning. Right now we are in between stories, or more accurately, the stories that have served us well for a long time are no longer accurate in light of the discoveries we have made over the last hundred years or so. But most of us haven’t learned or been told the new story, or haven’t taken the time to digest what it really means if we do know the story. Coined by Thomas Berry, the term “The Great Story” has come to symbolize this continually evolving expression of the living creation mythology for our times.
A handful of authors, poets, musicians, and artists have had the vision to embrace the new story, and are learning how to share this new story with the rest of us through their creations. The Gaia Community College is primarily concerned with the discovery of The Great Story in all of it’s guises, and spreading the new story as widely as possible so that we may begin the journey of healing ourselves and the community that we are a part of.
Numerous examples of the forms that The Great Story has taken so far can be found in our Recommended Reading section. We are also extraordinarily excited about the Global MindShift multimedia library and community along these lines. They are definitely surfing the zuvuya of contemporary awareness. If you discover or are aware of other contributions in this vein, please let us know to include within these pages. Together we will reinvent a healthy human, and give birth to the new earth.
“Our scientific understanding of the universe, when recounted as story, takes on the role formerly fulfilled by the mythic stories of creation. 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, to oppress, and to begin quite humbly to follow the guidance of the larger community on which all life depends.” ~ Thomas Berry
Financial Assistance
The Gaia Community College depends entirely on your financial assistance for it’s sustainable endeavors towards our mutual midwifing of a global biocratic society. Anyone who wishes to contribute to the spread of the Gaia Community College thoughtform is encouraged to spread the word by sharing our links with friends and family, linking to these pages, talking about ecological, green, and visionary issues in general, learning the new story and telling it, patronizing the college marketplace, purchasing recommended reading materials through our pages, or by outright financial donations to the College.
Donations can be made using credit / debit cards through the secure and encrypted services of Paypal. Please follow this link to do so. Your support is most appreciated.
[donation]
Gaia Community College merchandise can be purchased in our marketplace. If you are interested in wholesale orders of our merchandise, please contact us and we will guide you through that process.
Thank you for your support. Together we will birth a new earth…
Contact
For any and all communications with the provosts of The Gaia Community College, please fill out the following email form and we will respond to you shortly. Thank you for your input.
Mission Statement
“By earth education I do not mean education about the earth, but the earth as the immediate self-educating community of those living and nonliving beings that constitute the earth. I might also go further and designate earth as the primary educational establishment, or the primary college, with a record of extraordinary success over some billions of years. ” ~ Thomas Berry
This quote, more than any other, has served as the inspirational impetus for the creation of The Gaia Community College. Our express intention through this website is to document instances of the emerging global consciousness, to highlight occurrences of the planetary evolution towards a sustainable and mutually enhancing human earth relationship. Increasingly people the world over are awakening to our connectedness, that we are all in fact related, that we all indeed share the same origin. Science illustrates the story of our common grounds through astronomy, astrophysics, biology, and genetics, and we are learning how to tell this story as creative humans. These pages will serve to chronicle the birth of the new earth as we grope our way towards a new understanding of just what it means to be a human being.
There is a growing planet wide community of scientists, artists, story tellers, musicians, community activists, writers, visionaries, and event organizers who are becoming increasingly aligned with the discovery of this mode of being ~ active participants in creative and conscious evolution. We would like to offer this concept of The Gaia Community College to serve as a unifying identity badge in the unfolding of the great work, as we feel it is a playful yet serious reminder that the task at hand is no less than to learn how to truly engage in community… the whole community of life. Along these lines, it is also our sincere desire to facilitate the recognition of Thomas Berry as the patron saint (if you will) of the emerging ecozoic / biocratic age. We would love to see the spread and appreciation of his seminal visionary contributions as widely as possible. We have been given a bright and shining guiding light through this rare and extraordinarily insightful soul, and we are all the richer for the gifts we have received from him.
“Human education is primarily the activation of the possibilities of the planet in a way that could not be achieved apart from human intelligence and the entire range of human activities. In this sense, human education is part of the larger evolutionary process.” ~ Thomas Berry
We are thoroughly committed to helping birth the new earth, and acting as a central clearing house for the collection and wider distribution of resonantly aligned and sustainable eco-spiritualities. So go forth and multiply these thought-forms if they float your boat, sow their seeds far and wide, and have a good time doing it. Dialog along these lines is almost guaranteed to be animated and inspiring. And we thank you from the bottom of our collective hearts for embracing and supporting the Gaia Community College. And don’t forget to wear your school colours proudly!
Recommended Reading
Books purchasd on Amazon.com through this website will help support the Gaia Community College. We will only recommend materials that are aligned with our mission statement. Thank you for your support and continued inspiration.
Freshman Orientation
“The entire college project can be seen as that of enabling the student to understand the immense story of the universe and the role of the student in creating the next phase of the story.” ~ Thomas Berry
Because no community can exist without a unifying story to bind it together, and only in a viable planetary community can there be a viable human community. This is the essence of The Great Work of our times, and is the task at hand for every member of the human community.
We are continually learning what it means to be human in this day and age. We are rethinking the roles we play, discovering new perspectives, integrating wider outlooks. Connecting. And reconnecting. Coming to understand that we are in fact all related, not just with each other, but with everything that is. We are beginning to appreciate that we are an expression of the universe itself, learning to perceive the universe through our unique mode of being, and through the tools that we have developed. We are the universe becoming aware of itself. We are the universe acquiring spoken language and opposable thumbs. When we learn to integrate ourselves into the greater community of life, we can become the voice of our planet. Together we are dreaming a new world into being. Together we are reinventing what it means to be human.
It is my sincere hope that this somewhat absurd concept of The Gaia Community College will help guide and inspire the unfolding of our evolutionary growth towards a biocratic / ecozoic community on earth. I would like to humbly offer this attitude of The Gaia Community College to serve as an identity for the ever growing treasury of memes that are aligned with the establishment of a mutually enhancing relationship between our species and the greater community of life on our garden planet. An inspirational evolutionary directory if you will of ideas, values, and patterns of behavior that can be passed along through our culture by non-genetic means; memes are the cultural counterpart of genes. By individually embracing the notion that we truly are freshman within the greater Gaian Community, we begin in earnest the healing that will reestablish our participation in the only community that matters.
Within these pages you will find recommended reading sources of this nature, links to kindred efforts and multimedia libraries, our blog documenting related news, thoughts, quotes, events and organizations, and our marketplace, where you can show your support for this project by wearing or otherwise displaying your school spirit. We’ve found that Gaia Community College merchandise sparks fantastic conversations with complete strangers, and as far as we’re concerned, any and all discussion of such matters bringing greater awareness of these issues will help birth the new earth. So the real question becomes, when do we graduate, or will we fail the course?
“The natural world is not simply object, not simply a usable thing, not an inert mode of being awaiting its destiny to be manipulated by the divine or exploited by the human. The natural world is subject as well as object. The natural world is the maternal source of our being as earthlings and the life-giving nourishment of our physical, emotional, aesthetic, moral, and religious existence. The natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated from the community is to become destitute in all that makes us human. To damage this community is to diminish our own existence.” ~ Thomas Berry
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About Us
“College students should feel that they are participating in one of the most significant ventures ever to take place in the entire history of the planet.” ~ Thomas Berry
The Gaia Community College exists to inspire movement towards the reintegration of our species within the greater community of life and the furthering of conscious planetary evolution. We are inspired by the writings of Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Eckhart Tolle, the art of Alex Grey, the online Global MindShift project, the Gaia (formerly Zaadz) community, and many others who have offered powerful visions towards our potential both as a species and as a planetary awareness. It is our express mission to playfully highlight these and other sustainable thoughtforms through this website. We are also home to the “Ignorant or Elegant?” test, which we encourage you to find out more about and implement in your daily life.
We encourage you to support The Gaia Community College by learning the Great Story and telling it. What is the Great Story you ask? It is the telling of our creation story with the understanding and insights we’ve earned scientifically but told poetically through the heart. It is the act of giving meaning to science, and thereby activating the greater realm of what science truly has to offer.
You can also spread the word by linking to us (please!), RSS subscribing to our pages, social bookmarking us, giving us Shout Outs! wherever you go, and the wearing and display of G.C.C. apparel. Together we can envision our way towards a healthier community. Together we will Birth the New Earth!
“To learn how to live graciously together would make us worthy of this unique, beautiful, blue planet that evolved in its present splendor over some billions of years, a planet that we should give over to our children with the assurance that this great community of the living will lavish upon them the care that it has bestowed so abundantly upon ourselves. ” ~ Thomas Berry
The Gaia Community College was conceived and created during the summer of 2007 by sonic storyteller Eric Geoffrey as a facet of his VoxGaia project and as a contribution to the ever deepening awakening of our planet earth. Feel free to visit me anytime through my Gaia Community homepage and say hello! (user name aetheric…).
