In order to gain the energy and understanding to address the complex challenges and totally reshape society for  both ecological and social justice, there is a rise in ideas  advocating a wider paradigm within which to place our actions.  Berry (1999), Berry and Swimme (1992) and Swimme and Tucker (2011) explore humanity’s place within the universe. They propose a  New Universe Story, a way of exploring the world which sees human beings  take our place within our 13,800,000,000  year old universe.  From studying the social as well as ecological challenges  facing humanity,  Korten sees that only through ‘Earth as community’ can we find  a comprehensive story which will enable us to address these issues.
For me a wonderful expression of how we might find our way into this ancient history is through cultural historian Thomas Berry.  Berry  proposes the idea of the Dream of the Earth, not a human dream but the dream of the whole Earth community (1988). How might we learn to express and understand what the earth wants rather than ourselves as a single species?  How might we  learn to see the Dream of the Earth as for ‘all the children’ not simply the human children of the earth but  ‘for the children who swim beneath the waves of the sea’  and  the ‘children who roam over the land and the winged ones who fly with the wind’? (Berry, 1999). Read more…