This train of thought also makes me want to invoke one of my favorite Thomas Berry statements that we will only achieve peace with each other once we have established (an understanding that brings) peace with the earth. All of these thoughts seem to point in the general direction of not continuing to have complete faith that our technologies will solve all of our problems and get us out of the mess that we are in, but that we have to take a complete step back from our current course and learn how to imagine new kinds of beneficial relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world that we live in. After all isn’t that what spirituality should be all about?

There are a growing number of visionaries who are exploring this train of thought in increasingly integral and beautiful ways, and who have fully taken to heart the implications of developing a world-view that is thoroughly aligned with an evolutionary perspective and all that it implies. It is an exciting and vital conversation developing at the forefront of awakening communities, and fortunately for us, there is a growing collection of recently recorded dialogues exploring just what this means and how we might implement these insights in our daily lives. And best of all, access to these audio archives is free, which I hope is in the best spirit of encouraging the “we are all in this together” realization. After all, it is precisely when we are in service to each other that we begin to embody this emerging community consciousness a la Thomas Berry and his quest to establish mutually enhancing relationships.

There are three efforts along these lines that I would like to put forward as beneficial and inspiring contributions to this ongoing awakening, and I have been interacting with them and can vouch for their authenticity (and the fact that they are indeed free without any strings and the utmost of respect for your privacy). I should also make note for the record that I do not have any affiliation with any of these organizations and am putting these out there because I have experienced them as genuinely inspiring.

The first one is “Awakening the Impulse to Evolve ~ The Birth of Evolutionary Spirituality“.

The second: “The Sacred Awakening Series” featuring 40 of the worlds prominent spiritual teachers.

And the third, “Women on the Edge of Evolution” with 21 of the world’s leading spiritual luminaries, thinkers, artists, and agents for positive change.

I sincerely hope that you find inspiration and insight within some or all of these offerings, and that choosing to walk through this doorway will bring us closer to healing the deep divide between our hearts and our minds.
Always Love,
Eric

“The Secret Teachings of Plants”, subtitled “The intelligence of the heart in the direct perception of nature” by Stephen Harrod Buhner is a powerful and thorough work that guides the reader through a comprehensive perspective shift regarding our hearts. The book methodically walks one through a process that allows for a conscious shift in the seat of perception from the mind to the heart, and this opens the doorway towards re-aligning the methods that we perceive the world we live in to the organic whole body coherence perception that is our evolutionary birthright.

I found it particularly interesting that while our minds are primarily concerned with linear and analytical constructs that inherently separate the perceiver from the perceived, heart based perception is fractal or non-linear in nature (just like nature), and has the ability to immerse one’s perceptions within a truly interactive and dynamic communication. This does not in any way diminish the benefits or worth of linear conceptual thinking, it just changes the priority it is given so that our interactions with our perceptions are based in a more integral manner, one that is coherent with the very fabric of creation itself.

From the book: “Still, there is great power in the world around us. It has not disappeared just because we no longer notice it. Redeveloping the capacity for heart-centered cognition can help each of us reclaim personal perception of the living and sacred intelligence within the world, within each particular thing. It moves us from a rational orientation in a dead, mechanized universe to one in which the unique perceptions of the heart are noticed and strengthened, to a deep experience of the living soulfulness of the world. As the process continues to deepen, it strengthens our spiritual sensitivity and, in the process, helps us gain a deeper understanding of our own sacredness. The use of the heart as an organ of perception and communication, to weave us once again inextricably into the life web of the Earth, to gather knowledge from the heart of the world, and to help us live a whole and fulfilled life, to become who we are meant to be, is what the rest of this book is about.”

Moving forward in the re-enchantment of the world,
Eric

This is a beautiful example of just how powerfully our hearts influence our interactions with everything. One of my favorite Thomas Berry quotes also comes to mind ~ “Peace with each other through peace with the earth”, meaning that unless we are able to perceive, appreciate, and inhabit a place of peace within ourselves towards the earth that our chances of establishing peaceful relations within human communities are pretty slim. Of course it all starts within…

Always love,
Eric