It’s good to know that some individuals in powerful institutions are summoning up the innate, volcanic, creative forces that, over countless centuries, have been dampened within the heart of the human.

From her bio: Mary Evelyn Tucker is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies. She teaches in the joint MA program in religion and ecology and directs the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale with her husband, John Grim.

The story of the universe has the power to change history

Mary Evelyn Tucker in conversation with Kathleen Dean Moore

via Maureen, Sisters of Earth email list

Orion Magazine, May/June issue 2015

Excerpts.

First paragraph:

The world has arrived at a pivot point in his- tory. You could drive a nail through this decade, and the future of the planet would swing in the balance. What can be done to tip the scales toward a resilient, and flourishing, future? Three things, we’re told, all of them essential. First, stop damaging the planet’s life-supporting systems. Second, imagine new and better ways to live on Earth. Third, and most important, change the story about who we are, we humans—not the lords of all creation, but lives woven into the complex interdependencies of a beautiful, unfolding planetary system. Many people are pursuing the first two goals. But Mary Evelyn Tucker has taken up the third, making it her life’s work. From the concluding paragraphs:

It is in the nature of the universe to move forward between great tensions, between dynamic opposing forces. As Thomas Berry said in his article “The New Story,” if the creative energies in the heart of the uni­verse succeeded so brilliantly in the past, we have rea­son to hope that such creativity will inspire us and guide us into the future. My greatest hope would be that these life sys­tems are so powerful, are themselves so resilient, that we can take inspiration from the natural world and its fantastic, intrigu­ing mystery and complexity. In this way, our own generativity can become woven into the vibrant communities that constitute the vast symphony of the universe.

There are hundreds of thousands of people on the planet who are aware and ready and already participating in this epic story. They want to help write the story into its future, participate in its unfolding, so that we get through this hourglass of loss and extinction, of sorrow and mourning. We need to articulate this sorrow and ritualize our grieving; the humanities can help us do that. But we need to create, in this hugely difficult birth passage, new ways of being vibrant and mutually enhancing creatures on this planet.