Our latest episode of the Journey of the Universe: 10 Years Later podcast features Dr. Dan Spencer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. Professor Spencer’s teaching and research focuses on ecological ethics, ethical issues in ecological restoration, ecology and religion, and globalization, justice, and environmental issues in Latin America and the global economy.

Professor Spencer has used the Journey of the Universe book and film extensively in his classes. “I try to help students understand that the Earth is not a static stage on which the human drama takes place; but a dynamic, evolving, living Earth, part of a living solar system, part of a living Universe, and that we are a part of it.”

Watch the episode here. 

-Counterpoint Press

Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe
By Brian Thomas Swimme
Counterpoint Press, 2022

Read an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the book here, and order here.

Brian has given some presentations about his new book, and you can watch the recordings:
  
“Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe”
With Brian Thomas Swimme
Wellington Square Bookshop. November 5, 2022.
 
“6th Annual Flaring Forth Celebration”
With Brian Thomas Swimme, Sean Kelly, and Thomas Spiritbringer. 
November 9, 2022.

“On The Cosmic Dimension of Human Stories”
With Brian Thomas Swimme and Carolyn Cooke. 
California Institute of Integral Studies. November 17, 2022.
 

A new edition of Dr. Ursula Goodenough’s bestselling book The Sacred Depths of Nature releases early 2023. Check out the new website here.

Extensively revised and in full color. Each chapter begins with an accessible story about the dynamics of Nature: the origins of the universe, the planet, and life; the workings of cells and organisms; the patterns of biological evolution and the resultant biodiversity; awareness and feelings; sex and intimacy; multicellularity and death; and two new chapters on human evolution and morality/ecomorality. Each is followed by a reflection on the spiritual sensibilities elicited by these science-based understandings, generating the foundations for a non-theistic religious naturalist orientation.

“Ursula Goodenough argues passionately, wisely and even lyrically for a new, modern, scientifically-informed world view that can tell us both about the Universe we inhabit and the moral rules we need to inhabit it well.  This is a wonderful account of the history of life by a great biologist. It invites us to find in modern science the profound sense of wonder and belonging, and the deep ethical sense present in all the world’s religious traditions.”

-David Christian, Historian, Macquarie University,
author of Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
 

“We are in a period of unknowns unlike any in a generation or more. As educators, we need new pathways and ideas that can help us educate children for the world to come. Reimagining the Classroom: Creating New Learning Spaces and Connecting with the World provides practical steps and examples that parents and educators can use to begin to create new learning spaces, approaches, and outcomes. Dr. Richards’ provocative book asks us to reconsider some of our basic assumptions about teaching and learning. It helps parents and educators question and recast these assumptions and practices while providing concrete, tested activities and ideas that will help readers reimagine educational spaces rooted in the notion that classrooms—and the stories we tell in them—are a metaphor for the world we hope to create.”

-Wiley 

Reimagining the Classroom: Creating New Learning Spaces and Connecting with the World
By Theodore Richards
Wiley 
Releases December 8, 2022
Pre-order here. 
 

“God and Gaia explores the overlap between traditional religious cosmologies and the scientific Gaia theory of James Lovelock. It argues that a Gaian approach to the ecological crisis involves rebalancing human and more-than-human influences on Earth by reviving the ecological agency of local and indigenous human communities, and of nonhuman beings.”

-Routledge

God and Gaia: Science, Religion and Ethics on a Living Planet
By Michael S. Northcott 
Routledge
Releases December 22, 2022
Available for pre-order on December 1.  
 

“Biophilia—the love of life—encompasses the drive to survive, a sense of kinship with all life-forms, and an instinct for beauty. In this unconventional book, Kay Harel uses biophilia as a lens to explore Charles Darwin’s life and thought in deeply original ways. In a set of interrelated essays, she considers how the love of life enabled him to see otherwise unseen evolutionary truths.”

-Columbia University Press

Darwin’s Love of Life: A Singular Case of Biophilia
By Kay Harel
Columbia University Press, 2022
Order here.
 

“This book is a deep and provocative piece of theology that proposes we engage with the universe as a kind of narrative of awakening and unfolding, as well as an important and useful approach for thinking about theology with respect to modern cosmology.”

-Matthew Stanley, New York University

Protostar L1527
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI. Image processing: J. DePasquale, A. Pagan, and A. Koekemoer (STScI)

News Articles
 

“Dimming the Sun to Cool the Planet is a Desperate Idea, Yet We’re Inching Toward It”
By Bill McKibben. The New Yorker. November 22, 2022.

“Webb telescope spots earliest galaxies yet, and they are cosmic oddballs”
By Mark Johnson. The Washington Post, November 17, 2022.

“How climate stress contributed to collapse of ancient Egypt”
By Michael Birnbaum. The Washington Post, November 17, 2022.

“Liftoff! NASA’s Artemis I Mega Rocket Launches Orion to Moon”
NASA, November 16, 2022.

“World Population Reaches 8 Billion, U.N. Says”
By Daniel Victor. The New York Times, November 15, 2022.

“Researchers Solve Hundred-Year-Old Botanical Mystery that was Key to the Spread of Plant Life on Land”
Yale School of the Environment, November 10, 2022.

“Strike a pose: Yale’s iconic dinosaur skeletons get a new look” 
By Mike Cummings. Yale News, November 11, 2022.

“Two books Include Religion in Cosmic History”
By Lowell Gustafson. Deeptime Network. November 4, 2022.

“Archaeologists Unearth 2,700-Year-Old Stone Carvings in Northern Iraq”
By Molly Enkling. Smithsonian Magazine, October 24, 2022.

“Ocean-Eaten Islands, Fire-Scarred Forests: Our Changing World in Pictures”
The New York Times, November 8, 2022.

“Oldest known sentence written in first alphabet discovered – on a head-lice comb”
By Ian Sample. The Guardian, November 8, 2022.

“A Total Lunar Eclipse in Early Tuesday Skies”
By Shannon Hall. The New York Times, November 7, 2022.

“‘Planet Killer’ Asteroid Spotted That Poses Distant Risk to Earth”
By Robin George Andrews. The New York Times, October 31, 2022.

“Music and Beauty: An Emergent Path of Liberation from The Human Predicament”
By Sam Guarnaccia. The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB) at Stanford University, September 29, 2022.

“The Cosmic Vision of Teilhard de Chardin” with John Haught
October 26, November 2, 9, & 16, 2022
Hosted by Programs in Earth Literacies

“Planetary Health Annual Meeting”
October 31 - November 2, 2022
Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
Watch the recordings here.

“Keep On, Strong Heart” with Kathleen Dean Moore
November 1, 2022
10:00 am - 12:00 pm PST
Hosted by Programs in Earth Literacies

“Evolutionary Rituals: Dancing Through the Darkness to the Ecozoic Era”
5-week Online Exploration and How-To Course
With Carol Kilby, M. Div., D.Min, Author
November 1-29, 2022

“Trinity 125th Anniversary Symposium on Environmental Justice”
Keynote by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
Trinity Washington University 
October 28, 2022
Watch the recordings here.

“Contemplative Cosmology” 
With astronomer Stephan Martin and Marianne Rowe, MS, LMFT 
Friday, December 2, 8:30 - 10:00 PM ET
Register here.

“Applying the New Cosmology” 
Module 2 of the Deeptime Leadership Program
Deeptime Network
January 11 - March 24, 2023
Register here.

“Re-imagining the Classroom: A Shared Inquiry into Education”
With Dr. Theodore Richards
Creation in Crisis
Thursday, December 1, 4pm EST
Register here.

Stay tuned for a new Journey of the Universe: Ten Years Later podcast episode featuring Dr. Richards!

“Deeptime Leadership & Personal Empowerment Program”
September 2022 - June 2023

The nine-month Deeptime Leadership and Personal Empowerment Program, with or without certificate, began September 21st.

Three Modules:

• Introducing the New Cosmology
• Applying the New Cosmology
• Deeptime Leadership Practicum

For more information, contact hello@dtnetwork.org.