At no other point in the history of humanity has ecological survival been so imminently threatened by climate crises. Join three leading scholars and environmental activists for an emerging and inspired vision of a possible path forward as we shift from crisis to consciousness and chaos to cosmos.

Climate Chaos and the Soul of the World

Jeffrey T. Kiehl

“Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche.” ~ C. G. Jung

Human caused climate chaos has placed life on the planet in a precarious situation. Depth psychology provides a more holistic psychological view of psyche and psyche’s relationship to Nature and, as such, offers a deeper way to understand our role in climate chaos. In this presentation, I explore how unconscious dynamic processes relate to climate chaos and how this perspective may help us weave a tapestry for a new cosmology; one that redefines our relationship to the world allowing us to experience the numinous nature of Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World.

Climate Crisis: A Crisis of Cosmology

Joseph Mitchell

From all the evidence available today, we know the world is more expansive and interconnected than anyone previously imagined. Drawing upon the insights of Thomas Berry, one of the twentieth century’s most prescient and profound ecological thinkers, this presentation will explore what is being called a “new cosmology” – the shift that is taking place in our understanding of the world and the role of the human within it. It will also consider how a new cosmology can help us meaningfully address the climate crisis and make a transition from a period of human devastation of Earth to a period when humans would recognize the sacredness of all creation and find their place within the web of life.

Climate Crisis: A Crisis of Consciousness

Kathleen Noone Deignan

“See or perish”: the existential exhortation offered by priest-scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin whose entire life’s work was given to engaging this enigmatic koan. A paleontologist turned cosmologist, the 20th century visionary enlarged the frame of inquiry concerning humanity’s cosmic vocation within an evolving universe advancing toward its still emergent horizon – a conversation ongoing on many fronts with mounting urgency.

Teilhard perceived that our species’ perilous journey toward an ever-unfolding future follows a route through material complexification leading to circuits of convergence. Such confluent tracks open in the direction of highways of consciousness and fields of creative awareness. In these terrestrial arenas the human species arduously labors and “gropes” toward greater unity of purpose and collaboration if we would “build the Earth.”

“But unity grows only if it is supported by an increase of consciousness, of vision,” writes Teilhard.

This conversation will explore Teilhard’s wisdom concerning the great derangement of a hard-won climate for life and consciousness on planet Earth seen as an arrestment of human comprehension of the nature of cosmogenesis in which we abide. We listen to hear Teilhard’s therapy to heal the eclipse of our species’ ecological sight and insight.