In my vision, we’ve come to recognize our true identity as planetary beings. In contrast with our culture’s current collective story which tells us we’re separate from and have power over the natural world, our new, science-based, creation story reveals that we’re stardust! We’re connected to everything! We BELONG to the Earth Community!

This deep belonging engenders within us a sense of responsibility to the whole, as well as feelings of reverence and gratitude. Acting out of these sensibilities, and the awe and wonder evoked by our new story and the Universe itself, we foster Earth’s flourishing.

What we value, personally and collectively, changes to reflect our expanded identity. Cultural institutions—educational, governmental, economic, religious—change to come
into alignment with these values.

The addictive and meaningless distractions that allowed and encouraged us to avoid facing and dealing with the reality surrounding us fall away as we begin to consider how all our actions affect the whole.

Indicators of well-being are no longer based on economic performance, but on indicators that show how well Earth and the whole Earth Community are flourishing. How will we navigate these new waters we’re entering? As Brian Swimme suggests in the film Journey of the Universe, “Wonder will guide us.”

Betty-Ann Kissilove

Betty Kissilove is the author of Great Ball of Fire! : A Poetic Telling of the Universe Story, published by the Collins Foundation Press.

Betty-Ann Kissilove lives in San Francisco and teaches English as a Second Language at City College. She has long been captivated by the Story of the Universe and believes it holds great significance for our time. She wrote the epic poem Great Ball of Fire! in hopes of making the Universe Story accessible to a wide audience.

What would a flourishing Earth be like? What a great question!

A flourishing Earth would be one in which a significant portion of humanity comes to understand and appreciatively honor their physical, social, and interpretive instincts. In so doing, we would naturally and almost effortlessly work together to co-create a just and thriving future for the entire body of life.

Such honoring is only possible through scientific knowledge. We typically don’t honor what we don’t understand. And we certainly won’t honor what we judge or feel guilty about. This is why understanding evolutionary psychology and brain science is so vital. It is also why few things are more important than teaching the Evolutionary Epic/Big History and the findings of science in the most inspiring ways possible.

As the late Thomas Berry warned, “The world within and around us is an honorable world. To refuse this deepest instinct of our being, to deny honor where honor is due, is to place ourselves on a head-on collision course with the ultimate forces of the Universe.”

A flourishing Earth would be one where millions, even billions, of us support each other in living in right relationship to reality. This and only this, it seems to me, will ensure a mutually enhancing, symbiotic relationship between humans, human technology, and our venerable planet.

Michael Dowd is the author of “Thank God for Evolution,” a chapter in the The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories and Critiques (2008), and “Living in Evolutionary Wisdom,” in Science, Wisdom, and the Future: Humanity’s Quest for a Flourishing Earth (out soon) both of which are Collins Foundation Press books.  He is also author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World.

Michael Dowd and his wife Connie Barlow have been “evolutionary evangelists,” on the road for almost a decade, traveling the United States and sharing the evolutionary story with all comers (www.TheGreatStory.org) They are well known for their work in translating the various evolutionary sciences into practical wisdom for meeting the challenges of everyday life and have created a FREE online teleseminar called “Evolutionize Your Life”  The Science of How to Decode Human Behaviour, Eliminate Self-Judgment, and Create a Big-hearted Life of Purpose and Joyful Integrity. 

The focus of their audio seminar will be, as they summarize it:

“Why the Stone-Age instincts we’ve all inherited can so often challenge us in our modern-day settings—and how new discoveries in the evolutionary and human sciences offer perspectives that are both practical and profound.”