Earth is Community conference

Earth is Community A Celebration of the Vision and Path of Thomas Berry.

Saturday 15th September 2007. St Marys Venue, York Street, London. W1.

www.earth-is-community.org.uk

The life and work of Thomas Berry, one of the greatest thinkers and visionaries of our time will be celebrated at a major conference in London.

Leading speakers from around the world will join together to celebrate the theme Earth is Community and mark the contribution that Thomas Berry is making to assist humans to face up to this most challenging moment in our history. The speakers are Matthew Fox, Vandana Shiva, Satish Kumar, Cormac Cullinan and Peter Reason.

Thomas Berry, a cultural historian and theologian who calls himself a geologian sees our global task as follows:

"Hope for a renewal of the creative forces of the planet lies in a realisation that the Earth is primary and that humans are derivative. That this dependence of the human on the integral functioning of the planet should be so obvious and yet so consistently denied and so extensively violated is beyond comprehension. The primacy of the Earth community applies to every mode of human activity: economics, education, law, medicine and religion... Thus the primary concern of humans must be to preserve the integrity of the Earth system".

Thomas Berry was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1914. From his academic beginnings as a historian of world cultures and religions, Berry developed into a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes. For two decades, he directed the Riverdale Centre of Religious Research along the Hudson River. During this period he taught at Fordham University where he chaired the history of religions program. There is a website dedicated to Thomas Berry at www.thomasberry.org.

The day will include the following speakers:

The Importance of Great Work - with Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar has been the editor of Resurgence Magazine since 1973. He was also one of the co-founders of Schumacher College and is now its Programme Director.

Reinventing Spirituality - with Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox is author of 28 books including Original Blessing. He might well be the most creative, the most comprehensive, surely the most challenging religious-spiritual teacher in America. (Thomas Berry)

The Transformation of Economics - with Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is one of the worlds most dynamic and provocative thinkers. A physicist, ecologist and activist, she directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi.

The Transformation of Education - with Professor Peter Reason
Peter Reason is Director of the Postgraduate Programme in Action Research at Bath University. More recently his major concern has been with the unsustainable impact of human activities which, he argues, is grounded in our failure to recognise the participatory nature of our relationship with the planet and the cosmos.

The Transformation of Law - with Cormac Cullinan
Cormac Cullinan is author of "Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice". He is also Chief Executive Officer of EnAct International, an environmental law and policy consultancy in Cape Town. He has specialised in the field of environmental law and policy since 1992 and has advised international organisations and governments in more than 20 countries.

Join us for this day of celebration and inspiration including talks, reflections, music, stalls and more.

More about Thomas Berry
For an introduction to the life and influence of Thomas Berry, there can be no better offering than The Great Story, a brilliant and moving documentary (video or DVD, 50 minutes). His major book is The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. Both DVD/video (£20) and book (£9.99) can be bought from GreenSpirit Books tel: 01380 726224 email: greenspiritbooks [at]btinternet.com. Postage is included.
The event will be held at St Mary's Venue (inside St Mary's Church), York Street, London W1. From 9:45am to 5:30pm.

Tickets are £39 and there is also an optional lunch for £6 (options are vegetarian, vegetarian/wheat/gluten free or vegan). To buy your ticket online go to: www.earth-is-community.org.uk or send a cheque payable to The Gaia Foundation with your name, address, phone number (and email address if you have one) and lunch choice (if required) and send it to: Earth is Community, The Gaia Foundation, 6 Heathgate Place, Agincourt Road, London, NW3 2NU.

If you book 4 or more tickets at a time, you will receive the DVD "The Great
Story" (worth £20) free!

There are a limited number of bursary places please enquire at
ian [at] earth-is-community.org.uk or phone 0845 2235280.

This event is being run by GreenSpirit and the Gaia Foundation and is supported by Resurgence, Be the Change and the Schumacher Society, GreenSpirit Books, the School of Economic Science, Greenpeace and the Environmental Law Foundation.

For further information about the event, go to www.earth-is-community.org.uk, tel (international) +44 845 2235280, tel (within the UK) 0845 2235280, email: ian [at] earth-is-community.org.uk, post: Earth is Community, The Gaia Foundation, 6 Heathgate Place, Agincourt Road, London. NW3 2NU