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NATURE, CREATIVITY, AND IDENTITY Finding Our Role in the Great Work |
| Syllabus | Registration & Fees |
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| TIES M. Ed Our Planet Our Home Kit | |
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Course Schedule |
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Course Schedule Spring, 2007 April 1st through May 31st, 2007 This is an eight week course. The schedule includes two online seminars alternating with periods of reading and reflecting in preparation for the seminar dialogues. An online space is provided between seminars for students to continue interaction and share insights. |
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Course Description How is our deepest creativity tied to that of the living planet? What is our role in the larger Earth community? What is the wellspring of the human imagination? In the western world, we have become habituated to a worldview that somehow situates the human outside the Universe, looking in. This view is shifting, based on thinking and research in biology, physics, psychology and other fields. An emerging view of the cosmos as an unfolding event, not a place, is bringing home the realization that there is a continuum between the forces that shaped our home planet and our own creative lives. The life of the human imagination is embedded in the larger story, in other species, and the landscape we inhabit. What implication does this have for our sense of meaning? One of the key challenges of our time is to bring into alignment our own sense of purpose with the forces that have shaped us and continue to shape us as a species among others on Earth. The starting point is the individual. Our identity is co-evolving with that of the larger Earth community. This course examines the basis for these ideas drawing on biology, physics, psychology, and poetry. We’ll explore, as a learning community, the challenges and rewards of deepening a sense of one’s “living” work, or role, in the Earth story. The course is structured as a co-learning community of participants and course mentor using dialogue in a virtual (online) campus environment (see “About the e-Campus Exchange" below). A short reading on the nature of creative dialogue, based on the work of David Bohm, is required as part of the first set of readings. An integrative paper of 5-7 pages is due at the end of the course (optional if you are not taking the course for credit toward the M.Ed. in Integrative Learning). |
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Faculty Lauren de Boer, MA, Core Faculty K. Lauren de Boer was editor and executive director of EarthLight Magazine for ten years (1995-2005), a publication that explored the intersection of ecology, cosmology, consciousness, and spirituality. His essays, articles, and interviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications. Lauren is a founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society, a group of scientists, theologians, and artists whose purpose is to explore the meaning and implication of the sacred Universe Story for our time. He serves on the editorial advisory board for the Center for Ecozoic Studies in North Carolina, is a board member for the Institute for Sacred Cinema, and the Green Music Network Magazine. He has taught a graduate level course in Sustainable Communities at Naropa University in Oakland. Lauren received his MA in Culture, Spirituality, and Geo-justice at Holy Names College in Oakland, California. He received his BA in English, minor in Cultural Anthropology, at the University of Iowa, where he was also a member of the Iowa Writers Workshop. In addition to his interests in cosmology, Lauren is a poet, essayist, pianist, and amateur naturalist who explores, through improvisation in writing and music, the presence of the evolving Earth community and cosmos in our everyday lives. He is currently at work on a book Invisible Earth: the Practice of Spiritual Ecology in Everyday Life.
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Graduate Credits Participants can earn two graduate credits for this two month course. These credits may be applied toward the M.Ed. in Integrative Learning if the student subsequently enrolls in the full program. |
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About the eCampus Exchange Participants in the TIES eCampus over the past twelve years have found it to be a unique and compelling learning experience. Many participants have expressed that what started out as unfamiliar territory became for them a community that, in the words of one person, offered "friendship, hope, strength, faith, and understanding." In addition to the experience of community, the eCampus is intellectually exciting and provides a system for deepening and organizing your thoughts. You can reflect on the readings and postings and formulate and develop ideas at your own pace. The learning experience and sense of community deepens through ongoing exchange over eight weeks. |
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Course Readings / Viewings The following readings and viewings are required. Alternate readings are provided for participants who may have already completed coursework with TIES using the required readings for this course. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium, Harper Collins, 1993. Memes and evolution, creative flow experience, the psychology of work. Elizabet Sahtouris - Earth Dance: Living Systems in Evolution, Metalog Books, 1996. A sense of the lithosphere, living planet, continuity with the human, the importance of the microbes. (This book can be downloaded at www.ratical.com/LifeWeb or purchased at bookstores) Thomas Berry - The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club Books, 1990 (new edition, 2006). Selected chapter readings (not entire work): “The New Story,” “Creative Energy,” and “The Dream of the Earth.” Brian Swimme – The New Story video. Human identity and the evolution of the cosmos, our role in the Earth community. Available online at www.global-mindshift.org. David Whyte’s, Through the Eye of the Needle: Personal Destiny and Reimagination of Work, videotape, Many Rivers Company, 1995. Human purpose, the spiritual dimension of work, poetry. “Some Suggestions on the Nature of Dialogue”, a 2-3 page summary (provided as a pdf) based on David Bohm’s, On Dialogue. |
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Alternate / Supplementary Reading The readings and viewing above are required. However, if you have done previous coursework with TIES that included the required reading for this course, you may choose from the following readings as alternates. In that case, you will be expected to bring your insights from the alternate readings into the e-Campus dialogue. Margulis, Lynn and Sagan, Dorion. Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution, Simon & Schuster, 1986. Eiseley, Loren. The Immense Journey, Vintage Books, 1959. Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club Books, 1990 (new edition, 2006). |
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Course Expectations
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SCHEDULE OF SEMINARS AND READINGS Introductions – Getting to Know Each Other and the Online Campus April 1st through April 10th Participants will be introducing themselves, familiarizing themselves with David Bohm’s method of dialogue we will be using, and reading, reflecting, and annotating the first set of readings in preparation for the first online dialogue. Readings: “Some Suggestions on the Nature of Dialogue.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium. Thomas Berry - The Dream of the Earth. Chapter 15, “The Dream of the Earth.”
Viewing: Brian Swimme - The New Story video (human identity and the evolution of the cosmos, our role in the Earth community), available online at www.global-mindshift.org.
Alternate readings for Seminar I: None.
Seminar I April 11th through April 25th Dialogue on The Evolving Self and The New Story (video) and chapter 15 of Dream of the Earth |
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Reading / Viewing in Preparation for Seminar II April 26th through May 10th Reading: Earth Dance, Elizabet Sahtouris. Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth. Chapters 4 & 10, “Creative Energy” and “The New Story.”
Viewing: David Whyte, Through the Eye of the Needle. Alternate readings for Seminar II: (choose from one of the following) Margulis, Lynn and Sagan, Dorion. Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution. Eiseley, Loren. The Immense Journey. Berry, Thomas. The Dream of the Earth (in its entirety). |
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Seminar II May 11th through May 25th Dialogue on Earth Dance, chapters 4 & 10 of Dream of the Earth, and Through the Eye of the Needle (video). (Alternate readings if chosen.)
May 27th Integrative paper due (optional if you are not taking the course for credit toward the M.Ed. in Integrative Learning).
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| © Copyright TIES 2007
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