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Teacher’s Guide Design for Sustainability

Teacher’s Guide conceived and designed by the GEESE -

Global Ecovillage Educators for a Sustainable Earth

Version 5 © Gaia Education, 2012

Contents

THE SOCIAL DIMENSION

MODULE ONE: Creating Community and Fostering Social Justice

MODULE TWO: Governance: Group Dynamics and Decision Making

MODULE THREE: Power, Rank, Privilege, and Leadership

MODULE FOUR: Art, Social Transformation, and Media Literacy

MODULE FIVE: Networks and Social Activism

THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION

MODULE ONE: Shifting the Global Economy towards Sustainability

MODULE TWO: Community Funds, Local Currencies, and Banking

MODULE THREE: Right Livelihood

MODULE FOUR: Nurturing Local Economies

MODULE FIVE: Legal Structures

THE ECOLOGICAL DIMENSION

MODULE ONE: Whole System Thinking and Design

MODULE TWO: Urban Agriculture: Food, and Nutrient Cycle

MODULE THREE: Green Building

MODULE FOUR: Water and Energy

MODULE FIVE: Mobility, Resilience, and Irregular Settlements

THE WORLDVIEW DIMENSION

MODULE ONE: New Restorative Worldviews

MODULE TWO: Re-awakening Nature

MODULE THREE: Transformation of Consciousness

MODULE FOUR: Healthy Living in the Human and Natural Environment

MODULE FIVE: Socially Engaged Spirituality and Indigenous Traditions

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THE WORLDVIEW DIMENSION

Written and compiled by Giovanni Ciarlo, Hildur Jackson and Will Keepin

Content

Module One: New Restorative Worldviews Module Two: Re-awakening Nature Module Three: Transformation of Consciousness: Being and Doing for Social Change Module Four: Healthy Living in the Human and Natural Environment: Healthy

Planet, healthy Persons Module Five: Socially Engaged Spirituality and Indigenous Traditions

Introduction

“A human being is part of the whole— called by us universe, a part limited in time and

space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from

the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of

prison for us restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons

nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our cir-

cle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature."

- Albert Einstein

To create a new culture of sustainability and care for the planet and all life forms it is first neces-

sary to develop new worldviews. The kind of cultural practices that honour life, caring, and re-

spect for “the other,” be they other human beings, animals, or the planet as a whole. For this It is

essential to study different models- such as the Dynamic Spiral - and ways of transitioning into

new paradigms – ecovillages, eco-neighbourhoods, transition towns, Cohousing, etc. – in order to

stimulate new designs in global communities.

This new culture of sustainability needs to be firmly grounded both on scientific knowledge and a

spiritual understanding of our place in the web of life.

The current human population of the planet has a rich source of wisdom and knowledge about

living harmoniously with the Earth in the many traditional and indigenous cultures that devel-

oped globally over millennia. Each of them has figured out a way of life that honours the natural

forces and is able to live well using only the resources available in their immediate environments.

But above all they have also tapped into the spiritual powers of Gaia, the Earth spirit described by

James Lovelock and Lyn Margulis in their 1970s revolutionary new view of the Earth as a living

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sentient being and presented in their books, especially Lovelock’s (2000). Gaia: A New Look at

Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

But this way of relating to the Earth is nothing new. Indigenous people have understood this for

eons, and yet their way of seeing the world is rapidly disappearing in order for the powerful and

corrupted forces of industrialization to prevail. We must not allow this destructive worldview to

continue. The Kogis, descendants of the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean of the Sierra Santa

Marta in Colombia are the oldest culture in the Americas. They live in a close relationship with

the Earth, yet today after so many year and centuries they are on the verge of extinction due to

the drug trade and the industry of war. They view their territories as a temple with the codices of

their ancestors imprinted in them.

The oppressed nations of the Americas survived the European conquest in the most remote

places by mixing their blood. The African and Indian cultures of Latin America have created a

new identity based on their experience as persecuted and marginalized native people of the land

that was stolen from them, displaced by the forces of violence and oppression. Their survival has

much to teach us as we strive to live in a sustainable world.

The media often makes the Indian tribes fashionable, like it happened with the Yanomani of Bra-

zil in the 80s. Today we hardly hear of their condition. But when the old “fashion” is replaced by

another, newer one, they are left alone to fend for themselves and unable to protect their culture

against the invasive forces of globalization. Yet with their ancestral form of organization many

indigenous tribes everywhere have resisted against all odds.

The few Yecuana Indians left today in South American jungles have a unique way of knowing

their environment, and still they live with the memories of the killings of one or two generations

ago and the threads of today’s industrial taking over of their lands. They fight with every ounce of

blood in order to save their youth and preserve their culture.

Indigenous cultures don't talk about nature having rights because the concept of rights is not cen-

tral to their culture. But they understand that they are in relationship with every aspect of

Earth—not only with other people but also with the air that they breathe, the food that they eat,

the plants, the animals. Most indigenous cultures have means for ensuring that these fundamen-

tal relationships are respected.

The rights of Nature

We take it for granted that humans have rights, such as freedom of speech. Courts say that corpo-

rations do, too. If this is the case, is it such a stretch to say that rivers or elephants do too?

A growing movement of environmentalists and social-justice activists say nature should have le-

gally recognized rights. More than 100 communities in the United States have passed ordinances

granting rights to nature, and Ecuador has included language that recognizes the rights of nature

in its constitution.

But what would it mean in the real world to have a lawyer arguing on behalf of an ecosystem or

an animal? Is it practical? See article on animal rights in YES magazine, Spring 2011 issue #57.

Cormac Cullinan, one of the leaders of the rights-of-nature movement wrote the book on the

subject—he’s the author of Wild Law: Protecting Biological and Cultural Diversity, a seminal

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text on the concept of rights of nature. In April 2010, Pablo Solón, Bolivia’s U.N. ambassador,

enlisted Cullinan to lead the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth

at an alternative climate conference held in Cochabamba. The final Declaration represented the

work of 35,000 conference attendees. For many activists, the Declaration presents an alternative

to the weak agreements that make up the Copenhagen Climate Accord of 2009, though it has not

been officially acknowledged by the United Nations.

Adapted From Guardian News & Media. April 12, 2011article by John Vidal

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting nature equal rights to humans. The Law of

Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's

rich mineral deposits as ''blessings'' and is expected to bring radical new conservation and social

measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the United Nations climate talks

for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include:

The right to life and to exist;

The right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration;

The right to pure water and clean air;

The right to balance; the right not to be polluted;

And the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature ''to not be affected by mega-infrastructure

and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communi-

ties''. ''It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all'', said the Vice-President, Alvaro Garcia

Linera.

The law has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view,

which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all

life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

Ways of Seeing Life

There are many people today writing about "ways of seeing" that can inform the global ecovillage

vision, and are necessary to it.

Francis Moore Lappe asks-

“why do we tolerate rules of economic life that violate our sense of the sacred”? At the

heart of this question is a tension between the economic world we know and the sa-

cred world many of us desire. She goes on to say “only as we leave behind this false no-

tion of the economic self will we be able to critique and resist economic rules that

violate our deepest intuitions about our most basic human values, including… our

need to cherish the sacred.”

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John de Graaf in “State of the World 2010” writes-

“While third world people in the south need a more stable and secure system that can

assure well being and a healthy full life, those living in the affluent north could benefit

from a reduction in their stress level caused by overconsumption and long work hours.

There is a silver lining on the cloud of recession that hangs over the industrial world.

Contrary to popular expectations, in some countries—particularly the United States—

health outcomes are actually improving. Christopher Ruhm at the University of North

Carolina finds a decline in mortality of half a percent for each 1% increase in U.S. un-

employment. How is this happening? Many of the newly jobless suffer acute stress, and

suicides are up. But some are using the time off to improve the rest of their lives—

learning to save, finding time to exercise, bonding more closely to family and friends.

More important, the crisis has meant a reduction in working hours for most Ameri-

cans for the first time in decades. Some companies and public agencies have chosen to

cut hours through shorter workweeks or furloughs instead of laying employees off.

With more time and less money, people are smoking and drinking less, eating fewer

calorie-laden restaurant meals, and walking or bicycling more. While auto sales have

plunged, bicycle sales are on the upswing. As Americans drive less, they die less often

in accidents—U.S. traffic deaths declined by 10% from 2007 to 2008. Air pollution

from cars and factories (as they produce less) is also down, resulting in fewer deaths,

especially among children.

In time, workers may find that the increased family time, improved health, and other

benefits of more leisure outweigh the income losses. This should inspire more efforts

to trade productivity for time instead of greater purchasing power. But we need to do

this for another reason: preserving the biosphere for future generations.”

Julit Schor adds-

“Long hours of work are stressful, undermine family functioning and social connections, and

cause physical and emotional illnesses. Overworked employees are more likely to be de-

pressed, more likely to experience stress, and less likely to take care of themselves. Excessive

work hours also reduce sleep, which in turn erodes health. People who work too much are

unable to engage in other activities, primarily social ones, that improve their wellbeing. And

finally, the additional money earned by working more hours yields less benefit than people

expect.”

Teaching Happiness

In March 2008, after a century of absolute monarchy, Bhutan, a small, Buddhist kingdom in the

Himalayas, held its first democratic elections. Bhutan's transition to a constitutional monarchy

(i.e., the king is still the head of state, but the executive and legislative bodies are now democrati-

cally elected) has aggravated citizens' concerns about how globalization and modernization

might affect Bhutan’s traditional values. The country has long worked to preserve its isolation —

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it was one of the last nations to introduce television, lifting a ban on the Internet and TV in 1999.

The royal government’s response to these concerns has been Gross National Happiness, or GNH,

the guiding development philosophy in Bhutan for the last quarter century. GNH attempts to bal-

ance economic development, environmental conservation, good governance, and cultural promo-

tion. Bhutan’s first prime minister, Lyonchoen Jigme Y. Thinley, is now working to radically

transform Bhutan’s national education system to reflect GNH values, which he defines as “sa-

credness, reverence, honour, and respect.”

The Bhutanese prime minister is interviewed by Dahlia Colman, the cofounder of GPI Youth, an

international youth program based on the philosophy of Gross National Happiness. Read the full

interview at http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/934. Growing our own food for a spiritual

connection with the earth.

John Gerber teaches Sustainable Agriculture and several other sustainability courses at the Uni-

versity of Massachusetts where he serves as faculty coordinator for the undergraduate program

in Sustainable Food and Farming. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Living Routes, Inc.

He writes: “One of my previous blog posts focused on our efforts to change a local zoning bylaw to

make it legal to raise backyard hens. A side effect of this work has been several interviews with the

local press, in which I am invariably asked why I raise hens. Frankly, I don’t always tell the whole

truth.

I tend to talk about my desire to uncouple from the industrial food system and factory farms that

contribute to diminishing fossil fuels, the threat of pandemic, and global climate change. I also talk

about my desire to be more self-sufficient and to have food to give to my neighbours as the reasons

for growing a garden and raising hens. And this is all true…. but not quite complete. The truth is…

raising my own food also gives me a spiritual connection with Mother Earth.

Going out in the morning before work to check for eggs and “say hello to the ladies,” is a daily re-

minder of my connection with all of life. It is a way to reaffirm that we are part of – rather than

apart from Mother Nature. If I do this simple act with mindfulness, it can be a brief spiritual mo-

ment at the start of my day. What and how we eat food can also be a sacred experience (or not).

Putting food in our bodies is the most intimate act we do on a regular basis (generally more often

than sex). Eating food can either be a sterile, hurried act, offering little cause for joy – or a creative,

spiritual act of connecting with other people, the earth – and thus with all of Creation. According to

Wendell Berry ‘when food… is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters

are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous.’ This amnesia prevents us

from realizing the contribution food makes to our lives as a source of both physical and spiritual

nourishment. But it is not only the chickens that suffer from the industrial system!

Industrial agriculture has been eminently successful at displacing millions of people from the land,

thus reducing the opportunity for most of us to have a personal relationship with our food and with

Mother Earth. In forgetting the sacred we have become unhealthy and un-whole. From this place of

illness, we ask the wrong questions and seek after the false-gods of consumerism and superficial

amusements. I believe we must rediscover ways to reconnect with the earth, perhaps by growing

our own food, raising a few hens (for the eggs and the laughs), and buying real food from people in

our own communities we know and trust, if we are to heal the damage we have caused to the global

ecosystem and the human soul.”

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Searching for a New Worldview

We are living in a very unique time in the history of our civilization, facing several simultaneous

challenges: a deteriorating environment, a very unequal distribution of dwindling resources,

widespread poverty, wars, climate change, peak oil, oppression of many peoples, and dissatisfac-

tion with life even in those countries with a surplus of material things. What are we to make of all

this? Do things have to be this way? Why is this happening to us? What can we do about it?

The answers to such questions are certainly not simple, and you will not find them in any text-

book. But the viewpoint of Gaia Education is that these problems are systemic, they are part of

the same pattern. And they, for the most part, are ones that we humans have brought upon our-

selves over the course of many centuries by our attitudes towards each other and towards Na-

ture, and by the concepts we have developed regarding who we are and the very purpose of our

being here—in other words, our worldview. A worldview is a cultural phenomenon. It can and

does change over time and can differ substantially across cultures. At its most basic level it is de-

termined to a great degree by the spiritual dimension, our sense of the sacred.

Spirituality is the core essence, the sustaining life-force infusing and giving direction, meaning

and purpose to a cultural system. Comprising the ultimate in shared values and ethics, the spiri-

tuality of a culture forms the basis for legitimizing its socio-economic structure, its relationships

with the greater-than-human-world and its cosmic ecology (e.g. love, compassion, forgiveness,

mercy, reverence for that which nurtures and sustains life, etc.). Each unique culture practices

and celebrates spirituality in a manner reflective of its unique situation in the world. The 20th

century revolution of technologies that permits long distance travel and instant communication

across the world has brought all cultures closer together, making us more aware than ever of the

many diverse spiritual-cultural traditions that have flourished for millennia as intricate, elabo-

rate meta-solutions to the challenges and opportunities of living in a place.

In an essay titled Deep Mind Beyond Science, Behind Spirit (published in Resurgence, Oct,

2003) author Peter Russel tells us that-

“Humanity is clearly in crisis. If we continue consuming and polluting as we have

done, with little regard for the long-term health of our environment, we will almost

certainly trigger some or other ecological catastrophe. We may even render ourselves

extinct.

Looking to the underlying causes of this crisis we find, time and again, the human fac-

tor–human decisions based on human desires, needs and priorities, often driven by

human fear, greed and self-centeredness. It is clear that the crisis is, at its root, a crisis

of consciousness.

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If we are to navigate our way safely through these challenging times, we need to see

some significant shifts in attitudes and values. We need to recognize that inner peace

does not depend on what we own, our social status, the roles we play, or how wealthy

we are. We need to wake up to a deeper sense of self that is not at the mercy of exter-

nal circumstances, and that does not need to be continually defended and maintained.

We need a degree of care and compassion that extends beyond our immediate circle of

family and friends to embrace strangers and people of different race and back-

ground–and also the many other species with whom we share this planet. We need to

know in our hearts that their well-being is our well- being.”

Thus, in addition to offering numerous explanations for the vast, unseen, sublime dimensions of

life, spiritual and cultural traditions the world over have distinct practical and instrumental value

in sustaining life over time. And so —in contrast to most other educational programs that prefer

to sidestep or ignore this sensitive issue— the spiritual dimension to life’s existence is an integral

component of all Gaia Education courses.

We will look at a number of related issues, such as the nature of worldviews in general and in

particular the shift which is underway at this time; the awakening of consciousness at the per-

sonal level of spiritual practices; the need to see humankind as an integral part of nature if we are

to find long-term solutions to the above-mentioned problems; the importance of planetary and

individual health; the phenomenon of socially engaged spirituality; the relation between science

and religion; and our attitudes to birth, death and the concept of reincarnation.

An understanding of all of these topics is vital to anyone who wishes to contribute actively to

what may well be the greatest shift in worldviews in all of human history as we move into a new

phase in the evolution of life on this planet.

For an excellent resource on Earth based spirituality and worldview activities see Starhawk’s

2004 book The Earth Path: Grounding your spirit in the rhythms of nature Published by

HarperSanFrancisco.

Get the full book: “The Teacher´s Guide: Design for Sustain-ability at www.gaiaeducation.org

This free version of the book is made possible through your generous support.

If you would like to support Gaia Education, please visit our donations page online.

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