What is the
Ecozoic Era?
In The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era - a Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos, Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry define the Ecozoic Era:
The emerging period of life on Earth following the Cenozoic, and characterised, at a basic level, by its mutually-enhancing human-Earth relations. The word derives from the scientific tradition that divides the Phanerozoic eon into the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras.
The project of the Community of the Cosmic Person is to inspire, connect, and equip people to inhabit the Ecozoic Era.
The starting point for inhabiting the Ecozoic Era is a shift in consciousness from a way of thinking and being - deeply embedded in Western industrialised culture - that amounts to an "addiction to commercial-industrial progress as (the) basic referent for reality and value." (Swimme & Berry)
The shift requires letting go of the Western cultural conviction that "humans...are the glory and crown of the Earth" and an end to denying that human beings of this mindset "are the most destructive and the most dangerous component of (the Earth) community." (Swimme & Berry)
“When the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the Earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation, then Earth will have arrived at the celebratory experience that is the fullfillment of earthly existence. ”
“That the universe is a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects is the central commitment of the Ecozoic Era. Existence itself is derived from and sustained by this intimacy of each being with every other being of the universe. ”
