Julie J. Morley - Future Sacred: The Connected Creativity of Nature

For Chloe

FUTURE SACRED

At this teetering moment in the story of our species, when the fate of not just our kind but of so many other species hangs in the balance, we are massively in need of fresh ways of thinking attuned to the more-than-human matrix that holds, enables, and secretly nourishes all of our human cogitations. Future Sacred could not be timelierits themes are crucial to the very prospect of a livable future.

DAVID ABRAM, PHD, AUTHOR OF THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS AND BECOMING ANIMAL AND FOUNDER OF ALLIANCE FOR WILD ETHICS

In her deeply thoughtful and wonderful book, Morley presents an engaging argument for bringing the sacred into all our world-making endeavors. She invites us to reawaken to our cosmic connectedness, reenchant our present and future, and create possibility in the face of crisis. Timely and essential reading.

DR. JUDITH ORLOFF, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF EMOTIONAL FREEDOM

A richly textured cornucopia of wisdom and facts for the 21st century. Such a vibrant mixture of poetic expression and objects of fascination is rare indeed. Read and enjoy this wonderful book!

ALLAN COMBS, PHD, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES AND COAUTHOR OF SYNCHRONICITY

... a richly textured investigation into where we have been, where we are going, and how and why we need to transform our society right now. Morley dives deeply into examining how unity, compassion, and collaborative creativity can reinvent our vision of the future. Exploring diverse methods grounded in complexity theory and systems thinking, Morley makes the case for a necessary healing of our planetary relationships. A wonderful contribution filled with deep theoretical reflection and challenging inquiry, Future Sacred presents an engaging look at the original ideas shaping the new paradigm.

RONALD ALEXANDER, PHD, LEADERSHIP CONSULTANT, PSYCHOTHERAPIST, AND AUTHOR OF WISE MIND, OPEN MIND

Future Sacred elegantly weaves many different threads of indigenous wisdom, philosophy, and science into a new and ancient fabric of meaning that reenchants the Earth and our co-creative role within her. This book reconnects us with the radical enchantment of now, reminding us of our innate kinship with life as a planetary process and of our co-creative agency and hence responsibility for the future of life. At this time of planetary peril, Morley issues a call for embodying our sacred interbeing in all we do, so that we may heal ourselves in intimate relationship with a living planet, individually and collectively living into the future sacred nowtodaythrough our thoughts, words, and actions.

DANIEL CHRISTIAN WAHL, AUTHOR OF DESIGNING REGENERATIVE CULTURES

Future Sacred urges us into a new storya story of synergy and partnership with the cosmos. Morleys wisdom compels us to respect the intrinsic sacred sentience that underlies the interrelatedness in the web of life. This work of integrity recognizes that no true separation exists between human and planetary problems. Thanks to Julie J. Morley we are compelled to embrace sacred communion. This work requires our deepest attention.

KINGSLEY DENNIS, PHD, COAUTHOR OF DAWN OF THE AKASHIC AGE: NEW CONSCIOUSNESS, QUANTUM RESONANCE, AND THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD

Julie Morley draws on an impressive array of sourcesancient and modern, indigenous and Westernto support a proposal that is as simple as it is profound: if we are to move toward a sacred future we must learn to live on natures terms, with partnership rather than domination, synergy instead of mastery. She is so right to tell us that in the present planetary catastrophe we cannot afford not to act, but we can less afford to act without these deeper insights.

PETER REASON, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF BATH, AND AUTHOR OF SPINDRIFT AND IN SEARCH OF GRACE

Anyone concerned about the current environmental crisis needs to read Future Sacred. Inspired by indigenous wisdom and modern science, Morley combines her deep love and respect for nature with wide-ranging insights from biology, ecology, and complexity science. The result: an inspired and informed account of the intimate relationship between humanity and the rest of the natural world. The survival of our species may well depend on implementing the wisdom contained in these pages.

CHRISTIAN DE QUINCEY, PHD, AUTHOR OF RADICAL NATURE AND BLIND SPOTS

One thing is certain: our future is uncertain. Looking at the state of the planet today, it is hard to imagine how humanity can avoid the looming ecological catastrophe. But with enough wisdom and inspired action, we can pull through. Julie Morleys message is clear: We need to think differently about how we think and act. Her book Future Sacred, a manifesto for the future, shows us all the way forward.

BRIAN THOMAS SWIMME, PHD, PROFESSOR OF EVOLUTIONARY COSMOLOGY AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES AND AUTHOR OF THE UNIVERSE IS A GREEN DRAGON

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to my extraordinary daughter. She inspires me to offer something to her future and the future of this troubled but still magical world. I am also deeply grateful to my wonderful husband. He devotes his big heart to his people (human and nonhuman), supports my work in endless ways, and always challenges me to trust my own voice. I am ever grateful to my canine family member and research assistant. She devotedly curls up on the bed near my desk, offering me encouraging smiles and protection from dangerous delivery trucks. She also teaches me how to be a better person.

I could not have embarked upon this journey or navigated its passages without the editorial guidance and wisdom of mentor and friend Christian de Quincey; he is a true lover of wisdom and a wizard of the word.

I remain deeply thankful to Glenn Aparicio Parry for his inspiration, guidance, and support. His presence is a gift of synchronicity.

I am eternally grateful for the guidance, inspiration, and scholarship of the faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies. I am profoundly thankful to those faculty members who have directly influenced my studies, my work, and this book: Leslie Allan Combs, Dan Crowe, May Elawar, Alfonso Montuori, Matthew Segall, Brian Swimme, and Peter Reason.

FOREWORD

By Glenn Aparicio Parry

Thought moves the way water moves, filtering down and pervading societies, and eventually the globe. Ideas are like droplets that pool together and circulate in streams of consciousness. Many of these streams never gather momentum and are consigned to minor tributaries that become dry riverbedsbut enough pool together into larger mainstreams that reach all the way to the ocean. This oceanic consciousness contains the ideas that have traveled most widely. Because they are so widespread, they become tacitly acceptedwhich is to say that nobody questions them or examines the assumptions that underpin them. These assumptions become the lens through which we view, interpret, and act in the worldcommonly known as our dominant paradigm, which Immanuel Kant called a