cosmology – Feminism and Religion

Introduction: Miriam MacGillis is a modern-day prophet who not only holds a broad understanding of cosmology but brilliantly expresses it. She was an early colleague of Thomas Berry, introducing many people to the Story of the Universe. I have had the great honor of transcribing the eight tapes of her lecture series called Education for a Small Planet from 1986. Excerpts from tape 1A can be read here and here.

She was a protégé of Thomas Berry and on these tapes spoke about three principles which have been at the heart of the unfolding of the universe from the beginning. As she says, They are very simple and can’t be separated. I’m just separating them now [to discuss them]. In reality they’re three in one. They are extremely simple. Very often, the simplest things are the hardest things to grasp. But once we really begin to reflect on them and their implications, it’s so logical, so clear, so simple.

The first is the principle of differentiation. I posted Miriam’s discussion of differentiation here.

Below is the long delayed 2nd part, where she discusses the next two principles; interiority and communion. Her words have been lightly edited.

Second principle. The principle of interiority. Or subjectivity. And all that means is that whether we’re speaking about this particular atom or whether this is Harry or Henry or Homer or horse, or hippo, each is its own unique articulation of the universe, its own integrity. It has its own inner spaces, which are unique to itself. Hydrogen is hydrogen, it is not helium. And it is hydrogen because as you probe the inner spaces of that, whatever causes that to be hydrogen in those inner spaces has an integrity that will always unfold hydrogen. And the universe only can be at any moment, the sum total of all of that. And because each is what it is, it’s different.

Part 1 was posted yesterday. Miriam MacGillis’ words from Education for a Small Planet continue:

“And those implications, have been the unspoken assumptions which lie at the heart of the way western civilization evolved, distinctly different from eastern civilization or from tribal civilizations. That’s why we look so different. That’s why in 300 years where I live, our ancestors totally, totally altered the natural world. Their obsession with development is outside themselves.

“So, what has transpired in the unfolding of western civilization has been this extra-ordinary capacity of the human in its rational, linear, analytical mode of knowing, to understand, to probe, to analyze, to uncover, to discover, to alter, to change, to redesign and to bring about a better state of affairs than what was. Whether it was the discovery of fire, or the wheel or the printing press or the computer, always the real issue behind the technology is not the technology itself, it’s the vision of bringing about development, the perfection of.

“Now ironically, it’s because of that very detachment from the world that the western mind was free to do that. “If this is just matter, you can do anything you want with it.” That’s not really where there is any moral dimension. Moral development happens between humans, human/human, human groupings and human/god. That is why the whole unfolding of western civilization, we were able to probe to such a depth of the physical energies of the world that in this century we were able to do what we did.