Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

For millennia, prophets, mystics and poets have illuminated the oneness of all life. Today biology is confirming that we are genetic kin with the entire diversity of life. Episcopal Reverends Fletcher Harper and Sally Bingham and Baptist Church Administrator G.L. Hodge preach the gospel of Creation Care that more and more faith communities are embracing in a historic shift.

As we enter what Paul Gilding calls the Great Disruption – it’s only a matter of when, not whether, the world will change course on the scale of a wartime mobilization – this time to restore nature and human communities. Author and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Transition U.S. leader Carolyne Stayton, community organizer Mary Gonzales and retired Marine Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby show how people are building a national movement to create resilience from the ground up in local communities and regions.

Our physical health is intimately tied to environmental health, as well as to our emotional and spiritual ecology. Visionary physician Dr. Gabor Maté explores the deepest psychological, emotional and social forces leading to our society’s poor health and unhappiness. He says we have the capacity to heal both ourselves and the planet by reconnecting with our true nature as empathic, nurturing, social beings.

How extreme is wealth disparity in the US? Imagine every person in the economy walks by, in order of income from low to high, with heights proportional to what people make. You’d see mostly a parade of dwarves, with some unbelievable giants at the very end. Political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz and social entrepreneur Ted Howard of the Democracy Collaborative depict breakthrough models for breaking this vicious cycle by democratizing wealth, ownership and access to capital.

It's obvious that we're not here for ourselves. That makes no evolutionary sense. There's something larger than us, and to the extent that we can live that and celebrate that, I think we're healthier, and then that's love.So I think if we think of love in this way, and a beloved community in this way, when we hold all this stuff together, together.

One of the things that the children wanted in their school, which a lot of kids would want if they had the opportunity, is a river flowing through their classroom. Kids like that kind of thing, and engineers immediately have a kind of tick that develops. [laughter] No, you can't have a river. But in this case, what the team decided, well, this is a living building, perhaps we should listen to the students.

I don't want to write words that fill jail cells, and yet it is my abiding responsibility to protect my children from harm and plan for their future. And my neighbors feel the same way. If the air, food and water out of which our children's bodies are constructed are contaminated, we can't do our job as parents. If the day comes when I can be a better mother inside of jail than outside, I will be that mother.

What we're trying to do is not about winning, it's about losing, and it's about losing this burden of having to make it, to be rich, to be comfortable, to be seen, to be famous, to be followed, to be friended, to be known. We don't need all that because it's an upside down world and the winners are the losers. And what we lose is the delusion and suffering that we are here on Earth for ourselves. That is such a delusion, you know. Takers suffer always.

How can a grocery store lift a community out of poverty? The People’s Grocery provides creative solutions to community health problems that stem from a lack of access to and knowledge about healthy, fresh foods. The personal journey of Executive Director and home-grown food justice leader Nikki Henderson brings heart, soul and love to community health and wealth for the low-income community of West Oakland, California.

Blue Mind, Ocean Heart - Illuminating the magical underwater world, Jacques Cousteaus 1960s films and TV show caused a sea change by moving the hearts and minds of tens of millions. Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols, ocean advocates Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau, and the Truckee High School Envirolution Club are among the rising tides of passionate innovators making remarkable advances to understand and restore the waters of the world. Their inspiring stories give good reason for hope, including the scientific fact that we have a blue mind born in and of the ocean to guide us.