Thomas Berry was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1914. From his academic beginnings as a historian of world cultures and religions, Berry developed into a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes. He describes himself as a “geologian”.
Berry received his Ph.D. in European Intellectual History with a thesis on Giambattista Vico’s philosophy of history. Widely read in Western history, he also spent many years studying the cultural history of Asia. He has lived in China and traveled to other parts of Asia. He authored two books on Asian religions, Buddhism and Religions of India. For two decades, he directed the Riverdale Center of Religious Research along the Hudson River.
“The basic mood of the future might well be one of confidence in the continuing revelation that takes place in and through the Earth. If the dynamics of the Universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the Earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and the seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the Universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.” — “The New Story” The Dream of the Earth
Personal Website:
Other Websites:
http://www.earthlight.org/mfoxontberry.html
http://www.astepback.com/12principles.htm
http://www.earth-community.org/
Publications:
- Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community
- Dream of the Earth
- The Great Work
- The Universe Story (with Brian Swimme)
- Buddhism
- Religions of India
