Canticle to the Cosmos

My name is Bridget Carlin and I have recently started work at An Gairdin. My main task over the next few years will be to work in primary schools introducing children to 'The Universe Story". As part of my induction to the work I have been watching (on video) a series of 12 lectures by Brian Swimme Ph.D. and American cosmologist and pyhysicist, called 'Canticle to the Cosmos'.
I am a convinced environmentalist with a particular interest in biodiversity and I would have considered myself quite versed on ecological issues - however I have been enlightened, awed and reanimated by my exposure to Swimme's work. He is an inspired lecturer with great charm and a winningly understated sense of humour. His passion for his subject is incontestable - and why not? His subject being that everything in the universe came from that tremendous, awesome, creative energy unleashed by the fireball(Swimme rejects the phrase 'big bang' as too redolent of destruction.) That energy is the common ancestor of everything, animate and inanimate and all is inextricably linked in the universe. The world view that all is inextricably linked and interdependent replaces the western hierarchical world view that places the human at the head of a hierarchy of life. The web replaces the pyramid. Indigenous world view and mystical experience are coherent with scientific and empirical evidence.
Exposure to the life affirming philosophy expounded by Swimme has been a privilege and an inspiration and I would recommend every-one to indulge in it.