Page 44 - ECOlogic Book

and that the aesthetic sense, and the sense of the sacred are excited
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by this new science of qualities.

Hearing this, we realize that Ekistics, a science of qualities, is not only
a science. It is an art and a spirituality as well; an entirely new
experience of the world.

“In the April, 1985 issue of Newsweek, it was noted that, ´. . .
biochemists at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California presented
evidence that life on earth may have gotten its start in lumps of
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clay.” Sound familiar?

We are creatures who have emerged out of the Body of the Earth
itself, as other Earth Creatures have done. Is it any wonder that
primal peoples refer to the Earth as “Mother”?

As we begin once again to participate in this amazing event called
“Earth”, we know that our breath is not just ours, but it is the breath
of other beings as well; - we are participating in the exchange of

gasses vital to the life of the planet. When I breathe, the Earth
Breathes. When I sweat, the planet is expressing its need to flow. We
are within the biosphere, an inextricable part of it. We are embraced
by it.

This is Ekistics, the study of the human within the Earth ecosystem – a
science of qualities.

Radical Participation and the Glass Wall
(Spring, 1992)

Pneuma (Greek): Air, breath, spirit
Ruah (Hebrew): Air, breath, spirit

Just before the big January snowfall, I was on my way to bed one night
when I noticed through the doorwall in my studio that I’d left the back yard

43 Ibid.

44 Berensohn. Paulus, “Silica, Alumina/Rapture and Awe: Revising Clay Imaginatively”, December, 1990, the
Studio Potter

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