Evolutionary Life

Voices of an Emerging Movement for Conscious Evolution

Celebrating Cosmic, Earth, Biological, and Human History as Sacred


Click here for past and current issues

What is Evolutionary Life?

Evolutionary Life is an e-magazine for those of us inspired by sacred, meaningful understandings of the evolutionary story of the universe. Some of us have discovered this empowering Great Story through the evolutionary evangelical work of Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow. Others of us have come to it through the books, articles, videos, workshops, and courses of Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and others.

The evolutionary story calls many of us to seek a more conscious role in the evolution of civilization, consciousness, and life on Earth. We realize that the remarkable 13.7 billion year unfoldment of life in the universe has everything to do with us today. A number of compelling questions surface: What should we do with this understanding? How do we sustain our insight? How do we bring the evolutionary worldview into our daily lives?

By entering this worldview and asking these questions, we are already a social movement -- a motion of the body of society as it awakens into a new dawn. As we move beyond that to engage with the world -- individually and together -- as conscious forces for evolution, we are becoming a movement advocating conscious evolution and enabling our organizations, communities and societies to consciously evolve themselves.

In addition, all around us skills, technologies, and understandings are blossoming forth which, without seeing themselves as "conscious evolution", are nonetheless serving that powerful process. They, too, are part of this movement.

As we grow in numbers and deepen our understanding of the miracle we are part of, of what is at stake, and of what is involved in becoming active agents of conscious evolution, we can use this e-magazine to share news, insights, activities and resources. It can become an evolutionary space where we gather to inspire, inform, and delight each other, and live together into the enormous Story we now know we are part of -- and thereby become more aware of ourselves as the healing, transformational movement we are.

-- Tom Atlee, editor, November 15, 2006


Note: The first issue was called Evolutionary Edge. We changed the name to Evolutionary Life because its central concern is to help us all live the great evolutionary story authentically, joyfully, and actively -- right now -- individually and together. And after calling it a "newsletter," we soon realized it was much more a magazine, to be set aside and explored at leisure. Its evolution continues...


Past and current issues

July - Aug 2006

"On Being Evolution" • Poetry • Fascinating Cosmic and Evolutionary Facts • Evolutionary Topics in the Mainstream News • Conscious Evolution News • News from Our Favorite Evolutionary Evangelists • Evolutionary Ritual • Evolutionary Process Arts • Evolutionary Quotes • Reader Participation Question • Book Reviews • Questions of Scale (and a touch of humor) • A New Evolutionary Group • Evolutionary Events Calendar

December 2006

Conscious Evolution News • Evolutionary Topics in the Mainstream News • Editorial on the heated science/religion debate • News from Our Favorite Evolutionary Evangelists • Barbara Marx Hubbard's story of discovering Conscious Evolution • "The Dark Side of Immortality and the Gifts of Death" • "Evolution, Process and Conversation" • "Evolution of the Scientific Method" • 3 poems • Awesome Evolutionary/Cosmic Images • Evolutionary Games • New Book and Film Announcements • Book Reviews • Opportunities to Participate • An Emerging Evolutionary Spirituality Project: Evolutionary Revivals! • Revising "The Pluto Parable" • Coming up with Universal Transformative Practices, Exercises, and Meditations • Reader Participation Questions • Evolutionary Events Calendar • Evolutionary Quotes • An Amazing Cosmic / Evolutionary Factoid.(Diamonds in the Sky!) • and A Touch of Humor

June 2007

Conscious Evolution News • Evolutionary and Cosmic News in the Mainstream Media • News from Our Favorite Evolutionary Evangelists - especially about Michael Dowd's new book Thank God for Evolution! • Powerful articles like "Are Human's Naturally Good or Bad" • "Welcoming Disturbance" • "The Common Ground of Peace and Democracy" • "Imagineering and the View from the Future" • "Planet of the Apes" (about a real earthlike planet, and a planet like it that's right here) • "The World's Greatest, Most Powerful Non-Movement" • and an interview with Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson • 3 poems • Videos • Awesome Evolutionary/Cosmic Images • Evolutionary and Cosmic Games • New Book and Film Announcements • Evolutionary Response to Crises • Story Podcasts for Kids • An Ecological Footprint Quiz • Book Reviews • Opportunities to Participate, including exciting evolutionary volunteer opportunities • Online Resources that "Pull It All Together" • Reader Participation Questions • Evolutionary Events Calendar • Evolutionary Quotes • An Amazing Cosmic / Evolutionary Factoid.(the evolution of so many eyes!) • and A Touch of Humor

March 2008

Our Amazing World • Our Ever-Mysterious Cosmos • The Changing Story of Humanity's Past • The Evolving Field of Genetics • Humanity Faces Evolution Now • Varieties of Transformational Politics • Co-Evolving Our Story Field • Special 7-Article Section: Who are We Humans? • Paleolithic Diet • How Baboons Think • Does Time Exist? • Swarm Theory • Fractal Evolution • 2 Poems • Films and Videos• Initiatives • Books • Evolutionary Art • Websites • Photography • Visit with Michael Dowd • First Evolutionary Revival • New Great Story Materials • Evolutionary Evangelists' Itinerary • Evolutionary Quotes • A Touch of Humor