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Programs in Earth Literacies is an initiative developed years ago under the auspices of the Living Language Institute Foundation (LLIF). We envision a breadth of possibilities within Programs in Earth Literacies to explore what it means to be creatures of Earth and to participate in caring for Earth from that perspective. 

The earth community is in a critical moment. We witness humans destroying the life-support systems of our planet at an alarming rate. Human activity is altering climate and poisoning the air, water and soil so much so that the health of humans and other species is at risk. In Evening Thoughts Father Thomas Berry speaks poignantly to this. "“Any nation that plunders its own resources for economic gain, to the detriment of the larger context of the geological or geological systems of the Earth, is endangering all the nations including itself.” Evening Thoughts, Thomas Berry, Sierra Club, San Francisco, 2006.

Diarmuid O’Murchu reminds us that “…as a planetary, cosmic species, we belong to a reality greater than ourselves. It is our congruence with our planetary identity and our cosmic potential that bestows genuine power upon us… As long as we continue to set ourselves against or above the creation in which we are embedded…, we set our selves at enmity with the creation to which we belong.” Evolutionary Faith. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2002. It is in this context and from our concern for Earth that those carrying out Programs in Earth Literacies engage in the Great Work to which Berry invites us.