Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World

"In the Fall of 2000, a non-profit center was initiated at Timberlake Earth Sanctuary in the foothills of North Carolina that gave evidence of that transformation and hope for the future. From the beginning, the Center created programs through which children participated in a real, living communion with plants and animals and all living things of the earth. These moments of communion were not stories of disconnection from the earth. They were moments of deep bonds of intimacy that exist between children and plants and animals and trees, moments of connection to all living things...

"In the Fall of 2003, the name of the non-profit was changed to “The Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World” to better reflect the focus of our work. We gathered together leading thinkers as adjunct faculty to help develop this new approach to education.

"We consistently sought to deepen our consciousness of the earth and our relationship to it, inspired and encouraged at all junctures by the presence of Greensboro native Thomas Berry who was known both nationally and internationally as a cosmologist, eco-theologian, geologian and who we knew at the Center as a dear and personal friend. His books The Dream of the Earth, The Universe Story (co-authored with Brian Swimme), The Great Work, Evening Thoughts, and The Sacred Universe, affirm both an ancient and a new understanding that human beings and nature are one . . . that we are all part of the one story of the universe itself. Thomas Berry urged us to enter into a truly human intimacy with the earth, and it is to this new mode of human presence to the earth that our programs point."

Outreach Partner Council members include:

(www.centerforhuman-earthrestoration.com) (www.wsmontessori.org) (thechildrensgardennursery.com/TheChildrensGarden/Welcome.html) (www.rmcs.org) (www.alternativeeducationindia.net/articles/tackling-krishnamurti-education)
 * Ross Andrews and Randy Senzig, Director and President, Center for Human-Earth Restoration, Raleigh, NC
 * Annamarie Edwards, Director of Education at the Montessori School of Winston-Salem
 * Marie Nordgren, Director and Founder of The Children’s Garden Preschool, Durham, NC
 * Renee Owen, Director of Rainbow Mountain Children’s School, Asheville, NC
 * Neetu Singh, Study Centre Coordinator, The Valley School, Bangalore, India

Educator Council Members
Accessed June 2013:
 * Trish Corbett
 * Andrew Levitt
 * Marie Nordgren
 * Joanne Rothstein
 * Colette Segalla
 * John Shackelton
 * Katherine Ziff

Contact
Web: http://beholdnature.org

Related Sourcewatch

 * Peggy Whalen-Levitt, has been with the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World since its beginnings in 2000. Working closely with Center Founder Carolyn Toben