Green Fire was first founded in the year 2000 as a ‘nomadic’ eco-ministry Founder Darlene Green traveled to many intentional communities and learned about their history, their current development, and most importantly the wonderful people who had been pioneering cooperative living.
As a legal ministry Green Fire was (and still is) registered in the State of Colorado and obtained ‘church’ status on the basis of its deep ecology creed and organizational structure that was based on the Mayan Sacred Tzolkin Calendar.
Between 2000 and 2006 G
reen Fire was a vehicle for sharing information and networking between communities. One of the challenges for these communities at the time was their ability to connect with each other – the internet was still in its developing stages and many of these communities were still on a ‘dial up’ if any type of connection. It became a Green Fire goal to remedy the situation by launching a network that would serve these islands of amazing communities.
Green Fire made corporate history Earth Day 2005 when Hewlett Packard held an Earth Day event at their corporate training center in Roseville, California and allowed Green Fire to attend and table alongside other non-profits. What was so special about that? It was the first time a legal ministry was allowed to participate at a corporate event – bylaws of US corporations generally do not allow ‘religious’ organizations to participate as sponsors or vendors at corporate events. However after several interviews with event organizers and corporate officials they made an exception with Green Fire because of its primary focus and missionary goals were non-denominational and as the CEO put it, ‘rather novel and timely‘.
The Earth Charter Initiative was the main project that Green Fire consistently networked and advocated. Launched in the year 2000 the Earth Charter is a people’s declaration on global interdependence and universal responsibility that sets forth fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful world. It endeavors to identify the critical challenges and choices facing humanity in the twenty first century. Its principles are designed to serve “as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed.” (Earth Charter Preamble) The Earth Charter is the product of a decade long, world-wide, cross-cultural, dialogue on common goals and shared values conducted during the 1990s. This process, which involved the most open and participatory consultation process ever associated with the drafting of an international document, is the primary source of the legitimacy of the Earth Charter as an ethical guide. You can read more about the Earth Charter here…
Green Fire has a song that was written and performed by Jesse Wolf Hardin titled ‘Green Fire’. It was the story of Aldo Leopold, father of Deep Ecology and the Wolf that he killed while he was a forest service worker. Here is an excerpt from the song:
Slowly Aldo rode up and dismounted
And he walked up to where the she-wolf lay
And then…
For the briefest moment she stared up into his eyes
locked eyes with his
And there…
There in the middle was a fire
Not just the golden fire of life
But also
A GREEN FIRE
The GREEN FIRE of the LAST OLD GROWTH
The GREEN FIRE of the last UNDAMNED RIVER
The GREEN FIRE of WILDERNESS
And Aldo Leopold knew then and there that there could be no wilderness without the WOLF
And no real wild without that GREEN FIRE inside of us…
At Green Fire’s peak before it went into a 10 year hibernation it had 8 programs, 5 ‘orders’, 35 ordained ministers, and hundreds of online members all over the country that would have on the ground and virtual congregations on the 12th day of the Mayan 13 day ‘wavespell’. The old 70 page website was full of content and ministry resources for members to access and was quite ahead of its time in many ways.