Consciousness & Spirituality, Activism & Leadership
Earth Action: Shifting Mindsets, Changing Behaviour
Talk with Alex Evans, Siri Sadhana Kaur, Dr Iain McGilchrist, Dr Damien Short, Sarah Corbett
Join us for a day of Activism and Empowerment!
Saturday 20th May 2017, 11:00am–5:00pm UK Time The Hoxton, Holborn, London WC1V 7BD
Earth Action will investigate the mental frameworks and cultural understandings that fuel ecological degradation, while looking at how we can shift our mindsets and change our behaviour, engaging in actions that bring positive changes to our relationships with ourselves and the world around us.
The day begins with a choice of three workshops: Kundalini Yoga, Meditation & Sound with Siri Sadhana Kaur, Art & Craftivism: A Heart for Your Sleeve with [Sarah Corbett](#sarah-corbett), or Vini Yoga: Movement and Breath with Miranda Taylor. After a delicious vegan lunch, we will hear from our four speakers.
Alex Evans, campaign director at Avaaz, will discuss how during this time of global crisis and transition we need new myths, new modes of understanding, to navigate our way to a better future. He advocates stories, rather than charts and facts, to animate and unite us so we may create the necessary changes we wish to see in the world.
Dr Iain McGilchrist will explain how the dominance of the left hemisphere over the right in our brain predisposes our society to perceive ourselves as separate from nature. He explores our reciprocal relationships to the natural world and each other, arguing for action that is grounded in empathy and interconnectedness (the domains of the right hemisphere).
Damien Short will investigate Extreme Energy and the Genocide-Ecocide Nexus, asking: What are the main drivers of genocide and ecocide in the world today? How can we avoid being indirect perpetrators?
Our final speaker is [Sarah Corbett](#sarah-corbett), founder of the Craftivist Collective and also hosting a morning workshop, who expands the notion of conventional activism and opens up ways for people to take action in ways that are more creative, gentle and targeted.
Schedule#
1045 Doors Open & Welcome
1100 Workshops start:
Kundalini Yoga, Meditation & Sound with Siri Sadhana Kaur / Viniyoga: Movement & Breath with Miranda Taylor / Craftivism: A Heart For Your Sleeve with Sarah Corbett
1230 Lunch in the kitchen
1330 Talks start:
1330 Alex Evans, The Myth Gap: Finding New Myths for Renewal and Restoration
1410 Iain McGilchrist, The Divided Brain and Human Behaviour
1450 Break
1515 Damien Short, Extreme Energy and the Genocide-Ecocide Nexus
1555 Sarah Corbett, Craftivism: The Art of Gentle Protest
1630 Event Ends
Workshops#
Once upon a time our society was rich in stories. They united us and helped us to understand the world and ourselves. We called them myths. - Alex Evans
Today, we have a myth gap. Does that matter? Alex Evans argues persuasively that it does. In this time of global crisis and transition – of mass migration, inequality, resource scarcity and climate change – it is only by finding new myths, those that speak to us of renewal and restoration, that we will navigate our way to a better future. It is stories, rather than facts and pie-charts, that have the power to animate us and bring us together to change the world.
Drawing on his first-hand experience as a political adviser within British government and at the United Nations, and examining the history of climate-change campaigning and recent contests such as Brexit and the US presidential election, Alex Evans explores how tomorrow’s activists are using narratives for change, how modern stories have been used and abused, and where we might find the right myths to take us forward.
Kundalini Yoga, Sound & Meditation - Siri Sadhana Kaur
Siri will lead a transformational Kundalini Yoga Workshop accompanied by gong and guitar. Participants will be taken on a spiritual journey through Sound, Breath and Body to find flexibility, clarity and develop vital tools that help deal with everyday stresses. Siri’s workshop will stretch and challenge the mind, body and spirit, enabling inner strength, balance and relaxation.
Kundalini yoga (as taught by Yogi Bhajan) is an ancient technology and science that activates health, potential and capacity. It works with powerful and relaxing breathing, visualisation, dynamic asanas (postures) mantras (chants) along with mudras (hand gestures).
It is taught in kriyas (a series of postures) that are designed to bring about a transformation and balance through working a particular system of the body (i.e. the nervous, endocrine, lymphatic and immune system). It is often called ‘a yoga of awareness’ as it expands consciousness and emphasises the flow of movement within any given kriya.
The Divided Brain and Human Behaviour - Dr Iain McGilchrist
Iain McGilchrist explores how the dominance of the left hemisphere over the right in our brain predisposes our culture to a particular way of being. Because of the left hemisphere’s tendency to experience in specific and segregated parts rather than in whole and complex patterns, it perceives itself as separate and distinct from nature. The comprehensive insights and awareness of the right hemisphere have been displaced by a narrow thinking that is methodical, pragmatic and rigid. What makes us truly happy is in fact the reciprocal relationship between ourselves and one another, ourselves and the world – something the right hemisphere alone understands, since it is the ground of empathy and interconnectedness, where the left hemisphere is concerned with manipulation and sees the world atomistically. McGilchrist shows how this manipulative and atomistic way of thinking is fundamentally unbalanced and unhealthy.
“The left hemisphere has evolved to help us use the world to achieve our ends,” McGilchrist explains. “But it is a specialist in denial.”
Craftivism: The Art of Gentle Protest - *Sarah Corbett *
Workshop Description
A hand-stitched green heart can help remind us all to protect our beautiful world and secure a safer future for the next generation of crafters. Stitch what you love about the world on your sleeve in support of The Climate Coalition’s #fortheloveof campaign and wear your conviction to stand up for what you love, as a catalyst for conversation and to show world leaders that people across the world with different passions, hobbies and backgrounds all care about climate change and want action. We all need to be climate change MAKERS
See More: Inspiration
Talk Description
Activism often conjures up quick transactional signing of petitions, clicktivism, loud and aggressive ways to demand justice. Craftivist Collective provide ‘slow activism’ that uses craft as a meditative tool to stop, reflect and act on injustice issues in a transformative and gentle way. Join in this hopeful, creative and thoughtful way of doing activism.
Saturday 20th May 2017, 11:00am–5:00pm UK Time The Hoxton, Holborn, London WC1V 7BD
Alex Evans #
Alex Evans is the author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? (Penguin, 2017), a book about the power of deep stories to overcome political polarisation and unlock systemic social and political change.
Siri Sadhana Kaur #
Siri’s ethos and practice is to encourage others to experience themselves as joyful instruments of expression, transformation and helping them discover their own personal style and path.
Dr Iain McGilchrist #
Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist and writer. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains.
Dr Damien Short #
Dr Damien Short is Director of the Human Rights Consortium (HRC) and a Reader in Human Rights at the School of Advanced Study. He has spent his entire professional career working in the field of human rights, both as a scholar and human rights advocate.
Sarah Corbett #
Sarah Corbett founded Craftivist Collective in 2009 when after years of marches, signing protests and working on campaigns for large charities, she had begun to doubt the effects of some conventional activism, and as an introvert didn’t feel she fitted in to many activist groups. The time felt right to add a slower and less aggressive approach to the activism toolkit, not to replace other forms of activism but to add more tools to do activism effectively.