Earth Action: Shifting Mindsets, Changing Behaviour

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.”

WATCH

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.