The Re-Enchantment Series: Unlocking Magic & Inspiring Action

**> “To live an enchanted life is to pick up the pieces of our bruised and battered psyches, and to offer them the nourishment they long for. It is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary. Above all, to live an enchanted life is to fall in love with the world all over again.”

— SHARON BLACKIE**

About the Series#

We’ve fallen out of love with the world. It’s clear from the way we treat it.

Every other Monday in central London from 8 October - 3 December we will be re-igniting curiosity as we explore aspects of daily life including consciousness, quantum physics, trees, holistic science, native spirituality, sacred geometry, storytelling and sound.

Mass mental illness and climate change are not inevitable. They are the result of certain narratives, behaviours and habits. Let’s shift perspectives, empower ourselves for change and co-create a future we want to be a part of.

With special thanks to Sharon Blackie and her 2018 publication The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday.

Dreaming the Land & Native Spirituality - Monday 8th October#

The Land’s Long Dreaming: Celtic Mythology, The Other-Word & Anima Mundi

Enchantment has nothing to do with magical thinking; rather, it is founded on an understanding of the mythic imagination as a living principle that draws us into deeper, lasting relationship with this beautiful, animate Earth. And in these uncertain times, we need the wild wisdom of myth more than ever – because myth is the bridge from which we can learn to let ourselves fall into the land’s long Dreaming. Celtic mythology offers insights into our own native traditions, and the ancient stories of our own lost Dreamtime. Those stories are founded on a reciprocal and respectful contract between people and the land – a contract presided over by Otherworldly women who represent the spirit of the land and of the Earth itself, the anima mundi. These stories of our own land are calling to us, and so are the archetypal characters who inhabit them. It’s time to reclaim them. It’s time to dream ourselves awake.

The Dreaming & The Awakening

In the beginning was the dreaming. All that was, is, and will be, is born from the dreaming. We knew this once and we can know it again. The deep dreaming of the land is the ancient loving voice of our mother calling us home. The outstretched hand of Native peoples is cupped and held by the mother. This way they do not forget. It is different with us. Yet even so, magic steals upon the land and we are rising as if from a deep sleep. How wondrous…….to be born at this time of great awakening. Mac Macartney shares some parts of a love story that is surfacing all around the world. It seeks to reclaim our future and name it beautiful.

Sound, Sacred Geometry & The Healing Voice - Monday 22nd October#

The Harmony of the Cosmos: Geometry, Sound & the Symbolic Imagination

We find so many references to ‘the music of the spheres’ in literature and poetry, but what does this mean? Is it only a poetic conceit, or is there a deeper truth in the idea that the cosmos is permeated by harmony, and embodies perfect geometric ratios? We will start with the philosopher Pythagoras, the father of both music and mathematics, and look at the way esoteric philosophy and practices understand the human being to be a mirror of the harmonies of the cosmos. This will lead us to the astrological music therapies of the Renaissance, and to a discussion about how we can work with these ideas today to reconnect people with the powers of the symbolic imagination.

The Healing Voice: Journey of the Soul

This experiential talk will explore how sound and the voice have been understood and used in different traditions as one of the most effective ways to balance the mind and body and ultimately achieve enlightenment. Jill will show how we can empower our lives by using our voice to release a uniquely powerful energy, which can be used for physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual healing. By freeing the voice in certain ways it is possible to find physical health and emotional joy and spiritual ecstasy. We will experience the ancient magic of Mongolian overtone chanting, sacred songs, chants, sonic meditations and more.

Secrets of the Forests: Lives Within and Beyond the Trees - Monday 5th November#

Understanding Trees, Fungi And The Evolutionary Flow Of Life

Alan will explain how his studies of trees, fungi and their diverse ways of relating to one another in natural communities contributed his new understanding of creative evolutionary processes based on the receptive-responsive relationship between intangible space and energetic flux. He will discuss how this understanding can help us to appreciate our human place in the natural world and enable us to live in a more passionate, compassionate and sustainable way than we currently do.

Trees And Woods Are Important For Humans - But How Can You Help Them?

It is essential we work together to protect our natural environment, but this is not just for its own benefit. Humans have integral links to nature and there is increasing evidence to show the significant benefits it provides our physical and mental health and wellbeing. Trees and forests provide amazing, beautiful places that unwind and inspire tired bodies and minds. Learn about how we are connected to the natural world and discover some simple but effective ways to get involved in the conservation of the UK’s trees and woods.

Quantum Physics: The Science of Metaphysics - Monday 19th November#

Quantum Weirdness and Metaphysical Horizons

Quantum physics is fascinating not simply for the theory itself, but also for the metaphysical questions it raises. Many working physicists are surprisingly uninterested in these questions because to them it is just a practical theory and, as they put it, they “know how to turn the mathematical handle” to obtain highly accurate results. But the metaphysical questions are of great interest to many of the rest of us, since they imply a significant shift away from the worldview promoted by classical physics, which after three hundred years forms our dominant understanding of reality. Many physicists believe that science makes no metaphysical assumptions, and argue that quantum theory does not justify opening up such questions. Yet the whole edifice of physics rests on presumed answers to underlying metaphysical questions which lie beyond the reach of science itself. Far from being unjustified, quantum theory seems to be pushing us to rethink these underlying assumptions simply to make sense of the paradoxical picture it is painting of reality. This presentation will look at the specific ways in which physical theory has gone beyond its own starting assumptions and will ask whether this is pointing to a new metaphysical worldview which could re-enchant our culture.

The ‘Nothing’ our Theory of Everything Forgets

The zero was developed in the East several thousand years ago, in a mathematics that understood emptiness and realisation as the foundation of existence. Ancient Greece in contrast was founded on a notion of the one. The zero was never understood in the West as a foundation to mathematics. Only in the 16th century did zero and the decimal system enter into Western thought giving an abstract perspective to existence. In the 17th century, Newton understood the colours as relating statically to light, without including the influence of the darkness. The physics Newton founded discarded the importance of darkness from the experience of light.

Goethe (1749-1832) is well known as a playwright exploring the darkness of the human soul through his play Faust. Goethe looked into science for the dynamic interaction, where darkness develops into light and light is limited by darkness. In acknowledging the influence of darkness, Goethe showed new aspects of colour with complementary effects (of darkness journeying into light) to those Newton had presented (of seeing light limited by darkness).

Goethe illustrated the play of darkness and light in the way we are moved by anItalian Master’s painting to live the raw emotion of death and life presented through it. Action is framed within the shades of emptiness and the bright calling to realisation. Zero and one is the ladder which existence visibly descends and ascends. In redrawing the balance of darkness and light, emptiness and realisation, zero and one, a dynamic challenge is painted of who we are, combining science and spirit.

Consciousness: Parapsychology & Psychedelics -Monday 3rd December#

The Mind Beyond the Brain

Most scientists assume that the mind is located inside the head. But there are good reasons for thinking that this view is much too limited. People can influence others at a distance just by looking at them, even if they look from behind and if all sensory clues are eliminated. People’s intentions can also be detected telepathically by animals from miles away, and some people can tell who is calling them before they pick up the phone. Our minds seem to extend stretch out beyond our brains through attention and intention. And they are also open to more-than-human forms of consciousness, both through spontaneous mystical experiences and through spiritual practices.

Parapsychology & Psychedelics#