Advaya Spiritual Ecology Study Club: AUGUST

AUGUST#

LANDSCAPES

“Here is the debris of capitalist waste, the unspectacular afterlives of discarded things. Some tires are repurposed as building materials. Others lie around, dumped by careless dealers. Traffic from the United States flows southbound into Mexico unchecked; not so for reverse traffic. The canyon remembers the movement of things, including unlikely tomatoes growing through toxic sewers and cracked cement. Traces of past, present, and future mix in gardens that sprout from the graves of a violently uneven modernity.” - Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan and Nils Bubandt, “Haunted Landscapes of the Anthropocene”

How does time move through a landscape, and how does it become haunted? Where does the body begin and the landscape end? How does one love a landscape? How does the land love back, and how may we learn from them? What are some of the dominant landscape narratives in the conservation movement, and who is controlling those narratives? How are we actively crafting our landscapes? How have our imaginings of landscapes been colonized, and how can we re-enter into right relationship with the land?

What are some of the questions that you’re exploring in relation to the theme of landscapes? What authors, teachers or artists are you mot inspired by who are exploring these questions in their work?

The Study Club will begin by following the threads of these questions – offering a selection of curated content (essays, podcasts and short films) each month – by writers, activists and artists exploring these themes in their work. In the session, we will come together to reflect on our collective insights, and how we can apply the learning to our social change work.

This space is for people seeking to dive beneath the surface of everyday engagement – and to dedicate the time to learn, think, be inspired and nourished in their practices.