Advaya Spiritual Ecology Study Club: JANUARY

JANUARY#

EMERGENCE

As the wheel of the year rolls over in some calendars, the passing of the winter solstice opens the window of longer days and lasting light, and we make resolutions to mark the passing of time, I’d like to invite us in this space to consider the transformation of emergence, and the cathartic unfolding of our own practice.

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence happens when an entity is observed to have properties that its parts do not; properties or behaviours that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole. As a collective, we are well poised to participate in this emergence, to collaboratively create that which each of us could not access on our own.

How does systems-thinking enable us to better participate in our communities? How has systems thinking been subverted by the dominant cultural paradigm and the cult of individualism? How can we reimagine times of crisis and rapid transformation as spaces for collaboration, creativity, and emergence of new ideas? How might destruction be a creative endeavour? How do we turn our collective full-bodied intelligence towards collaboration? How do we listen to others as if everyone is a teacher, and trouble ideas of hierarchy in knowledge to collectively generate new ideas?

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.