Teachers

Explore advaya's faculty of teachers, scientists, practitioners, philosophers and storytellers, who share multidimensional, local and diverse narratives from across the world. This is one way to move from the ‘monoculture of the mind’ as described by Dr Vandana Shiva. Think a meadow full of colour and life connected by the flora, fungi and fauna working together – it is their individual stories and songs that make up the whole.

Bayo Akomolafe

Bayo Akomolafe (PhD) is Chief Curator and Executive Director of The Emergence Network.

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Satish Kumar

A former monk and long-term peace and environment activist, Satish Kumar has been quietly setting the Global Agenda for change for over 50 years.

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Vandana Shiva

World renowned intellectual and advocate for the preservation and celebration of biodiversity against genetic engineering and the negative impact of globalisation. She is an important voice in favour of people-centered, participatory processes; support to grassroots networks; women rights and ecology. Author of numerous important books and articles, Vandana Shiva has shown a lifetime interest in campaigning against development.

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Sophie Strand

Sophie is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, & ecology.

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Manda Scott

Born and raised in Scotland - and still a Scot at heart - Manda has been, variously, a veterinary surgeon, veterinary anaesthetist, acupuncturist (people and animals), crime writer, columnist, blogger, economist - and author. In between, she teaches shamanic dreaming, creative writing and concept-based dog training.

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Beloved Sara Zaltash

Beloved Sara Zaltash is queer British-Iranian astrologer, artist and musician, dedicated to raising the voice of GodS. With roots in sacred climate activism, they apply their skills as a performer, diviner, writer, singer, facilitator, teacher, space-holder, ritualist and community organiser to weave holy healing across all spheres of life.

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David Abram

David is the author of Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. Described as “revolutionary” by the Los Angeles Times, as “daring” and “truly original” by the journal Science, David’s work has helped catalyze the emergence of several new disciplines, including the burgeoning field of ecopsychology.

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Dr Andreas Weber

Andreas is a Berlin based author & independent scholar. He has degrees in Marine Biology & Cultural Studies, having collaborated with theoretical biologist Francisco Varela in Paris.

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David Whyte

David is an internationally renowned poet and author. Behind these talents lies a very physical attempt to give voice to the wellsprings of human identity, human striving and, most difficult of all, the possibilities for human happiness. He makes his home in the Pacific Northwest, where rain and changeable skies remind him of the other, more distant homes from which he comes: Yorkshire, Wales and Ireland. He speaks to the suffering and joy that accompany revelation, and the necessity of belonging to families, people and places.

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Helena Norberg-Hodge

Helena Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the local economy movement. Through writing and public lectures, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for four decades.

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Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic

Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic is a senior lecturer at Brunel University London with 25 years teaching experience and a bioscientist investigating the cognitive side of the living world.

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Charles Eisenstein

Charles Eisenstein is a world-renowned teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilisation, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution.

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Aisha Paris Smith

Somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach. Aisha blends her conscious approach to life with the profound experience of being in a body. She embraces all that it means to be a human with flesh, blood, bones, ego and eros. She experiences every day the wisdom of her body and has seen clients transform through the power of somatic methods.

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Brontë Velez

Brontë is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). As a black-latinx trans-disciplinary artist, designer, trickster, and wake-worker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking and prophetic community traditions, environmental justice, and death doulaship.

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Alastair McIntosh

Alastair is one of the world’s leading environmental campaigners, distinguished in his ability to join together the outer and inner life. His book Spiritual Activism explores such paths of reconnection of the inner and outer worlds, which he argues is nothing less than learning how to sustain the flow of life. If we don’t do this, he states, “then our work will fall on stony ground, we’ll burn out or we’ll sell out.”

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advaya topics

Ecology

Ecology

Ecology recognises the inner intelligence and interrelationships of all of life, seeing Earth as a living, breathing organism, in harmony and balance. We see an ecological perspective as essential to develop social and ecological systems aligned with the matrix of life that unify and interconnect all that lives.

Consciousness

Consciousness

At advaya we seek wisdom and perspectives from ancient sources as well as science and innovation to fully understand and embody values of integrity, collaboration, reciprocity, simplicity, transparency, unity and evolution.

The Body

The Body

Earth could only ever be inanimate matter because we are alienated from it, just as we are from our own bodies. Our body is inextricably related to the health of all living systems. Through a somatic approach to the world around us we put life at the centre.