25 Mar 2008
The afternoon session focused on Seeing with New Eyes. For this session, Joanna gave an overview of systems thinking, arguing that the time of the Great Turning will be a time of a return to a deep understanding, to what Tich Naht Hanh calls ‘Interbeing’. When we go out into the world to take our part in the Great Turning, we need more than just our feelings, they come and go, we also need a grounding in the new comprehension of the world that is emerging in systems thinking.
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24 Mar 2008
Session Two began with a very moving piece where four people read out a list of endangered or extinct species while Joanna played a drum slowly. This then led into an extraordinarily powerful exercise called The Bowl of Tears. Three large bowls of water were placed in the middle of the floor, representing the tears of Gaia, and a musical lament was played to accompany a slide show of images of social and ecological breakdown, deforestation, pollution and so on.
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24 Mar 2008
The morning of the second day moved into Honouring our Pain for the World, and concluded with a deeply moving ritual, .
The Great Turning takes great courage, and we have great courage. There will be no flourishing unless we open our eyes to our world. We need to acknowledge what is coursing through our bodies and minds so that we can address our own grief. Only than can we go together to apply the hands of our attention to our world.
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24 Mar 2008
Last night was so sound, first there was dancing till about 10 and then I went to the hot tub for two and a bit hours, LUSH! By the way the hot tub is outdoors so it was pretty sweet, your body is boiling and you head is in the falling snow…. So cool.
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24 Mar 2008
In the session after supper, Joanna gave a clear and passionate explanation of the Great Turning, and what she means by the term. You can read another, more detailed account of this session on the conference’s official blog.
We spoke before about the importance of gratitude. I want to speak now of the importance of gratitude for what is happening in our world today. In Paul Hawken’s ‘Blessed Unrest’ he describes this movement as being the largest social movement in history. It is not a movement reported in the corporate controlled mainstream media. It is momentous. It is a revolution.
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