At the end of Wednesday we looked at what our unexamined assumptions were around the training and the Symposium, a slightly uncomfortable and challenging experience. We carried this into the work of Thursday as we grappled with some of the stuff arising from clearing and creating the space for the new to enter in.
We covered a lot of practical stuff, nuts and bolts which I won’t go into here l and this was followed by looking at “What next?” This was a start of a conversation that was going to flow into the Leadership summit and it was great to engage in open conversation about what is possible, desired and necessary.
The areas under discussion were the TLP, after the Symposium, financial viability, training and community groups, deepening, staying in blessed unrest and diversity.
Throughout the day we continued to share our stories and there was more news from around the globe
Translations of the Symposium - French - the Symposium has been translated and subtitled, which was done in collaboration of a translation school who did it as a project. Chinese – V1 has been translated with subtitles, South Korean – V2 has been translated with subtitles, German – dubbed and subtitled Spanish – Agrentina, Mexico and Spain have collaborated to dub V1 and are now working on 2 versions of V2, a version dubbing the narrator only and one dubbing all of it.
Leslie Whiting read an excerpt from wonderful poem Awakening Now by Danna Faulds with us: Forgive yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole. Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true Self. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don’t continue to believe in your disbelief. This is the day of your awakening.
Tracy Apple shared some more information about Drew Dellinger’s involvement with the creation of the Symposium in that he was instrumental in bringing the Symposium into being and brought Thomas Berry into it. He also created the Universe Story and interviewed many of the people in the Symposium. http://drewdellinger.org/
In the afternoon I was over the moon that Joanna Macy came to talk to us, what a remarkable woman and an incredible elder whose loving presence was a gift. She spoke to us about what keeps her alive in this work after she taught us how to do the Emu Rumble!!! The content of her talk will be posted shortly.
Joanna was followed by Bill Twist joining us to talk about the context of this work and what things might look like as we moved towards an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and social just human presence on this planet. Some of the things Bill said that stuck out for me are:
TPA is more of a campaign than an institution, more a team than a set of silos, the importance of the recognition of spirit, the need to make the core values more explicit, how do we need to start to build bridges to get into action, an aim would be earth juris prudence as a core of law and for governments to have to report on human well being rather than GDP!! He also observed that we all need to be deeply grounded and connected if we are going to do this work in the world.
I feel privileged to have had a chance to hear both Joanna Macy and Bill Twist speak and my deepest gratitude goes to both of them for the work they have done and are continuing to do in the world.
