(excerpted from: https://charterforcompassion.org/reimagining-our-future) We are currently living in the most fabricated world in history. What many of us call food is made in factories. Our faces and hair have lost their originality. What many of us see in front of us has been carefully placed there by meticulous computer programming. Content we see on various media is unreliable and often misleading. Our children study in schools that are mechanistically designed. All of these factors are pulling us further and further away from our true nature, sense of togetherness, and relationship with nature. While many of these things have happened gradually, however many of us have grown up to accept these as our unquestioned realities, or rather have stopped thinking about what is 'real' or 'natural'. Soryu Forall, describes these as 'shared fictions' that humanity perpetuates. Accepting this 'fake' reality as real has led to many societal issues, all of which are inherently interconnected. The spread of COVID-19 has emphasized these interconnections and has shown the fragility of our current system. This pandemic, which many are referring to as a ‘spiritual teacher’, has forced all of us to slow down. This has led to an increase in our collective reflection about the state of the world and has resulted in many people realizing and/or accepting the fact that we, as inhabitants of this Earth, need to urgently change our habits and behaviors. That we need to develop systems that encourage compassion and conservation as opposed to extraction and competition, is now more accepted . In this 8-Week Online Course we guide participants on a thoughtful journey of intellectual stimulation, guided reflection and creativity. Individually, and collectively, we will re-imagine (through creative writing, poetry, short films etc.) the kind of world we want to see in the future. This practice will enable us to step out of the overwhelm and grief and constructively visualise the world we want to live in as we destress. We are, hence, planning backwards, envisioning the future we want to see and then individually reflecting on what we need to do now to realize this vision. To support us in guiding our re-design, we will explore current, practical examples of people/movements that are ACTING to realize this change. We will also explore a range of perspectives put forth by future-thinkers, ranging from ancient wisdom to futuristic technologies. Most popular portrayals of the future (Science Fiction) present dystopian futures. Our aim will be to envision a better, more compassionate, humane future, that we, as a collective humanity, have the inherent ability to realize. Through this re-imagining of our current systems (i.e. education, economy, communities, technology, food systems, etc.), we hope that participants will gain a more positive, proactive, outlook for the future of humanity and a sense of agency to spread the newly gathered awareness and positive energy in their communities and enact meaningful change.
The course will begin on October 26th. If you feel called, you can learn more here: https://charterforcompassion.org/reimagining-our-future. As a prelude to the course we will be launching a Collaborative Blog Series, with the same title as the course, Re-Imagining Our Future. We invite everyone to follow the series on Medium (https://medium.com/@reimaginingthefuture/re-imagining-the-series-1694bc4aed07) and join the Facebook group to engage in discussion and collaborative visioning (https://www.facebook.com/groups/656418801932470/). For the series, we will be releasing an article per day throughout the month of October. Each article will be written by a different lead author, and will focus on a specific topic that the author is passionate about. Together, through merging our visions, we hope to create a regenerative, and comprehensive systems view of the future.
For the past ten years I have worked with students and teachers from inner-city New York, rural...
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