We’ve blogged before about an online course co-facilitated by our friend Shaun Chamberlin of Dark Optimism. We’d like to bring your attention to the second ‘deep dive’ – coming up in January. In these tumultuous times, it’s good to pull back and think together — to share conversation — curated by experts and in the company of some of the most compelling people who have been thinking about these issues for a long time. Concessions are available to make the course affordable. Over to Shaun for more info:
Well, after last winter’s powerful ride, it’s now just six weeks until our second Deeper Dive, this time alongside Stephen Jenkinson, Nate Hagens, Isabelle Frémeaux, Mark Boyle, Sherri Mitchell, Tim DeChristopher, Rob Hopkins and Vandana Shiva, each of whom brings a unique and hard-won perspective on the challenges and joys of life well lived in these times. Together, we’ll feed those into reflecting on our own paths.
It feels a real privilege and honour to be holding such a potent space again this winter, and inviting into it both guests for whom I have such profound respect, and old friends and new — like yourself? — to become part of the enduring community that continues to grow around the work.
After a few overbusy years getting our various Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time offerings off the ground and established, our regular weekly and monthly online alumni gatherings are now a real source of succour for me and many others, and it’s a joy and an excitement to look forward to our next — now annual — 8-week adventure. So let me share a little about a few guests who’ll be joining us for the first time…
Isabelle Frémeaux hails from the ZAD in Brittany, France, and I defy you to watch the below 7 minute video (featuring her partner JJ) and not want to talk with her about it! It’s literally the most inspiring thing I’ve seen this year.
And then there’s Stephen Jenkinson — hailing from the palliative care world, and known as ‘the angel of death’ by some for his beautiful work holding the last days of individuals and cultures. From the first iteration of the courses his words have featured, but this is our first direct connection, so I’m much looking forward to the collaboration and conversation:
At risk of getting carried away, perhaps the other I’ll mention here is Tim DeChristopher, who served 21 months in prison for creatively disrupting a federal auction selling oil and gas leases for national parkland that he loved.
His honest, unguarded interview with Terry Tempest Williams — ‘What Love Looks Like’ — dramatically shifted my own perspective on how I use my time, ten short years ago. So now let’s discuss what seems worthwhile to him today, another decade into the ongoing devastation of our homeworld.
Interestingly, in a more recent interview with Wendell Berry, DeChristopher spoke too of the tensions he feels with my late mentor David Fleming’s work , so another fertile conversation should be in prospect.
I could say a lot more about all the invited guests — including those who’ve joined us before — but I’ll rein myself in here, and you can click below if you’d like to know more!
If last winter’s experience is anything to go by though, those conversations will be only the beginning of the shared journey. It’s one that we’ll create together but the sessions with our guests tend to become just the jumping off point for the community we forge over those eight weeks.
Whether through the weekly reading suggestions, materials and discussion questions, or our online forums, or the video chat rooms, or weekly seminars — selected from as suits each participant’s taste — we together venture deep into both the overarching principles and the dirty handed nitty gritty of making meaning in our days.
