The programme is now closed. However, we are pleased to announce that we will provide a self-study version in the coming months.
In Nature’s economy, the currency is Life!
And all life is sacred. Imagine the transition to a world in which our Earth’s ecology is revered as sacred and all of Nature’s gifts, including our own, are shared for the personal, social and ecological benefit and wellbeing of all life.
The transition to sacred economy is part of a larger shift in our ways of thinking, relating, and being. Economic logic alone is not enough to sustain it. Many economic visionaries have devised mathematically persuasive revolutions in money and property, but of the handful that ever came to fruition, none survived the test of time….. As we heal the spirit-matter rupture, we discover that economics and spirituality are inseparable. On the personal level, economics is about how to give our gifts and meet our needs. It is about who we are in relation to the world. By changing our everyday economic thinking and practices, we not only prepare ourselves for the great changes ahead; we also set the stage for their emergence. By living the concepts of sacred economics, we ease its acceptance by all and welcome it into the world.
As we consciously welcome the emergence of sacred economics into our hearts, we catalyse the birth of a new world which supports all of life. We begin to recognise ourselves as full participants and conscious cocreators in the evolution of life, embedded in nature, in reciprocity with the natural world, giving our gifts, in service, for the benefit of the whole, with reverence and respect for all life. The creative genius of each of us is needed to support the transition to an interconnected, highly creative and regenerative future for all life forms on this beautiful planet we call our ecological home.
Join us to catalyse the shift toward a thriving, regenerative new economy that reveres all life as sacred
Become part of the shift in collaboration with a community of like-minded visionaries, thought leaders and change makers, each bringing their gift. Their inspiration will enable you to discover what gift you bring.
This journey is for you if you sense a compelling impulse to consciously evolve, and are called to contribute to the collective regeneration of the planet at this extraordinary, and often challenging, time in human history.
One two-hour session per month, via online video-conferencing
Our journey comprises one two-hour session per month, over eight months. We will be using Zoom video-conferencing to convene our sessions – a very easy, user-friendly way to gather and proactively engage global audiences online. If you haven’t yet used the platform, we will guide you easily through the technology. Once you’ve registered, and before the first introductory session, we’ll send you the access information for Zoom so that you can participate. All you will need is a laptop, computer, tablet, or smartphone with a camera and stable internet access. You will be able to join us from the comfort of your own home or from wherever you are in the world.
The 8-session Journey
The eight-month journey from 12 September 2019 to 2 April 2020 is made up of 8 sessions. Times stated are London, UK time. Click here to convert to your local time.
Journey Objectives
Over the eight months, we are inviting you to take an experiential, participatory journey together into what needs to change in us, and in the human story. Each session will explore, at increasing levels of depth, what it is to live the new story personally, and accelerate it collectively, through:
- Embodying the sacredness and dignity of all life embedded within our ecological home and designing our economies to work with Nature not against it.
- Understanding the core aspects and challenges of the global neoliberal economic system.
- Moving from globalisation to localisation to restore indigenous networks and ecological systems.
- Creating regenerative, distributive economies that thrive not grow.
- Transitioning to an economy for the common good in which consumption of natural resources remains within the regenerative capacity of natural ecosystems and planetary boundaries.
- Exploring gift culture as a viable economic alternative based on the principle of interbeing inherent in the new yet ancient story.
- Learning from radical success stories of service-based caring and sharing economies, already being experimented with, on the ground, around the world.
- Becoming effective influential agents of ecological, social and economic change in our own lives and communities right where we are.
What you will receive
- 8 live sessions: The format of each session will be flexible and emergent but will include: a brief framing of the session and speaker introduction by your journey host (15 minutes), speaker presentation (40 minutes), participant break out groups (30 minutes), return to the large group for Q&A with the speaker and participant sharings (30 minutes), and closing remarks (5 minutes).
- Video recording of each session: All the speaker sessions will be recorded and made available within 48 hours following the session. If you are not able to attend one of the live sessions, you will be able to view the recording at your convenience. You may also want to review the recording to integrate the content of a particular session more deeply.
- Study Guides: To help integrate the content and experience of each session, a study guide will be provided including highlights of the essence of each session, questions for contemplation between sessions, and additional resources, featuring lists of videos, films, books, projects, events, and blogs relevant to each session.
- Participant Facebook Group: This will be your virtual home over the eight months. The Private Facebook Group will enable you to engage in shared enquiry between sessions to deepen the journey, build alliances, and share your questions, projects and visions with a community of peers. You may also choose to stay engaged after the programme as a way to integrate and continue to build community and support one another.
- 24-Hour Participant Zoom Line: Participants are encouraged to self-organise and initiate small group dialogues between live sessions through our easy-to-use Open Zoom Line available 24/7.
- Free access to our documentary film: An Enquiry into A New Story for Humanity: Change the Story, Change the World. The feature-length film is a great introduction to new story themes and may be useful to watch before the online learning journey begins.
Please note that you will need to set aside 3-5 hours per month, depending on the level of depth you are willing to go to, in order to engage with the live sessions and to connect with fellow participants between sessions to work with the questions for ongoing reflection and dialogue contained in your Study Guides.
Meet Our Change Makers
All of our inspiring change makers are proactively committed to pioneering new ways of living and being as we transition to a thriving, regenerative world. In each session, we’ll have the opportunity to draw from their inspiration to help illuminate the way which, in turn, will compel us to take action in our own lives and communities.
Vandana Shiva is a physicist, environmental activist, author and eco-feminist. Her books include Biopiracy: the Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Water Wars; Privatization, Pollution, and Profit. She is a board member of the International Forum on Globalization and a figure of the alter-globalization movement. She has argued for the wisdom of many traditional practices and founded the Navdanya (“nine seeds”) movement. Vandana set up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology in her mother’s cowshed in 1997. Its studies have validated the ecological value of traditional farming and been instrumental in fighting destructive development projects in India. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, and a recipient of the 1993 Right Livelihood Award.
Helena Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the new economy movement and a recipient of the Alternative Nobel prize, the Arthur Morgan Award, and the Goi Peace Prize for her contribution to “the revitalisation of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.” She is author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures and producer of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness. Helena is the director of Local Futures and The International Alliance for Localisation, and a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network. She is also a Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation.
Charles Eisenstein is a speaker and writer focusing on themes of human culture and identity. He is the author of several books, most recently Sacred Economics, Ascent of Humanity, The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible and Climate: A New Story. His background includes a degree in mathematics and philosophy from Yale, a decade in Taiwan as a translator, and stints as a college instructor, a yoga teacher, and a construction worker. He currently writes and speaks full-time. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife and four children.
Christian Felber is an internationally renowned speaker, university lecturer, IASS Affiliate Scholar, and a contemporary dancer. He is the initiator of the Economy for the Common Good and the project Bank for the Common Good. His bestselling books include: 50 Suggestions for a Fairer World, New Values for the Economy, Let’s Save the Euro!, Change Everything: Creating an Economy for the Common Good, and Money – The New Rules of the Game, which was awarded the getAbstract International Book Award 2014. The Economy for the Common Good received the Zeit-Wissen Award in 2017. Christian lives and works as an independent writer in Vienna.
Hazel Henderson is the founder of Ethical Markets Media, LLC and the creator and co-executive Producer of its TV series. She is a world renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a worldwide syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, and author of The Axiom and Nautilus award-winning book Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2006) and eight other books. She co-edited, with Harlan Cleveland and Inge Kaul, The UN: Policy and Financing Alternatives, Elsevier Scientific, UK 1995 (US edition, 1996), and co-authored with Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, Planetary Citizenship (2004). Hazel is also a Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation.
Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and gift-economy. What started as an experiment with four friends in the Silicon Valley has grown to a global ecosystem of over 500,000 members, delivering millions of dollars in free service. Nipun has received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, Wavy Gravy’s Humanitarian award, and Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero of Compassion. In 2015, President Barack Obama appointed him to a council on poverty and inequality. Nipun’s message of “giftivism” reaches wide-ranging audiences, from inner city youth in Memphis to academics in London to international dignitaries at the UN. He serves on the advisory boards of the Seva Foundation, the Dalai Lama Foundation, and Greater Good Science Center.
Meet Your Host
Mattie Porte has served the Findhorn Foundation in a number of diverse roles over the past 20 years. She has been proactively involved with new story themes since the lead up to the Foundation’s New Story Summit in 2014. A psychologist and mentor, she is passionate about the evolution of consciousness and the potential in moving from our current paradigm of separation and fear to an emerging paradigm of unity and wholeness. She is the director and producer of the Foundation’s first feature-length documentary film: An Enquiry into a New Story for Humanity: Change the Story, Change the World. She also manages the New Story Initiative, including the New Story Hub and associated online community platforms, events and learning journeys.