Earth Oikos Connecting Program
The Metacrisis
Surface temperatures are rising globally, heat records are being broken (2023 was the warmest year on record), and sea surface temperatures has risen like never before. There is a heightened awareness of climate crisis and concern about energy demands, fossil fuels and carbon emissions, forest land, fresh water availability and renewables.
At the same time, domestic energy demands have never been so high. Artificial Intelligence has also placed huge demands on energy needs and issues of structural inequality are sharper in new ways. There are new health challenges across mental and physical health. Children struggle in schools and many teens are lost-broken.
In many circles, the terms metacrisis and/or polycrisis are being used indicating the issues that affect us are complex, multi-dimensional and cannot be understood in the usual siloed ways.
And yet amidst these crises, is also the human endeavour to relearn what it is to be alive, of a growing sense of our planet and of our more-than-human earthmates. A desire for peace. A desire that no one in our planets starves or is left unattended. A deep desire for love and community.
Earth Oikos program sprouts and flourishes around this mycelial desire. It is an invitation to understand our Earth Household (oikos)– how life thrives, how life evolves, how microbes-plants-animals coexist. How we humans have co-evolved in similar patterns with rest of life.
It is an invitation to move beyond numbers, statistically defined models, from we-know-what-to-do and wander in the magic how life keeps-grows-moves life. The deep time and now-time ponderings on how this metacrisis has come to be.
…biology-history-culture studies-literature-politics-art blending together.
To truly explore what is at stake for all of us…for our grandchildren, for bellies and hearts of seven generations down.
It is a revisiting of what it is to be a human in these swirling times. Beyond us vs them.
Earth Oikos Connecting Program
The earliest of human-like species entered the Earth Household perhaps some 300,000 years ago. By that time this Earth was already thriving with its plants and animals for millions of years.
20,000 years ago, the first of modern humans emerged in Africa.
You can say we are the latest entrant to the Earth Household and a brat who believes the universe revolves around them.
In what ways have we separated out of the Earth Household, nuclearized our clan from the richness and generosity of more-than-human living.
How does that show up in our language, in what we produce, and un-recyclability of what we produce, in the divisions of the world and fragmentation in our communities, in the food we eat and air we breathe.
To step back and rethink philosophy of living, rethink our idea of the world, and concepts like progress, development, family, work, wealth, relationships. To perceive complexity of life on earth.
Earth Oikos program invites us to think beyond human civilisation, beyond what benefits us immediately, and consider the whole planet. Sarve bhavantu sukhinaha. May all life be content.
This program also introduces what can be loosely called ecologically thinking or living systems thinking or whole-thinking. Beyond colonisation, beyond the thought-fragmentation, beyond separation of us from rest of nature, a nurturing of hope and connection and possibilities amongst us.
Not a slapdash solutions program. A program that first and foremost hopes to help you perceive mow widely and loosely and softly. To help you perceive complexity that is life. And love in a lonely world.
2024 will be the 4th edition of this program.
Course Content
- Introduction to our Planet
- Introduction to living systems thinking and deep ecology
- Reflection and practice on how we perceive; pattern-finding skills
- Reflection on meta/poly crises of our times with special emphasis to South Asian contexts
- Locating decolonising practices
Who is this Program for?
This program is for anybody who cares for this planet in any form. Whether you are someone who works for the marginalised, or a writer of modern life and artist who brings pathos on her canvas or someone who teaches yoga or runs a coffee shop or just cares for your family or worry about our social fabric or worry about climate crisis or wars or fragile human relationships, increasing inequalities, unemployment and deprivation, of abuse and loss, for the forests or clouds above and rivers and streams, for glaciers in the Himalayas or how your bread bakes and what you eat and what you have forgotten to eat, of chants and worship lost, of traditions lost, of loneliness, of depression and anxiety.
This program is for you.
Dates & Fees
Schedule:
We will begin on Mahalaya 2024, the first No-Moon day of October and wax and wane with the Moon for approximately two months. 3 hours each week. Recordings will be available. Certification if you attend at least 30 hours in-person.
The sessions will be on zoom.
An optional gathering will be held in Hyderabad in January to honour the attendees and eat and walk together.
Fees
For India Residents who can afford and offset costs to others: Rs 24,000 + taxes
For non-India residents: USD 400 or 375 Euros
For others: Rs 15000+ taxes
(few partial Universe Loves You scholarships are available, apply here)
Still Unsure?
I don’t wish to convince you. You have to feel called to take this course. If you are curious though, saunter in one of my free Earth Oikos gatherings online.