May 2024 Newsletter
Welcome to our May 2024 newsletter. Here you will find our community, research, and the Bergerac Praxis Hub updates from the month of May.
🚀 Upcoming Explorations 🚀
Launching the Second Renaissance project
We’re excited to announce a first release of our “Second Renaissance” initiative: https://secondrenaissance.net/
It’s a distillation of much of our work over the last few years on this emerging area. The Second Renaissance project is a simple introduction to this moment of civilization crisis and awakening - and the emerging ecosystem related to it.
Want to learn more? We invite you to join our Second Renaissance Preview Webinar on Thursday 30th May.
In conversation with The Stoa
Join us on Wednesday 5th June at 6pm CEST for a special event, where Rufus Pollock is in Conversation with The Stoa, as part of their fifth season.
Second Renaissance: Framing and Guide to This Moment of Civilizational Crisis and Regeneration w/ Rufus Pollock. June 5th 12:00 PM ET. Register here.
🌻 Conscious Collectives 🌻
Throughout May we published three new podcast episodes as part of our Ordinary People Walking an Extra-Ordinary Path series; talking with Daniel Thorson, Elizabeth Debold and Valerie Duvauchelle. You can listen to them below!
A Conversation with Daniel Thorson
In this episode of Ordinary People Rufus Pollock talks with Daniel Thorson. Daniel shares his unique journeys of finding faith, meaning, and personal growth through unexpected avenues of meditation, living at a Goenka center, and participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
A Conversation with Valerie Duvauchelle
In this episode of Ordinary People Sylvie Barbier speaks with Valerie Duvauchelle on the transformative power of Zen and embodied practices. Valerie explains her personal journey as she navigates the complexities of cultural and generational trauma, exploring the profound impact Zen Buddhism had on her connection with self, others, and nature.
A Conversation with Elizabeth Debold
In this episode of Ordinary People Sylvie Barbier speaks with Elizabeth Debold in a thought-provoking dialogue exploring the intersections of gender, identity, and culture. Elizabeth shares her journey of questioning societal norms around gender roles and relationships, stemming from witnessing the destructive dynamic between her parents.
Community Call: Birthing Global Symbiotic Culture with Richard Flyer
We welcomed Richard Flyer to our monthly Community Call to talk about the principles, learnings, and insights from five decades across different nations, wisdom traditions, and organizational structures in his search to understand how to create a Culture of Connection.
Life Itself lutruwita pocket update
Our friends over in Australia at the Life Itself lutruwita pocket have exciting news with a new Community Based Income project and a plan to conduct their own local ecosystem mapping effort for Sustainable Living Tasmania.
💡Life Itself Research💡
Hackathon Update
On 10-11 May, we hosted our second Life Itself Research Hackathon, with a focus on Mapping and Making Sense of the “Second Renaissance” Ecosystem. Participants were also welcome to bring in and work on any related projects. The Hackathon was part of the EU-funded project Cohere+.
Almost 20 participants joined us for part or all of the 24-hour event. We gathered mostly online, but a few of us spent the second day co-working in the sunny garden of the Bergerac Hub.
Some of the outputs of the Hackathon included: a prototype directory of paradigmatic, inner-led social change organisations; setup of a new Second Renaissance wiki; and sketches of UX journeys for ecosystem mapping projects. All of this is not to mention the fun we had connecting with new and familiar faces alike, and exchanging ideas, feedback and encouragement!
CLEA Seminar
On the 17 May, Rufus Pollock presented a Seminar at CLEA: Second Renaissance A Time Between Worlds. In this seminar Rufus presented the concept of a Second Renaissance as one framing of this "time between worlds" to set the stage for constructive dialogue about what's going on in the world and what's needed for a radical transformation.
