A Pedagogy of Death, Decay & Destruction: Sanctuary Making

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A testing of a deck of cards for practical and oracular possibilities… Looking to the teachers of demise and emergence in the more- than-human world can offer something of a homecoming to our wider being. What might we encounter in hanging out in the company of vultures, maggots, forest fires or detritivores? What flirtations or invocations might arise in re/membering kinship with these ones?  This work taps into the wisdom of compost, termites and hurricanes, of elephant feet, beavers and fallen trees.

This session is part of a wider inquiry you can read about here, and builds on the ten course: Vulture and the seeds of Vulture: A Compostancy / Un-Consultancy.

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How do we enable connection with nature from a deep understanding that we too are part of nature? How might we co-facilitate with the places we work in? How does presence and connection in ourselves change how we work with groups?

This workshop introduces creative practices and simple inquiries to help open deeper connections within the natural world…

This hour-long online Q&A gathering will introduce the general info, structure, inquiries and intentions of A Devon Un/Learning Journey - a 9-week course beginning in September 2024. It is an opportunity to experience a flavour of the training and facilitation of myself and my co-facilitator Ruth, and to bring your questions and curiosities into an interactive space with others.

If we go back far enough, we all have lineages that root us in healthy relationships within nature, this is our birthright as humans. We are one of the billions of species that make up this extraordinary planet. Over the centuries and across continents, different beliefs, power dynamics, societal structures and modern economics have created great imbalances and harm between humans, and to the ecologies we are part of. As we find and facilitate ways to reconnect with nature, how might we keep an awareness of the bigger picture?

Do you feel helpless or stuck with how to respond to the crisis in Palestine?

Do you have endless questions? Are you raging inside? Overwhelmed, grief stricken or afraid? Unsure what to do?We all feel this, we can all relate: you are not alone.

Within Modernity, we hide away signs of death, decay and destruction. Within nature, these is constant breakdown in intricate relationships with emergent life, and all the in betweens.

What have we forgotten, hidden away, denied? And what impact does that have culturally?

What will enable us to work with generative forms of death, decay and destruction to change ongoing patterns of harm?

Come and explore ideas through creative exercises, collaborative responses and discussion, applying some activities directly to your own context. For change agents, artists, systemic thinkers, facilitators, activists interested in processes and practices of change.

In a growth-based, death-phobic society, how might we turn to healthy ecosystems for a more whole approach to change? What might we learn at the feet of vultures, fire ecologies, dung beetles and fallen trees?

A Council Of All Beings is a powerful practice developed by Joanna Macy and others to invite the voices of the more-than-human world to speak through us. Rooted in deep ecology, ritual, and collective inquiry, the experience will include time outside, mask making, play and a council ritual.

This Council will focus on listening for insights only from species, elements and patterns in nature that perform the essential tasks of death, decay, collapse, destruction and decomposition.