The Great Turning Experiment Live

THE LIVE VERSION HAS ENDED.

Our live journey ran from March to June 2022
and each of the 8 videoconferencing sessions were recorded.
Now we have made the programme available in Self-Study format
so that you can benefit from the rich course material and participate
at your own pace, from the comfort of your own home.

BOOK THE SELF-STUDY VERSION HERE:

“Future generations, if there is a liveable world for them, will look back on this epochal transition we are making to a life-affirming society. And they may well call this the time of The Great Turning.” ~ Joanna Macy

The Bold Invitation

Imagine your ideal world. The Great Turning is upon us. The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible has arrived. How are you living your life in this new world?

For 4 months, we are inviting you to join our Great Experiment, Live Online from Findhorn! We are calling all pioneers of the new paradigm to live our lives as if The Great Turning were a reality – to commit to living life the way you have imagined it to be in your most beautiful dreams for both your own benefit and for the benefit of future generations to come.

Now, we will all be at different stages on the path to this new way of living and being.

For some this may mean:

small, incremental changes that reflect a simpler, less consumption-driven lifestyle which supports the transition to transformative great turning living.

For others this might mean:

full-scale, back-to-the-land, self-sufficient, communal living in harmony with the natural world.

For all of us this will mean:

a deep change in consciousness as we enter into a rite of passage which will lead us from our current evolutionary stage of adolescence to the transition stage as initiates of a mature planetary civilisation.

The Mission and Commitment

Starting from where you are, the level of commitment, and the changes you choose to make to your life, throughout the journey, are entirely up to you!

We have never undertaken this type of experiment before so it will be emergent and we will cocreate the journey together over the 4-month programme.

We have invited guest presenters who are respected proponents of The Great Turning to accompany us on the journey and act as guides to support us to reimagine our world and live in a radically different way for the upliftment and benefit of both people and planet.

The mission, and indeed the challenge, will be to live this new life alongside a parallel world that is dying and still steeped in the destructive, habitual patterns of the past. We will learn how to compassionately hospice the death of the old, that which no longer serves, whilst midwifing the birth of the new, that which is regenerative and life-affirming.

Should you accept this mission, you will be expected to be ‘All In’ – to give your full, wholehearted commitment to living this new life together, virtually, with your fellow journeyers who are also committing to a new way of living and being in the new world.

Mission objectives

We will test our premise of the plausibility of transformative great turning living, a step at a time, through these journey objectives which you will come to live at increasing levels of depth to accelerate the new:

Understanding the spiritual foundations underpinning The Great Turning and our role in this epochal transition we are making to a life-affirming global family;
Exploring the evolutionary impulse of humanity’s Great Transition to a mature planetary civilisation;
Honouring our grief for all we have lost and processing our pain for a world in crisis, whilst living in gratitude for the gifts of the potency of this time;
Releasing what no longer serves by decolonising our minds, standing in our inner sovereignty and creating the space to fully welcome and inhabit the new;
Embodying our Indigenous roots through a return to the ‘Original Instructions’ for upholding the honour of being human and restoring our relationship with the Earth and all life; and
Embracing the epic opportunity open to humanity, if we get our story right, as we consciously usher in the transformational emergence of the new.

Tracking your progress and celebrating your successes

This will be very personal to you based on the unique intent and goals you set for yourself as you embark on the journey. Mission worksheets and Study Guides will be provided to support you to track your progress and celebrate your successes.

Overcoming obstacles

Every step of the way, we will identify and learn how to overcome the perceptual emotional, psychological, intellectual, and behavioural obstacles, real and imagined, to living The Great Turning.

Support

You will be supported to live your new, life-affirming, regenerative life by:

Your Journey Host;
Our Guest Presenters; and
Buddy Groups comprised of your fellow journeyers on the path.

Inspiration will come from these sources as well as your own inner spiritual authority, compass and guidance.

Will you join us? Are you ‘All In’?

This mission is for you if you sense a compelling impulse to consciously evolve within yourself and cultivate a spiritually-awakened, holistic, life-affirming counterpoint to support humanity to navigate the challenges of our times and accelerate our evolutionary impulse toward a mature planetary civilisation.

Two live sessions per month, via online video-conferencing

Our journey comprises two live sessions per month, over four 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 Zoom access information 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 4-Month, 8-Session Journey Schedule

The four-month journey runs from 16 March to 22 June 2022 and is made up of 8 sessions. Times stated are London, UK time. Click here to convert to your local time.

What you will receive

8 live sessions: The Introduction and Completion sessions are 1 hour in duration. The 6 speaker sessions are 2 hours in duration. The format of the speaker sessions 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 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.
Buddy Groups: To support you between sessions, we’ll be placing you into Buddy Groups. Participation in your Buddy Group is vital to your experience and demonstrates your commitment to being ‘All In’. These are self-organised, smaller groupings that will enable you to conveniently connect with one another based on your time zones. We’ll allocate 5 to 8 people to each group. Once the journey is underway, we’ll send you an email providing you with a full list of participants, as well as your assigned Buddy Group and suggestions for getting started together.
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.
Participant Facebook Group: This will be your virtual home over the four months. The Private Facebook Group will enable you to engage in shared enquiry between sessions to deepen the journey, build alliances, and share your reflections, insights, experiences and questions 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.
Free access to our panel discussion: An Intimate Discourse with Visionaries of The Great Turning. The 1.5-hour video talk is a great introduction to Great Turning themes and may be useful to watch before the online learning journey begins.

Time Commitment

Please note that you will need to set aside at least 8 hours per month, depending on the level of depth you are willing to go to, in order to:

engage with the live sessions;
connect with your Buddy Groups between sessions; and
work with the questions for ongoing reflection and dialogue contained in your session Worksheets and Study Guides.

Meet Our Great Turning Visionary Speakers

All of our inspiring speakers are proactively committed to pioneering new ways of living and being as we reimagine our 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.

Dr. Craig F. Schindler is a nationally known author and speaker; coach and counselor in transformative psychology; conflict resolution expert; executive coach; and former professor of environmental ethics. He is the author of The Great Turning with Dr. Gary Lapid. They were the first to coin the term “The Great Turning” now used around the world to describe the leap of consciousness needed for humanity to survive and thrive. Called a win/win masterpiece, The Great Turning envisions a new era of human dignity, environmental restoration and lasting peace.

Duane Elgin is an internationally recognized speaker, author and social visionary who looks beneath the surface turbulence of our times to explore the deeper trends that are transforming our world. His books include: The Living Universe, Voluntary Simplicity, Promise Ahead, Awakening Earth, Humanity’s Journey Home: Learning to Live in a Living Universe, and most recently, Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Great Transition to a Mature Planetary Civilisation.

Joanna Macy PhD, is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in the movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with five decades of activism. The author of World as Lover, World as Self, Coming Back to Life, Active Hope and ten other books, she is the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, a ground-breaking theoretical framework and workshop methodology for personal and social change. Joanna is also a Findhorn Fellow. Photo credit: Adam Loften.

Chris Johnstone is a specialist trainer for resilience and wellbeing. He has worked in this field for over thirty years, and through his online courses, he now reaches people from more than 55 countries. After working for many years as a doctor and addictions specialist in the UK health service, he now focuses on coaching, mentoring, writing and training, particularly through online courses at The College of Wellbeing. His books include Active Hope, co-authored with Joanna Macy, and Seven Ways to Build Resilience.

Báyò Akómoláfé is a teacher, public intellectual, author and facilitator. He is globally recognised for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action and social change. As Executive Director of The Emergence Network, Báyò inspires a diffractive network of sharing – a slowing down, an ethics of entanglement, an activism of inquiry, a ‘politics of surprise’…one that does not treat the crises of our times as exterior to ‘us’ or the ‘solutions’ that conventional activism offers as separate from the problems we seek to nullify. Báyò is host of the online writing course, We will dance with Mountains, author of We will tell our own story! and These Wilds Beyond our Fences.

Pat McCabe – Weyakpa Najin Win (Woman Stands Shining) – is a Diné mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. She is a voice for global peace, and her paintings are created as tools for individual, earth and global healing. She draws upon the Indigenous sciences of Thriving Life to reframe questions about sustainability and balance, and she is devoted to supporting the next generations, Women’s Nation and Men’s Nation, in being functional members of the “Hoop of Life” and upholding the honour of being human.

David C. Korten holds MBA and PhD degrees from the Stanford Business School. He is a former member of the faculties of the Harvard Graduate School of Business and the Harvard Graduate School of Public Health. For 21 years, he lived and worked as an economic development professional in Ethiopia, Central America, the Philippines, and Indonesia. He is founder and president of the Living Economics Forum and co-founder and board chair emeritus of YES! Media. His books include Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth, and the international best sellers When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

Meet Your Great Turning Journey Host

Mattie Porte holds a degree in Psychology, is trained in alternative energy medicine, and is a lifelong student of Eastern and Western spiritual and mystical traditions. She has over 20 years experience in spiritual and personal development education and mentoring at Findhorn Ecovillage in the North East of Scotland, where she currently resides. She is the director and producer of the feature-length documentary film – An Enquiry into a New Story for Humanity: Change the Story, Change the World. Her focus is spiritual awakening and the evolution of human consciousness from an integrated scientific and esoteric point of view. She is passionate about the potential in moving from our current paradigm of separation and fear to an emerging paradigm of unity and wholeness.