Gaia Education Design for Sustainability:
Week 4 - Worldview

3–9 November 2012

Holistic Worldview

To dissolve a paradigm: if we want to change it, we have to get into quantum level, we have to invite insightful creative thinking that challenges assumptions, breaks patterns and rewires our brains.

Danah Zohar

This module will give an overview of new concepts emerging in modern science, and the implications that this emerging world view may have upon how we live and work with the land and the natural world. It will introduce the major principles and values of the emerging holistic paradigm and explore their practical applications in our lifestyles.

Topics include:
What is a paradigm?
How do paradigms shift?
Spiral Dynamics

Listening to and Reconnecting with Nature

In this module we will weave together the biocentric perspective of Deep Ecology, the importance of wilderness for the planet and humanity, and the role of people in helping to heal the Earth's degraded ecosystems. Utilising experiential deep ecology exercises, the module will also include nature walks and visits to natural places of power.

Awakening and Transforming Consciousness

This module will explore how consciousness creates reality. We will work with the hypothesis that human consciousness is associated with the formation of reality and the act of observation is a process for collapsing the possible in the actual. We will explore the power and influence of intention and motivation on living systems. We will look at how my awakening is your awakening. This exploration will run throughout the four weeks through daily meditation, sharing and reflective practices.

Personal Health and Planetary Health

Health is derived from wholeness - being whole, sound or well. While good nutritional practice is central to our health, equally essential is our relationship with our sense of purpose in the world, relationships, physical activity and spirit. In this module we will explore the relationship between our individual well-being in direct relation to the well-being of the planet. This module will also provide participants with a hands-on and embodied experience. We will co-create a living mandala in the form of a labyrinth over the duration of the Worldview week, and from this develop a reference frame through which we will consider how to design community that cares for all stages of life. Facilitated by Ariane Burgess.

Socially Engaged Spirituality and Bioregionalism

Sulak and I share a conviction that if we are to solve human problems, economic and technological development must be accompanied by an inner spiritual growth.

The Dalai Lama

Too often the environmental movement has been thought of as essentially different from the movement for social justice. This split reflects the deep, unconscious division in our minds between the human world and the natural world. This module will explore the principles of a socially engaged spirituality. We will look at how the transformation of society may first begin within the self; how nurturing and cultivating compassion, wisdom and loving-kindness in our hearts can have an influence on social structures; how, by practising mindfulness, we awaken ourselves to the present moment and become aware of the suffering that surrounds us; and how, by awakening ourselves to suffering, we can be the change we want to see in the world.

Integration

The Gaia Education Design for Sustainability is being introduced to the world at this time to complement, correspond with, and assist in setting a standard for the United Nations' Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014.

Please complete the Application Form and Enrolment Questionnaire to book online.
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Fees
Income related price for Week 4 only (click here for more information): £495 / £545 / £695
For the full four-week programme: £1735 / £1925 / £2395

Fees include programme content, accommodation, vegetarian meals and field trips.

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