A few updates for you this week.
On Saturday I was graciously hosted by the St. Petersburg Theosophical Society (virtually) for a seminar, “Inhabiting the Present: Planetary Crisis and Regenerative Futures.” As I said during the talk: the world has become impossible, so let us consider the possible. We had a good, long Q&A after my presentation. Thanks again to Leigh and the local Theosophical community for the kind invitation!
The next Pop-Up Integral Studies Salon is this Wednesday (9/16/20) on Patreon.
There are going to be some live —“recorded in front of a live Zoom audience” —Mutations episodes coming soon. These will be topical and/or have guests, and be open for registration on Zoom. I should have the first set announced in next week’s email.
Look for a Rune Soup episode with Brandt Stickley, Barbara Karlsen, and myself publishing this week (and also in the next missive).
Bruce Alderman of The Integral Stage invited me to participate in a new video series called “Eutopia: Visions of a Planetary Wisdom Civilization.” Here’s my take.
Introducing the series Bruce writes,
Recognizing that the multiple crises we face globally are confronting us with the limits and blind spots of our present systems, structures, and paradigms, we are inviting people in this new series to offer their best visions for thriving, integrally healthy societies of the future -- "eutopias" or planetary wisdom civilizations. How might we better organize and "dwell together"? How might we better integrate with and even optimize our local and global ecologies? What would an integral kosmopolis look like, and what will it take to get there?
And his writeup on my lecture was great, so I’ll let him speak for me (thanks Bruce),
[Jeremy] opens with a rich, orienting discussion of the differences between "utopia" and "eutopia," and then guides the viewer through a Gebserian vision of the dawning of an integral world and the transformative process of a post-humanist planetization.
We could use some eutopia right now. The world is becoming far too Blade Runner, and we’re looking into the face of cave bears again.
We need some radically grounded — radical as in “root” — visions of a post-industrial world and regenerative future, and for that matter a mode of planetary thinking and consciousness dynamic, pliable enough to be adequate. Visions like my friend Mark Vernon writes about here via Blake:
Let’s hope what Gebser talked about in terms of the aperspectival turn, or what Bruno Latour has been referring to as “Down to Earth” is not, in reality, a crash landing. We’re coming back down to Earth, alright, and even the wondrous (potential) discovery of life on Venus is a reminder of our own climate crisis and the mutational urgency of “becoming planetary.”
But imagination is good. So is wonder. Now, at least, we can look up — if only through the red haze of the fires — at the Morning Star and contemplate the possible again. The “out there” always echoes the “down here” again to be truly cosmic.
Until next week,
Jeremy
PS: Consider supporting this writing and the Mutations Salon on Patreon. Thank you!