Summer School
Canterbury, England
4-8 August 2008
The Soul's Challenge
between hope and anguish
in a time of planetary crisis
From the website : http://www.psychosynthesis.net/
" My great-great grandchildren ask me in dreams
“What did you do while the planet was plundered?
What did you do when the Earth was unravelling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started failing,
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying.
Did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
What did you do once you knew”-- Drew Dillinger
lost the sense of our connection as part of the greater web of life. As a result we have inflicted a wound on our world from which it may not recover. Melting ice caps, rising sea levels, extinction of species, denuded seas are some of symptoms of an impending catastrophe. The scale is so great that we can barely encompass it. As individuals we react with denial, frustration, despair and powerlessness; on a collective level we see manic consumption, increasing addiction and desperate escapism. This crisis presents us with an enormous challenge - to face the reality of our current predicament and to recognise that whether the future will be catastrophic or meaningful and sustainable depends on the attitudes and actions of us, as human beings.
The potential tragedy we are caught in is that we have failed to act collectively and decisively, permitting a selfish individualism to hold sway and ruin our world. Yet building a sense of collective awareness, conscience and responsibility is not easy.
How do we all connect around the crisis of the planet? In the words of Albert Einstein:
The conference will awaken our deep yearnings for union, for wonder and awe – the inspiration and responsibility of being part of the whole. As a community, whether through sharing our grief, exploring new paradigms, prayer & meditation or awakening the warrior, we will work to release ourselves from our conditioned experience of a separate ego existence.
Morning Training Seminars
Training seminars will take place over the four morning sessions. The groups for these will be fixed to give continuity and coherence. Therefore you can only choose one of the Training Seminars below.
AWAKENING BEAUTY IN TIMES OF TERROR Gianni Yoav Dattilo * I've chosen this one .
In a sense, all the contemporary crises can be reduced to a crisis about the nature of beauty. John O’ Donohue
We may awaken to Beauty through a renewed perception of the world ‘as it is’, beyond stereotypes and collective views, in nature, the arts and in ordinary everyday moments. It may evoke a taste of the eternal, breed a generous desire to share with others or stimulate its shadow, which is possessiveness. Beauty has a central place in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and integrates the opposite forces of kindness and power. We will explore our own relationship with beauty in our lives, and experientially find our personal ways to awaken its mysterious force in times of a global crisis."
I'm really looking forward to this 
27/03/08 @ 18:22