Cultivating Aliveness

We seek to deepen and normalize a relational paradigm and practice of ecological belonging by holding the complexity and mystery of life at the core. In many respects our collective work is practice of undoing deep cultural beliefs in the world as a machine in which we are conditioned to see life as transactional and measure worth by efficiency, predictability, productivity and financial value. This mechanical lens strips life of its enchantment leaving many to feel isolated, automated, hollowed out, like cogs in a machine, disconnected from our true selves, other humans, and the more-than-human world.

We can understand this existential crisis as a conflict between the story of what it means to be alive on a living planet — in an intimate interdependent relationship with the community of life and mystery — and a dominant cultural narrative that reinforces ego, human exceptionalism, permanence, independence, and disconnection. This dissonance is contributing to existential distress and global ecological and mental health crisis. Imagine Aliveness as the inter-subjective space, sometimes called interbeing, of energetic relationship of which we are all in our uniqueness are a part, and share with all life.

The Aliveness Initiative Program and Practices were assembled to support the expanded awareness of our inter-connectedness within ourselves, with the more-than-human world, and interbeing. And, to foster the transition of our cultural narrative towards oneness. They prepare a relational foundation to sustain and integrate the awareness of inter-being.

We embrace and seek to model the lessons that nature, our planet teacher, gifts us every day:

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
Living systems are evolving and learning
Small changes can have great impact
Diversity helps us flourish and thrive
Healthy systems find balance in right relationship
All life is interdependent, moving through natural cycles of birth and death
Life is imbued with an innate healing potential
Life is unpredictable

These teachings are sacred gifts and important lessons for the health of both our internal and external worlds. They help us embrace our unique contributions and our own sacredness, and thus the sacredness of all life.

Join our community to learn, deepen, participate and support our growing communities of practice:

Explore Further

Curious about what informs this work? The following is a short reading list of books, papers and tools:

Books:

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, by Ed Yong
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth Hardcover – by Zoë Schlanger
Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being by Philip Shepherd and Jeff Brown
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World by David Abram
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Papers and Publications:

The Next Health System by Jamie Harvie
Toward an Ecological View of Health: An Imperative for the Twenty-First Century by Ted Schettler, MD, MPH
Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change Albrecht et al
A pledge for planetary health to unite health professionals in the Anthropocene Wabnitz K., et al.
The declaration of interdependence David Suzuki Foundation

Tools and Experiential Activities;

One Sacred Earth Project Group gratitude practice
Try Out The Nature Relatedness Scale. The Nature Relatedness Scale (NR-6) measures the strength of one’s psychological relationship to nature, a characteristic associated with happiness and well-being.