We kick off our next evolve salon season with a new issue. For Autumn we have a topic that’s very relevant to all of us – and that touches us deeply: Life, Death, and Transformation.
We are living in a time of death. The climate crisis is decimating the vitality of our natural environment day by day. Countless people are losing their lives in the wars ofour time. All of this worries most people deeply. And yet we as humanity do not seemto be able to constructively engage with and resolve the many processes of disintegration that we are witnessing. In our new issue, we want to address this dynamic between the oppression of death and a deeper understanding of dying. Wisdom traditions have always seen dying as a process of transformation, an awareness of our mortality as a driving force for our own and society's maturation. Death calls us to the essential, connecting us to what is most deeply important. How can we open ourselves to the existential developments that can unfold from the midstof life and death?
Topic: Life, Death, and Transformation (Leben, Tod und Transformation)
“When you look lovingly at a flower, you must not forget that it will soon wither. It is the same with ourselves and everything we love - it will pass away. I feel urgency, tenderness and an opening of the heart as I awaken to the reality of my own mortality and our collective crisis”, said integral thought leader Terry Patten in a conversation three weeks before his death from cancer in 2021. Our time is also a time of dying. War and conflict are destroying human life. Living beings and ecosystems are being lost or threatened. A way of life that we have settled into is collapsing. Can we sense into this dying? Are we that brave? And do we find in it signs of transformation, the unthinkable rebirth? These are important questions that we would like to explore together with you in the upcoming evolve Salons.
October 17
The next article from our issue on Life, Death, and Transformation is confronting and poignant at the same time. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira sees the end of an era in the dying processes of our time. Today, the house of modernity is turning out to be a house of cards that is about to collapse, because it is built on fragmentation. She says: “There is a foundation, which is separability, which creates an anthropocentric separation between humans and the land, which creates other separations. Humans are separated from other species, cultures are separated from other cultures, individuals are separated from other individuals.” The glimmer of hope on the horizon: “It's an imposed sense of separation, because we're actually notseparated. We are entangled and intertwined with the planet.” How can we bring thisinterconnectedness back to the forefront? And how could this form the basis of a new era?
November 21
The last article from our issue on Life, Death, and Transformation asks us to go even deeper with our investigations. For thousands of years, humans have sought immortality. Today, armed with powerful technologies, transhumanists believe that radical life extension is right around the corner. Elizabeth Debold explores why disregard for the cycle of birth and death is the source of what is harming the biosphere. Transforming this means changing our relationship to death. She asks: “At this time on Earth, when the practices and progress of Modernity are proving to be destructive, and a new culture has yet to emerge, does trying to conquer death even make sense? Could an embrace of dying, of endings even be essential for the potential emergence of a life-giving planet and culture? Does dying make transformation possible?” It's a question that takes our breath away, because we can't imagine how it can be answered. And perhaps it is precisely by allowing this shared speechlessness that something new can emerge between life and death.
