At Life Itself we organise our time into fortnightly sprints. This means we make plans together of what we’ll achieve every fortnight, and we update each other as a group on what we’ve been up to after each sprint. We decided that we’d like to involve you — our wonderful readers, members and supporters — and share some highlights of what we got up to during the last sprint.
It’s been a particularly exciting two weeks, because as you may have noticed we’ve had a rebrand, and are now Life Itself! Sylvie has done an amazing job with the new logo — it takes serious creativity and dedication to design something a whole team agrees is awesome — and we think it really captures the commitment to freedom and growth which characterise the Life Itself vision.
One of the major projects happening at Life Itself at the moment is the renovation of our new hub in Bergerac, France.
The highlight of the fortnight for Sylvie has been collecting the keys for the hub and starting the renovation.
You can see the Bergerac hub from the air here 🙂
This week Liam has been busy setting up and recording dialogues between Plum Village Monastics and neuroscientists as part of an upcoming online retreat hosted by Plum Village.
The highlight was an online tea with the monastics and neuroscientists involved in the retreat. Liam said:
We discussed the creation of a balance between contemplative and neuroscientific approaches to understanding the mind so that neither felt it could eliminate the other. Both sides were eager to speak more
Liam, Philosopher-in-Chief
Petronella and Sylvie have continued to hold Getting S*** Done calls, and places have been in high demand.
The new Write your Autobiography class has also launched. Every Wednesday, participants come together to share stories from their past, explore how these stories affect their present day decisions and write their own stories for the future.
Petronella shared her enjoyment at seeing people she has known in the past getting involved in Life Itself calls and community hubs:
Looking at the spaces that had the fertile soil that transformed my life is unsurprisingly where people who are excited by Life Itself are coming from.
Petronella, Expert in Getting S*** Done and Making Dreams Reality
The changes to normal working patterns and locations caused by lockdown have meant we’ve been working with organisations more, sharing our cultural practices to offer support and accountability for staff who are remote, especially those working from home for the first time.
The Berlin hub also hosted its first workshop, ‘How Do Systems Die Well and with Grace?’ organised by our wonderful Berlin hub member Jacques with the support of the hub manager Patrick, who we’re thrilled to have as a new member of the team — we know he’s going to help make the Berlin hub a huge success along with its amazing residents.
Here’s a summary of the focus of the workshop:
We are living in a time of transition. The fact that the systems we build are no longer serving humanity and the larger web of life on this planet is clear and plain to see. That means on the one hand that we have to build alternative systems that are serving life better and that help to sustain and regenerate the resources that are needed to let life flourish on this planet. That also means that we have to let the institutions, organisations and habits that are no longer serving us die. In natural systems, dying involves the disintegration, the unraveling of a system into its components, so that these can nourish and be integrated in a new system to arise.
We’re looking forward to multiple other events being hosted in the hub’s shared space in the near future, from movie nights and lectures to contemplative workshops and activism meetings. If you want to find out about future events you can follow the Berlin hub instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/lifeitselfberlin/
