🌱 Spring Learning Together
Finding guidance in these strange times
Greetings from back home in Berkeley 😌
I didn’t intend on spending the majority of winter on the road… but wound up extending my time in Auroville, India (see photos #slowdown #stoptrying #chanting #Krishnamurti #selfknowledge) and then taking an unexpected cross country road trip to see family, friends, and potential collaborators. Climaxing this past weekend at Bombay Beach Biennale.
Idk about you, but I’m feeling spring surging forward. Holy cow… the southwestern US is GORGEOUS after a wet winter. Many in my life are starting new things. And alongside this fecundity appears to be spirit of learning. An abundance of high quality educational material emerging, gripped to the current troubled and fertile moment we collectively find ourselves in.
I won’t wax poetic about the value and joy of lifelong learning… let’s just say it’s one of my great loves, it feels meaningful to do my pollinator thing and share the nectar I’ve tasted, and it would be delightful to continue learning alongside others in my life.
Here’s what I’m putting into my brain this season:
Books
Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking by Tyson Yunkaporta
Co-Intelligence: The Applied Wisdom of Wholeness, Interconnectedness, and Co-Creativity by Tom Atlee
The Earth Caretaker Way by Tim Corcoran & Julie Boettlere (of Headwaters Outdoors School, where I did my vision fast)
A handful of Krishnamurti books on education 🤤
Courses
Conflict Resilient Organizations with Tamila Gresham & Simon Mont
Not currently taking, but recommend:
The ReMembering Journey with Sara Wolcott
sē-eds Leadership Transformation Journey with Adah Parris
Great Earth School with Darren Silver and Elias Serras
Downshift with Steve Schlafman
Opening The Eye of Value During the Meta-Crisis with Zak Stein
Current cohort window just passed, but I want you to know about:
Parables of Change with David Alder
What are you learning? What are you tracking? What/who should I be aware of?
And of course, there’s the course I’m launching with the host of the podcast I reliably learn the most from: Josh Schrei & The Emerald! It’s the second course I’ve created on innovation, in which I’ll be playing a dual role of producer and student.
🔥 Embodied Ethics Course
See updated details for our five week learning journey starting April 18th. For people of all walks of life interested in this topic, and especially technologists and those who work with them.
I shared some of the backstory in my previous post. In my humble opinion, the course material represents a missing link in modern society’s understanding about how to be in right relationship technology. Fresh and deeper perspectives on questions I’ve been asking for years.
A little shpiel:
The rapid evolution of AI has prompted widespread discourse about the benefits and risks of transformative technologies, and how to better wield and regulate accelerating innovation.
But when policymakers can’t keep track of all the change, and tech companies are slaved to relentless market pressures, ethics cannot simply be imposed from above.
How have human beings throughout history constructed individual, ecological, and societal frameworks for using power wisely?
The time has come for us to engage in more deliberate and holistic sense-making about the roles of initiation, accountability, long-term thinking, and ethical design in an age where thoughts almost instantly become things.
In this five-part course, Josh and special guests will explore what it means to adapt at every level, individual and collective, to an era of exponential technology “indistinguishable from magic.”
Practically, over five weeks of talks, co-learning sessions, and online discourse, we will:
Study what diverse societies through history can teach us in the modern era about power, technology, responsibility, and living in right relationship
Make connections and engage in stimulating discourse with dozens of kindred spirits (backgrounds like Meta, Google, MAPS, Department of Education, startup founders, engineers, leadership coaches, filmmakers, investors)
Apply new insights and practices to your life, organization, and projects
Develop a more grounded, curious, and proactive stance toward technological innovation
Exercise better solo and group sense-making for our era of exponential change
From my vantage point, Josh’s storytelling opened the door to a wide world of wisdom for navigating great power, that has yet to be explored and integrated into public discourse and practice. So a core intention of this course is to walk through that door together, pushing the edges of conversation around critical questions of our time.
ℹ️ If you’d like to learn more, we’re hosting an Info Session next Wednesday 4/3 12-1pm PST.
📞 If you can’t make the info session, I’d love to hop on a quick call to share more and answer any questions.
🎧 And if you’d like a primer, feel free to re-listen to last summer’s Emerald episode, or Josh’s recent talks with Alexander Beiner, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, and Wisdom 2.0.
💸 Limited scholarships are available. Sponsors welcomed if you feel inspired to support this kind of meaningful beauty in the world.
🙏 Can you help in sharing the course with any relevant communities you're a part of? Perhaps one or two people in your network who might really value what we're doing here.
📓 Wise Innovation Project: Office Hours
This course represents the first major offering from Wise Innovation Project (still playing with the name). I’m orienting to the experience as a community learning journey; a potent shared reference point for a nascent ecosystem to start building connective tissue and coherence.
In parallel, as many in my life are creating new things right now and trying to do so differently, WIP has started hosting regular virtual conversations for wise innovators and educators across disciplines (tech, media, psychedelics, etc) to connect and learn from each other. Office hours, guest speakers, integration circles, vision circles, case studies, asks and offers and more.
Subscribe to stay in the loop about upcoming events and ecosystem offerings, and always feel free to let me know how I/we may be able to support you!
And in the spirit of that longest journey Me to We… I've been exploring co-founder level collaboration with a growing group of brilliant ones with shared visions around wise innovation / holistic technology. Does that sound like you too? Get in touch :)
With love,
Andrew
