Fragments of an Integral Future
A Philosophical and Embodied Exploration of our Time Between Worlds
A seven week online course | 5 September - 17 October | Hosted by Jeremy Johnson & astrid montuclard
What if we could re-imagine our relationship with time, and in doing so, open our shared futures to new possibilities? How can we learn to sense into emerging planetary futures—all of which exist in the locus of the living present—and learn to embody them?
In this course we trace a path of planetary initiation, re-imagining our relationship with the-more-than-human world as we learn to embody ecological wisdom and planetary homecoming.
In order to arrive here, in this transformational present, we will have to come to know the intimate relationship between meaning and matter, the fluctuating dance of shifting worldviews, new ways of embodying our relationship with time, becoming, and human “development,” and attune not merely our “sensemaking” but our “mythmaking” capacities towards new ecological and planetary possibilities.
In this seven-week series of exploratory lectures, author Jeremy Johnson and somatic practitioner astrid montuclard will draw from philosophers, storytellers, artists, and embodiment practitioners to explore how to think, live, act, feel into–and be with–ecological futures.
We stand on a new-and-ancient ground which, like gravity, has re-directed modernity’s hapless attempts to run for the exits, turning the globe of overculture around for a reckoning–and reunion–with planet, place, and presence.
It is here, in the locus of the transformational present, where we can learn how to reclaim time from the relentless pace of techno-utopianism, find corridors towards habitable futures, and enact fragments of regenerative tomorrows in our here and now.
In order to empower new stories about habitable futures, we will need to tell different stories about where we are and where we’re going, gather up temporal toolkits and medicine bundles that help ecological wayfinding and healing on the path between worlds, and take lessons from our more-than-human kin, like the nautilus, or the still more ancient mycorrhizae, on how we can re-imagine time, transformation, and human co-flourishing in a more-than-human world.
Fragments of an Integral Future draws its material from the forthcoming book (Fragments of an Integral Future, Integral Imprint 2023). No pre-requisite reading materials will be required, and additional reading materials will be provided during the course.
Modules
Live sessions are recorded Tuesdays at 9:30 am PT / 12:30 pm ET
Office hours will be hosted on Wednesdays at 1 pm PT / 4 pm ET
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I - Introduction: Rhizomes, Mycelia, Lichen and the Planetary Imaginary
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II - Earth Soma: Inner Ecology, Trauma Healing, and Initiation
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III - This Globe, Which Does Not Exist: From Globalization to Planetization
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IV - Life, Death and Rebirth as a Metamorphic Being
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V - Planetary Mythmaking: Seven Stories from the Future
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VI - Embodying Ecological Paradigms
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VII - Medicine Bundles for a Time Between Worlds
About Your Hosts
Jeremy Johnson is an author (Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness), publisher (Integral Imprint), managing editor (Integral Leadership Review), podcaster (Mutations), senior research associate at Perspectiva, and integral philosopher.
His academic research, writing, and publishing advocates new forays into integrative thinking and praxis—aligning the scholastic, poetic, and spiritual—as existentially crucial work for pathfinding in a time of planetary crisis.
Jeremy is currently working on his doctorate in Philosophy at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
His second book, Fragments of an Integral Future (Integral Imprint) is forthcoming in late 2023.
astrid montuclard is a nonviolent climate justice activist training as a somatic therapist with the California Institute of Integral Studies. Rich with experiences as public health and mindfulness researcher with UC Davis and Zhejiang University (China), past core member & organizer with the East Point Peace Academy, and land-tender at the Possibility Alliance and Vine and Fig, astrid brings critical thinking to nature-based practices in support of individual and collective hero(ine)'s journeys amidst the climate-crisis-as-initiation. Trilingual, astrid translates works in eco-spirituality between French and English.
Learning Outcomes
Students will:
Gain access to a wide selection of philosophical, artistic, historical and therapeutic materials that help them begin to intuitively grasp the complexity of our civilizational transition and the emergent horizon of new identities, worldviews and sensibilities
Learn new ways to not only think about but participate with ecological identity, being, and becoming
Relate the concepts and themes discussed to their own localized contexts and histories
Have the opportunity to share and exchange ideas with the instructors and fellow students
Join a thriving online community of seekers who sense that the future can be open to new planetary cognition, alternative tomorrows where a regenerative homecoming with the more-than-human world is possible
Registration
Registration: $195
Alumni and Mutations/Weird Studies Patreon members receive a $25 discount link. Please send us a brief note if you would like us to resend it.
Student rates:
Send us a note to receive a pay-what-you-can registration link: info (at) nuralearning (dot) com
Thank you, and see you in class!
Alumni from a previous class? Register here.
“Breaking down the walls which conveniently separate us from the past is tantamount to discovering an open and boundless present, where the past as well as the future exist in a state of interrelationship. Ancestors and unborn alike shape one another’s path. The phenomenology of the present is where this all happens; where we learn to walk with time’s complexity, its shape like the marvelous rhizome, as one world comes undone and another, we hope—because we hear the many voices of tomorrow arising with the ululations of wind, water and dream—is always arriving.”
Jeremy Johnson, Fragments of an Integral Future (2023)