A benefit with all proceeds to support the Los Cedros Biological Reserve in Ecuador and Local Futures

Helena Norberg-Hodge and John Seed come together to share their vast experience and discuss the need for localisation and reconnection. Join us for an evening of insight and dialogue about reorienting our economy, so that it may better serve our profound connections with one another and the living world alike. Whether we connect over food, our shared neighbourhoods or our catchments we must shift our livelihoods and systems to be more rooted in our local places and to more tangibly honour the responsibilities we hold to each other and the web of life.

On the evening you can expect:

Presentations from both Helena and John
Facilitated discussion
Q&A with the audience

Ancient Futures: Recovering our Sacred Connections

Today humanity has a choice between two diametrically opposing paths: on the one hand global economic forces, with the help of “green” arguments for “carbon colonialism”, are pulling us into an ever-more competitive, fast-paced, urban future. At the same time, from the bottom up, there is a widespread cultural turning, bringing us back to our spiritual, evolutionary connections to the web of life. People are recognizing that connection, both to others and to Nature, is the true wellspring of happiness, and long for more cooperative, feminine, community-based, ecological futures. In almost every country, farmers’ markets, permaculture, community co-ops, local finance and business alliances, place-based education and nature reconnection testify to this great shift in values. In these ways, people are already sowing the seeds for a very different future, and demonstrating the way forward, towards a localised future.

In this talk, Helena Norberg-Hodge will argue that shifting economic policies from global to local is a systemic path away from a fragmented, confused and ever more violent world dominated by distant economic forces, towards a more interconnected world that is the foundation of both human and ecological wellbeing.

The Religion of Economics

The fact that economics, the most pious religion the world has ever known, has managed to audaciously disguise itself as secular is the real key to its unprecedented success. Not only secular but a science. Not just a science but the only one of the social sciences hard enough to have its own Nobel prize. The first step to killing this false god and freeing the Earth from its thrall is to unmask it, to name it, to say it like it is. John Seed will tell the story of this strange religion, one whose Sabbath lasts five days out of seven, while for the truly devout, maybe 6 or even 7 days are spent worshipping in huge complexes of temples that scrape the sky, foul the waters and scorch the Earth. When not in their office temples, the pious congregate in malls to shop unto exhaustion of the spirit and of the Earth itself.

John will conclude with the story of deep ecology and propose that reconnecting with the living Earth is what we are actually hungry for and The Work That Reconnects dissolves the need for all the “stuff” that the advertising industry is trying to sell us to fill the gaping hole that is left when we are torn from our original Nature.

Accessibility
Marrickville Golf Club is an accessible venue - with a wheelchair ramp and accessible parking