Living in the Gift
Personal and collective transition from an age of scarcity and separation, to an age of abundance, community, and gift.
Course Content
Session 10: The System
This session is the most “political” of all the sessions, although it doesn’t touch on the polarizing issues that are named political today. It is about our economic system, money, and debt. These are politicized in a relatively superficial way today — there is some awareness of inequality for instance — but the proposals to change it leave the basic system that inevitably generates more inequality and ecological destruction unchanged.
Even if you are more interested in the personal level of gift, I think you will find these big-picture observations useful. As I say in the video intro, it helps to see that one’s predicament cannot be blamed on bad thoughts and bad choices. Yes, we have agency, but we are also dealing with vast social and economic forces. The third segment is a conversation I recorded with Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money and co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance. This conversation weaves together various themes of the course, and is a fitting prelude to our final live Crowdcast webinar.
Session 10.1: The Crisis
Session 10.2: The Transition
Session 10.3: A Conversation with Lynne Twist
Session Transcripts
Session transcripts are under development by community members and will be added as they are completed. Many thanks to Vicki Bright and Grimm Culhane!
Session 10.1 – The Crisis (transcript)
Session 10.2 – The Transition (transcript)
Session 10.3 – A Conversation with Lynne Twist (transcript)
Optional NAAS Subscription
This course has run as a DIY course, and you are welcome to do it that way. However, for many people it is more powerful to work the material with a group. My business partner and former wife Patsy and I host a network community called A New and Ancient Story (short for NAAS). It is an online network dedicated to reverence in communication. If you would like to participate in it in conjunction with this course, go to the community landing page and read the introduction and posting guidelines. If you feel resonant, you can join through additional subscription. Once you are a member, you will find archives of discussions on course forums on the left menu as well as participating in many features NAAS offers