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Consciousness – The Quest for Life’s Journey - by Laurel Freeland Click here to download Laurel's Native American traditional vision quest (105kb pdf). |
The Research Project
This consciousness storytelling research project is designed to enable the reclaiming of latent human capacities.
This research will provide an opportunity for people to share their stories of connection with the natural environment. Our hypothesis is that connection to nature is directly experienced by most people and can provide specific information about the natural world. Recognising, verbalising and sharing our experiences of connecting with nature will enable humanity to better address our environmental issues.
This research will be in three stages:
Stage 1: Pilot Project – 1 March – 12 April 2009
Our first objective is to develop a library of experiences of conscious connections involving nature and the natural world. The pilot project will be by invitation through our own networks.
As we collect a range of stories we will create a number of categories based on the kinds of connections and themes outlined. During the pilot period we will monitor and review our methodology to ensure its effectiveness.
Stage 2: Research Project - 1 May – 31 October 2009
We plan to widen the project to include more people.
Stage 3: Evaluation and Findings – 1 November – 31 December
We will evaluate the project and make the findings widely available.
This research is initiated by Dr. Dale Hunter and Stephen Thorpe.
Click here for details about the research initiators.
Background
Recently we have been reading about the coming together of scientific theory and spiritual knowledge as described by contributors to the Institute for Noetic Sciences, who describe a connected and co-evolving universe. We were particularly impressed by the analysis articulated by Dr. Ervin László in his books (see www.amazon.com
If you look at developments in science, you'll find that science is increasingly recognizing that everything is connected very strongly with everything else. Everything that exists is an open system. Nothing is entirely closed or independent—everything is very sensitively connected.
The implications are enormous wherever you look. So, for example, we are not just a block of cells, like a building is a block of bricks. Most fundamentally, our living tissue is not made out of hard-core elements—atoms and molecules—it is made of waves. Thus, we are living systems that are continuously receiving and transmitting information. This information transmission is faster than any conceivable biochemical mechanism, because what happens in one part of the organism simultaneously happens to the other part. It's constantly interactive on multiple dimensions. It's a remarkable thing—going way beyond any technical, biological, mechanistic, and materialistic concept of the organism.
As so much of the spiritual literature says: we are not limited to five slits in the tower—meaning that we don't just see the world through the five sense organs. To me, it's very obvious that consciousness is not a byproduct of the brain, produced by a complex set of neurons. It's something that's pervading the whole universe. It's there in the whole body, in all living systems, probably all the way down to the quantum level. We are living in a universe that itself is conscious. And so, we can open the roof to the sky. In creativity you open up—you have a possibility to open the roof to the sky. Then you're no longer alone. I had these moments as a young musician in concert—a sensation of being part of a larger universe. You have united with something larger than yourself...
...Recognizing the subtle element connecting all of nature and its effect on our mind, our consciousness, could go a long way toward making us more human—and by the way, help us to survive the crisis that we are now facing.
We have also been influenced by Otto Scharmer's paradigm shifting Theory U
The Project
In response to these influences, we are initiating the Consciousness Storytelling Project. The purpose of the project is to enable the reclaiming of latent human capacities. This research project provides an opportunity for people to share their stories of connection with the natural environment.
The method will be action research and initially this will take the form of a pilot study towards developing a library of experiences of conscious connections involving nature and the natural world.
Your involvement
We invite you to get involved in this project and share your experiences of connecting with nature. You can do this by recording a short video clip (2-4 min) on your camera and emailing it to us. Or if you would prefer not to make a video you can also email us your story.
Go to Your Input for instructions.
We look forward to receiving your contribution.
