Living Waters: A Panpsychic Co-operative Inquiry

Living Waters is an eight-week online spiritual workshop and panpsychic co-operative inquiry with rivers. It is for people who want to change their relationship with the living Earth by meeting a local river, whether a mountain torrent, a tidal reach, an underground flow, a wild stream or an industrialized waterway, as a subject and a person rather than an object. It is led by Freya Mathews, Andreas Weber, Anne Poelina, Peter Reason, Sandra Wooltorton and Ezekiel Fugate, and it takes place entirely on Zoom, with participants joining from across the world.

What to Expect

The course follows the method of co-operative inquiry, pioneered by Peter Reason. Participants are both co-inquirers and co-subjects, working through six cycles of action and reflection in small groups of six, each with a faculty facilitator. In each action phase you spend time with your local river, invoking its living presence and attending to any response. That might happen through loving presence and attunement, song, prayer, pilgrimage, ceremony, myth, archetype, art, or for some the language of traditional religion. In the reflection phase the group shares what happened, makes sense of it together and designs the next cycle.

The first two weeks introduce living cosmos panpsychism and the inquiry method, form the small groups, and bring a first encounter with the river and a first written account. Weeks three to seven are the cycles of action and reflection, supported by seminars on biopoetics, biocultural stewardship, Gaian science and Indigenous worldview. The final week is for recapitulation, identifying shared themes and composing conclusions.

The weekly rhythm has two fixed parts. A seminar of an hour and a half is held on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon UK time. On Thursdays, each small group meets for one and a half to two hours at a time close to its members' local time, whether in Europe, the Americas or Australia. Between meetings there are pre-recorded video lectures, online responses and community discussion. Each week's tasks are one encounter with your river, a written account shared with your group, and reading and commenting on a fellow member's account.

The Facilitators

Freya Mathews is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Latrobe University, Australia, and the author of over one hundred books, articles and essays on ecological philosophy. The course draws on her living cosmos panpsychism.

Andreas Weber is a biologist, philosopher and writer whose work re-evaluates our understanding of the living. His biopoetics informs the course.

Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa woman from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, a community leader, human and earth rights advocate, film maker and academic researcher. She brings Australian Indigenous worldviews to the inquiry.

Peter Reason was Director of the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath and is an international leader in participative approaches to inquiry.

Sandra Wooltorton is from Noongar Boodjar in southwest Western Australia. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Nulungu Research Institute at the University of Notre Dame Australia, in Yawuru Country (Broome) in the Kimberley, and contributes biocultural stewardship.

Ezekiel Fugate is co-founding director of Deep Belonging, a co-founder of Springhouse Community School, and a co-editor of Starborne: The Journal of Autocosmology.

Before You Go

No prior experience is needed. Past participants have included educators, ecologists, artists, activists, organization consultants, writers and poets. Numbers are small, with a maximum of 24 people in four groups of six. The course is taught in English.

Included are the weekly seminars, the facilitated small-group meetings, pre-recorded video, reading lists and introductory videos, and accounts of the process from earlier workshops.

Plan to spend significant time outside, possibly in poor weather. Bring suitable clothing, waterproofs, walking boots and a flask, and perhaps a notebook, art materials or a camera. Travel to a river is your own to arrange, and each participant is responsible for their own risk assessment.