The Nectary is a monthlong research and teaching gathering aimed at restoring our human capacity for intimacy, cooperation, and inter-dependence with the broader web of Life.
We are part of a decentralized effort to address what has been called ‘the metacrisis’. In particular, our project is aimed at addressing inquiries such as:
How can we trust ourselves, life, and each other? Addressing the crisis of intimacy and coordination failure.
How much is enough? Addressing the crisis of overconsumption, over-accumulation, and unmet needs.
How can we restore our ability to perceive and protect the sacred? Addressing the crisis of disembodiment and disconnection from Life.
“The science of right relationship is part of the Fourth Turning of the Wheel. And that’s right relationship with everything: social systems, cultural systems, body, and psyche.”
— John Churchill
The Nectary comes from a lineage of evolutionary practice.
We see our work as part of a broader effort to remember and reclaim endangered forms of intimacy, cooperation, and intelligence – between humans, and between humans and more-than-human Life. We walk in the footsteps of those who proclaim the possibility of a “new human” – whether we call this Homo Amor, homo sapiens amans, liminal consciousness, integral consciousness, or something else. We do not know if it will be possible for our bodies, or the bodies of our children, to remember “preconquest consciousness” — but we are part of a multi-generational effort to find out.
We are students and teachers of various ensoulment and awakening practices — including Collective Presencing, Circling, Soulmaking, Continuum Movement, Contact Improvisation, and others. We have seen that these practices have the capacity to facilitate a fundamental shift of identity: from atomized individuals to interdependent, cooperative collective bodies in a broader web of Life. But “highly stylized practices,” on their own, are not sufficient for the creation of a planetary civilization. Thus, The Nectary aims to create a grounded, embodied context for the practice of right relationship.
The Nectary imagines a future where love + wisdom flourish.
We aspire to design our experiment such that it is a living expression of the deepest wisdom we have understood so far about what a life-giving culture looks, sounds, and feels like. Here, we lean upon the visionary nonviolence teacher Miki Kashtan and the Nonviolent Global Liberation community. Her work on the maternal gift economy and shared risk communities — inspired by the biology of love — is a major inspiration. Our liminal and metamodern practice communities have historically paid little attention to the micro-economics of being a culture change agent. We hope to test and create new models that support and sustain this work.
We value the hard work it takes to cultivate a wise, land-based community which can hold unfolding processes of human and cultural transformation — while practicing right relationship with the more-than-human world. Our project is part of an emerging network of sacred living and training centers that can instantiate new, life-giving cultural norms. In the long term, we imagine a flourishing, interconnected web of diverse communities: supporting individuals, families, and communities in a whole-life integration process.
The Nectary is a laboratory-dojo for fumbling towards soulful ‘economy-ing.’
We live in a society that systematically mutilates our ontological sovereignty and our capacity for trusting in self, other, life, and mystery. The global capitalist economy – one of our most deeply entrenched and powerful systems, or hyperobjects – exerts this violence daily. With each passing worry about retirement savings, we experience the pain of exiting the web of ecological interdependence and compressing ourselves into the myth of self-sufficiency. With each transaction, we experience the pain of putting a price on something (everything?) that our souls know is priceless.
There is no economy “out there” that can be redesigned to support whole-life thriving if we do not simultaneously loosen and transform the maladaptive senses of self/reality, perceptual filters (i.e. “Valueception”), beliefs, and trauma response patterns “in here”.
We constantly reproduce and justify the underlying assumptions and operational logic of the economy. We are all economic designers, planners, and policy-makers – we are all “economy-ing”.
At The Nectary, we begin our conscious practice of soulful “economy-ing” within our micro-economy of “who washes dishes tonight?” – asking “how are our entangled souls asking us to share the risk of resourcing our collective needs and deepest desires?”
We invite you to support our Nectary micro-economy with a financial gift. To stay tuned for updates on the specific practices, learnings, and teaching offerings that emerge during our time together, join the invitation list below!
“This is how the deepest cultural renaissance happens. All soul work, at this time in the world, is countercultural and revolutionary, as well as evolutionary.”
— Bill Plotkin