The Nectary is a monthlong research vessel and learning center 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. Her work on the maternal gift economy, the biology of love, and the practice of shared risk communities is a major inspiration. While our liminal and metamodern practice communities have historically paid little attention to the micro-economics of being a culture change agent. We hope to 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 being in right relationship with the natural ecosystems we depend on for survival. 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.