It was an honor to chat with the extraordinary Duane Elgin - internationally recognized speaker, author, activist and social visionary. We discuss earth as a living system with which we are not only connected, but also forms part of a totality that is regenerating itself moment to moment.
As Joseph Campbell once said, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive”. When we can shift our sense of identity to something much larger than our individual selves and learn to be a part of the living universe, we become part of this field of aliveness that transforms our cultural narrative toward a sustainable and meaningful future.
Duane talks about how we, as humanity, are in our adolescent phase going through this realization moment, rebelling against nature and human nature. Both humility and courage are necessary to choose alternate paths to functional extinction and authoritarianism. We go through Duane’s “7 Uplifting forces” of how to nurture both resilience and aliveness so that humanity can move from a whole systems crisis to viable and abundant future.
About Duane:
Duane Elgin is an internationally recognized speaker, author, citizen activist and social visionary who looks beneath the surface turbulence of our times to explore the deeper trends that are transforming our world. In 2006, Duane received the International Goi Peace Award in Japan in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.” Duane is currently the Co-director of the Choosing Earth Project.
His many books include: Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Journey of Initiation Through Breakdown and Collapse to Mature Planetary Community; The Living Universe, Promise Ahead: Voluntary Simplicity, Awakening Earth . And With Joseph Campbell and other scholars he co-authored the book Changing Images of Man .
In the early 1970s, he worked as a senior staff member of a joint Presidential-Congressional Commission on the American Future, and as a senior social scientist with the think-tank SRI International.
Over the past thirty years, Duane has co-founded three non-profit organizations working for media accountability, citizen empowerment, and a trans-partisan ‘community voice’ movement.
For the past three years, he has been the executive director of a project that has brought together more than a dozen “Great Transition Stories” that offer new cultural narratives toward a sustainable and meaningful future.
Learn more at duaneelgin.com and choosingearth.org