It's ACE at Applewood- A journey into Cultural Emergence

 

“ Cultural Emergence is personal and social permaculture on a new level. Where permaculture looks at patterns in nature, Cultural Emergence looks at patterns in behavior and thinking. How do we accept personal leadership and create a shared responsibility for a regenerative culture in which everything and everyone thrives? How do you make effective connections between people or even groups? How do you learn from nature and connect with it to strengthen your own foundation? How do you become aware of a culture and what can you do to positively influence it?” Barbara Scheltus 

 

 

 

In September 2022 I was invited to join Looby Macnamara’s transformational Activating Cultural Emergence (ACE) course. Taking place over a gorgeously hot weekend at Applewood Permaculture Centre in rural Herefordshire, the course proved to be a delicious mix of inspiration, learning, connection, laughter and Looby’s famous fruit crumble. We were invited to bring a question or an intention to the weekend so that we could use the cultural emergence toolbox to build personal resilience and to gain insight into our own situation. I chose to use the weekend to look at building personal resilience as I care for my mum as she gets older. 

 

 

 

 

Once we begin to understand these narratives and their limitations, we can begin to explore whether or not they work for us. We can start to feel into what is the fertile ground that helps us to thrive and what holds us back from being the fullest version of ourselves. And this is where the emergence comes in. When we push some of those old stories to the side and allow space, what possibilities arise in us? What curiosity or passion is fuelled in us and how can this new found sense of personal freedom ripple out into the cultures around us to create a more connected, resilient and beautiful world? 

 

 

There are a whole set of Cultural Emergence tools, developed from Looby’s pioneering People and Permaculture design web and her collaborative work with Jon Young, author of the Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature. The Cultural Emergence toolkit blends premises, to give us hope and to focus our attention, phases, a framework to help us see clearly, make changes and build resilience, practices, to help us embody these changes and principles, to support us in our practice so that they become good habits.

 

We got the opportunity to play with lots of these tools over the course of the weekend. This included mapping our personal cultures, where we identfied all of the different cultures that had influenced us and the privileges and disadvantages that these gave us. We looked at cycles of abundance and erosion, identifying all of the places where we found energy and joy and the also the negative patterns that we find ourselves in and how they affect us. Each of us took turns telling our own stories and reflected on eachother's unique gifts. We found a sit spot in nature, reflected on our intention for the weekend and took the time to see what answers nature reflected back to us. Our weekend ended by creating beautiful collaborative cultural emergence poems which we loved reading to eachother. 

 

I got so much out of my weekend at Applewood. It gave me a real opportunity to view my situation through different eyes. I realised that there is a lot of fertile ground where I can develop new connections with my mum based around our joint love of nature and creativity and that when I relax and create space I can enjoy this connection being what it is in the moment and respond to that. I remembered how much being in nature and connecting with plants and animals recharges my batteries. I look forward to seeing how these new insights ripple out to create further change in all of my relationships.

 

It was also wonderful to share this journey with others. There was such richness and experience in our group. We all left feeling nourished both by Looby’s crumble and the deep sharing, acceptance and playfulness that we co-created. I thoroughly recommend signing up to a Cultural Emergence course. You can do them in person at Applewood or online if you live further afield. They are a great way to connect with yourself and others and to empower yourself to truly be the change you want to see in the world. 

 

Looby has also designed a set of cards with beautiful hand drawn symbols and distilled wisdom from the toolkit. On the first day of the course we created an altar for these cards, which were used prolifically to reflect on our intention in nature, to challenge our preconceptions and to work with others to explore our opportunities to think differently about the personal culture that we want to create. The cards are wonderful in that they are really accessible,enable an intuitive way of learning and can be used in a variety of ways. I enjoyed cherry picking from the deck each day to help view my situation from different perspectives. 

 

 

Get your own set of Cultural Emergence cards by supporting Looby’s Kickstarter campaign. There are only a few days still to go to hit the target and to make these cards a reality. Check out the campaign and find out about all of the exciting rewards.