ENTER
CREATIVE CONSULTANCY X EXPERIENCE DESIGN
EXPLORING HUMAN AND MORE-THAN-HUMAN IMAGINATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY
BY ALNOOR LADHA AND LYNN MURPHY
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a “conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
BY ALNOOR LADHA AND LYNN MURPHY
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a “conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
BY ALNOOR LADHA AND LYNN MURPHY
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a “conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
BY ALNOOR LADHA AND LYNN MURPHY
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Extract from Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy. 2022, Daraja Press
Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.' The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism - and ultimately to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This 'ontological shift', as they call it, into new possibilities is at the heart of their work. Creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or 'fight power', but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos. Their book is a result of decades of deep personal inquiry and practice, as well as lifelong engagement with activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers. The authors, Alnoor and Lynn, are co-directors of The Transition Resource Circle, a group focused on the broader transition from our current meta-crisis to adjacent possible futures. TRC seeks to work with resources and resource holders to alchemize and liberate capital to be in service to Life. They work through circle ways - 'e.g. non-hierarchical, embodied cognition approaches, psycho-spiritual practices to move from a culture of entitlement to ways which honour the multiple entanglements of historical precedents, our respective lineages & karmic storylines, and what future beings (including ourselves) require for reconciliation and healing.' TRC focuses on philanthropy as it has the potential to play a critical role in rebalancing wealth, power and historical injustices.
R E F L E C T I O N E X E R C I S E :
C R E A T I N G P O S T C A P I T A L I S T V O W S
• • •
The root causes of our meta-crisis are interconnected.
I vow to understand them.
The delusions of capitalist modernity are inexhaustible.
I vow to transmute and transform them.
The alternatives are boundless.
I vow to perceive, create and amplify them.
Post capitalist realities are inevitable, yet delicate.
I vow to practise, nurture and embody them.
• • •
Consider what it means to make and take vows. We have taken inspiration from a version of the Buddhist Bodhisattva vows219 – to create post capitalist vows as part of our journey through surrender, traverse, and (re)enter.
What would your rendition of post capitalist vows look like?
Write them down and share them with a trusted ally.
219 Adapted from the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. See Upaya Institute (June 1, 2017).
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us. As we embrace paradox and abandon the addiction of certainty, entitlement and control, we may see that alternatives outside of the false binaries offered by capitalist modernity have always been with us. As we take seriously the fierce urgency of now, we may access a continuum of time that opens possibilities of radical restoration and transformation.
The harbinger of post capitalist realities may be as simple as laying one’s forehead upon the naked Earth in contemplation of the liberation of all beings. It may also require discarding the weight and burden of accumulated wealth (perhaps recasting it as a ticking time-bomb of suffering, as one interviewee described it) while holding that same liberatory intention. How far we go as a civilisation may depend on how far each of us are willing to go, how much each of us is willing to open and surrender, as entangled knots in a greater tapestry.
Imagine we created a reality where we only engaged in activities that create conditions for the emergence of beauty, life-force and enchantment? What if we created a context in which the will and entelechy of all beings could manifest with full sovereignty? What would a world look like where we envisioned the consequences of our actions two-hundred or five-hundred or even a thousand years into the future and only then created our contribution to our descendants’ societies, as if we were them?
Rather than vocations or purpose, what would happen if we asked the living world how to best use our life-force in service to its desired unfolding? What if we discarded commodified clock-time with its assigned dollar value? What if we could create a world where our ancestors could fulfill themselves through us? What would happen if we structured our political-economic-cultural superstructures so that all human beings could pursue activities that brought them joy in service to the collective whole.
What if philanthropy could render itself obsolete in one or two generations, hospicing itself in service to post capitalist realities worth living? What if we could start again, not like escapists seeking novel beginnings, but as participants in a cyclical continuum of initiation?
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency, duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic whole which affects us and is affected by us.
“
As we examine the consequences of wealth extraction and accumulation, with its corollary of philanthropy, and the unattended spiritual implications, vistas of reciprocity and generosity may open to us. As we start to witness the inner/outer mirroring of the meta-crisis, we may transform our understanding of agency,
duality and linearity to be more deeply and responsibly embedded in the animistic
whole which affects us and is affected by us.
”
We do not ask these questions in the hope of final answers, but as invitations to stay with the trouble, to recast questions as doorways to other realities.220 Perhaps by asking these questions, and starting our inquiry, Gaia will notice. Perhaps she will meet us halfway. Perhaps more practice is in order.
Surrender control, traverse the threshold, and (re)enter the continuum of Life.
220 “Questions are doorways to other realities” is a phrase used by Orland Bishop in a personal interview with the authors, December 1, 2021.
Alnoor Ladha is an activist, journalist, political strategist and community organiser. From 2012 to 2019 he was the co-founder and executive director of the global activist collective The Rules. He is currently the Council Chair for Culture Hack Labs. He holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a “conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.