BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//EcoGather - ECPv6.15.14//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:EcoGather X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://ecogather.ing X-WR-CALDESC:Events for EcoGather REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20240310T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20241103T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20250309T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20251102T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20260308T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20261101T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250324T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250324T140000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250203T205401Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250210T225040Z UID:103050-1742817600-1742824800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Intentional Community Study Group DESCRIPTION:This is a mixed-experience group of people with different skills to research and assess varied models for collective and cooperative land-based living\, sustenance\, and enterprise. Study group members will identify together several possible paths to investigate more fully\, divide up the work of familiarizing themselves with helpful models\, literature\, and case-studies. \nWe will meet in 5-session cycles with breaks in between. This cadence of focused study punctuated by periods for absorption\, reflection\, and implementation is intended to enable participants to sustain engagement and to support each other in moving from theory through ideation into practical action. In this way\, we can balance group formation\, active collaboration\, and openness to newcomers. \nAt the end of the first 10-week cycle\, study group participants will make suggestions about schedule for the next cycle\, including choosing a new book. EcoGather will reopen the study group to new participants. If you are interested in joining for the next cycle\, learn more about the group and apply\, follow the button below.\n \n Learn More and Apply! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/intentional-community-study-group-4/ CATEGORIES:Study Group ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/jwuv9ngb3ue.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250325T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250325T200000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250204T183237Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250322T135512Z UID:103077-1742927400-1742932800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:What is Work? DESCRIPTION:Register! \n \n \n \n \n \n \nBy some estimates\, contemporary humans\, on average\, spend about 1/3 of their lifetimes “working”. (Actual proportions of time spent “working” vs. sleeping vs. engaged in leisure pursuits vary widely based on culture\, economic system\, ability\, need/wealth\, gender\, — and also based on what we actually count as “work.”) Without question\, it’s evident that work makes up a significant portion of the human experience. In a clever capitalist catch-22\, we spend so much of our time and energy working\, that we never really get the chance to explore the question of what really is work\, anyways? Where did it come from\, and who does it serve? Is there inherent value to work? And why do we spend so much of our precious time living doing it? \nIn the 20th and early 21st centuries\, we’ve tended to narrowly define work as the labor we perform in exchange for wages or other monetary earnings. This construction is broad in that it covers a wide range of roles across all aspects of society\, necessary or essential\, productive or value-adding\, non-essential and incidental to profit generation\, and questionable or degenerative. But it is also narrow in that it excludes the typically unpaid labor required to meet the demands of daily living. This oft-unpaid work (known variously as carework or social reproductive labor) has been disproportionately assigned to women in recent centuries. (Indeed\, the persistent non- or under-compensation of this work is a powerful means of upholding the patriarchy\, but we’ll get to that later in our Exploitation session). For now\, suffice it to say that what is or could be considered work varies widely. So\, we will begin this cycle by unpacking a familiar term\, exploring our perceptions of work\, and evaluating definitions provided to us by physicists\, ancient Greeks\, and modern society. \n\n  \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nThe School of Life: History of Ideas – WorkMichael Luong: The Past\, Present\, and Future of WorkMuch To Do: Relating to and Reuniting with Our Working Lives URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/what-is-work/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/1scwrpgnny8.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250326T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250326T170000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250219T225144Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T002856Z UID:103523-1743004800-1743008400@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Open Hours (Nissa) DESCRIPTION:Join Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/open-hours-nissa-5/ CATEGORIES:Social Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/m9f8vr0jepm.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250327T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250327T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250124T191359Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250323T154109Z UID:102903-1743100200-1743107400@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Good Grief DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n Good Grief is a group exploration of our collective grief through the frameworks of Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (The Wild Edge of Sorrow). Inspired by our EcoGathering on Grieving during the autumnal Composting series in 2024 and an increasing urgency to process the compounding loss we experience as the continuation of modernity relies on genocide\, ecocide\, omnicide and fascism’s impingement on our basic rights and liberties\, we will hold space to tend to the complex and often unaddressed grief that accompanies these losses and expand our emotional capacity for collective grieving as a skill for navigating uncertain futures.  \nJoin us in our third session as we direct our grief to The Third Gate\, The Sorrows of the World. In this Sharing Session all participants are welcome to release the grief that arises at this gate to be witnessed and held in the collective well of sorrow. It’s highly recommended that you attend the companion Integration Session offered the following week\, for the sake of group continuity and comfortability\, as well as the opportunity to fully sit with the experience of witnessing and processing the grief at this gate. \n  \nRecommended Resources \nThe Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller\, Chapter 3For the third session of this series\, it’s highly recommended that you read the section of this chapter subtitled “The Third Gate: The sorrows of the world” (pages 46-53) \nThe Five Gates of GriefA brief summary of each of the five gates of grief \n  URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/good-grief-3-sharing/ CATEGORIES:Sharing Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/photo-1574254706427-213d446e2f2b.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T120000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T001605Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T002428Z UID:104231-1743591600-1743595200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Open Hours (Erik) DESCRIPTION:Join Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/open-hours-erik/ CATEGORIES:Social Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-20.00.06.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T113000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T130000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250205T205310Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250402T192241Z UID:103094-1743679800-1743685200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Alienation and Exploitation of Labor DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n   \nOur exploration of work questions the differences between jobs\, care\, creation\, production\, and more. There is no question that in order to stay alive work needs to get done. It takes energy to grow photosynthetic leaves\, forage for food\, to hunt for prey\, to sow seeds to harvest\, to shop at the grocery store\, or to make enough money to eat out at a restaurant. There are plenty of arrangements for doing the work of sustenance and subsistence. Most critters alive are responsible for procuring the energy to do work to stay alive themselves\, or in collaboration with a group. But\, in our modern human societies\, many people are able to meet their needs by using someone else’s energy without reciprocation. This is (or runs a very high risk of) exploitation. \nWe have already explored the processes of Primitive Accumulation and Enclosure that established capitalism and coerced people into meeting their material needs through wages rather than subsistence. This rift separated (or introduced a middle-step to) the work done for meeting materials needs. Indeed\, the work done for wages is sometimes referred to as alienated labor. And under Capitalism\, the alienated labor of workers is a key component to making profits\, which mean that labor must be compensated at less than its true value. Because laborers receive less than the full value of their work\, members of the working class who must work for another person or entity to earn wages so they can pay for the necessities are typically working in an inherently exploitative arrangement. (Degrees of exploitation vary tremendously\, of course.) Additionally\, capitalism relies upon – and is continually subsidized by – unpaid work in the so-called “informal economy” (or non-monetary economy). Think here of the work associated with maintaining a car for commuting\, shopping for “work appropriate clothing\,” making and packing meals\, and even the maternal labor of gestating the next generation of exploitable laborers. In this EcoGathering\, we will explore the often invisibilized micro and macro examples of exploitation that result when the work we do to meet our material needs is exploited\, and separated\, or alienated\, from the work we spend most of our lives doing. \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nMuch To Do \nA big long blog post on relating to and reuniting with out working lives. For this session\, we recommend reading the Exploitation and Devaluation of Necessary Work sections. \n\nThe Myth of Freedom Under Capitalism by Upstream \nHome is Where the Unpaid Labor Is \nMarx\, the ‘Metabolic Rift’ and Capitalism’s Assault on Nature \nThe work of care is vital. Why don’t we pay like it is? \n\n  URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/alienation-and-exploitation-of-labor/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/iii2oblewzc.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250403T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250213T175647Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250402T215635Z UID:103328-1743705000-1743712200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Good Grief DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n \nGood Grief is a group exploration of our collective grief through the frameworks of Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (The Wild Edge of Sorrow). Inspired by our EcoGathering on Grieving during the autumnal Composting series in 2024 and an increasing urgency to process the compounding loss we experience as the continuation of modernity relies on genocide\, ecocide\, omnicide and fascism’s impingement on our basic rights and liberties\, we will hold space to tend to the complex and often unaddressed grief that accompanies these losses and expand our emotional capacity for collective grieving as a skill for navigating uncertain futures. \nIn this Integration Session\, we will focus on working with the grief that was revealed in the last week’s Sharing Session for The Third Gate\, The Sorrows of the World. Through guided discussion and ritual\, we will allow this newly unearthed grief to move into practice as we venture into a collective Apprenticeship with Sorrow. It’s highly recommended that you attend the companion Sharing Session offered the week prior\, for the sake of group continuity and comfortability\, as well as the opportunity to fully sit with the experience of witnessing and processing the grief at this gate. \n \n \nRecommended Resources: \nThe Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller\, Chapter 3 \nFor the third session of this series\, it’s highly recommended that you read the section of this chapter subtitled “The Third Gate: The sorrows of the world” (pages 46-53) \nThe Five Gates of Grief \nA brief summary of each of the five gates of grief \nGrief Belongs in Social Movements \nA deeply moving piece by Malkia Devich-Cyril on the importance of our grief in taking action towards inspired change. URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/good-grief-3-integration/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/photo-1574254706427-213d446e2f2b.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T193000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250205T210459Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250409T174504Z UID:103098-1744221600-1744227000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Make Work DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n \nIn a time of crisis\, there is so much work to do. Most of us exist in a state of alienation that amounts to having two full time jobs – the work for wages and the work for ourselves\, leaving little left for (the work of) pursuing passions and participating in community. To add insult to injury\, as many wage-labor jobs have been automated or accelerated by technology\, there has been an increase in the amount of work we are doing that is decidedly not necessary. There is so much important work that isn’t being done or isn’t properly compensated because it is not profitable to capital. Folks are too overworked to have the time and energy to do it. Rather than redistributing the work that is essential to more people and reducing our working hours\, or mobilizing around the many existential crises we face\, we have all continued to work faster and longer to meet our needs and eke out some semblance of individual security in an uncertain world. \nWhy do are we doing so much unnecessary work? In part because it generates profit for someone\, somewhere. In part\, because few places have pro-social systems of wealth distribution or even adequate social safety nets. And in part because an un- or under-employed populous lacks the money to generate more economic activity as consumers. (So even as essential work is made more efficient\, workers aren’t given their time back\, they are compelled to work increasingly less necessary jobs that grow the economy.) \nIn the words of David Fleming “[we] are conditioned by the market economy; [we] have to be competitive\, and cannot forgo an immediate advantage from which [we] would individually benefit in favor of a future (and larger) advantage from which everyone would benefit.” In this EcoGathering\, we will explore the many ways we continue to be exploited and alienated from our labor\, as well as how we might recreate a culture that would allow us to slow down\, and actually get the important work done. \n \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nMuch To Do \nA big long blog post on relating to and reuniting with out working lives. For this session\, we recommend reading the Creation of Unnecessary Work section. \n \nOn The Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs A Work Rant by David Graeber \nI Didn’t Want a Job by Aimee McNee \n \nOn Meaningless Jobs A conversation with David Graeber URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/make-work/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/qbpzgqemskg.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250410T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250410T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250203T204903Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T004214Z UID:103047-1744311600-1744318800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Intentional Community Study Group DESCRIPTION:This is a mixed-experience group of people with different skills to research and assess varied models for collective and cooperative land-based living\, sustenance\, and enterprise. Study group members will identify together several possible paths to investigate more fully\, divide up the work of familiarizing themselves with helpful models\, literature\, and case-studies. \nWe will meet in 5-session cycles with breaks in between. This cadence of focused study punctuated by periods for absorption\, reflection\, and implementation is intended to enable participants to sustain engagement and to support each other in moving from theory through ideation into practical action. In this way\, we can balance group formation\, active collaboration\, and openness to newcomers. \nAt the end of the first 10-week cycle\, study group participants will make suggestions about schedule for the next cycle\, including choosing a new book. EcoGather will reopen the study group to new participants. If you are interested in joining for the next cycle\, learn more about the group and apply\, follow the button below. \n \n Learn More and Apply Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/intentional-community-study-group-3/ CATEGORIES:Study Group ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/jwuv9ngb3ue.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250415T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250415T110000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250219T225143Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250219T225656Z UID:103522-1744711200-1744714800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Open Hours (Nissa) DESCRIPTION:Join Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/open-hours-nissa-4/ CATEGORIES:Social Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/m9f8vr0jepm.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250417T123000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250417T140000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250205T211118Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250411T210131Z UID:103103-1744893000-1744898400@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Reclamation of Labor DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n \nThere are plenty of examples of labor movements throughout history (spanning rights recognition\, practical advocacy to improve wages and working conditions\, and radical re-envisioning)\, from worker unions and cooperatives\, fully automated luxury communism and neodecadence\, social security and even insurance\, to universal basic income\, wages for housework\, and expanding who is allowed to work for wages. In this unprecedented time\, we might begin to consider how prefiguration and divestment from the myths of progress and efficiency might play a role in re-establishing forms of subsistence and work-life integration that heals the rift of alienation\, meets our needs without exploitation\, and values finding joy in the work that we all love and rely on. What diverse arrangements for getting the work done in a weird world can we imagine anew and return to? \nRecommended resources for this EcoGathering: \nMuch To Do \nA big long blog post on relating to and reuniting with out working lives. For this session\, we recommend reading the last section\, subtitled Reclamation of Labor. \n\nHow to Drop Out by Ran Prieur \nRetreats: Marble Hill Short film documenting the life of Mark Boyle\, The Moneyless Man \nJem Bendell: Keeping Your Job at the End of the World (As We Know It) URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/reclamation-of-labor/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/zjaso1yz6hq.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250419T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250419T160000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250124T192350Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T014454Z UID:102905-1745071200-1745078400@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Good Grief DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n Good Grief is a group exploration of our collective grief through the frameworks of Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (The Wild Edge of Sorrow). Inspired by our EcoGathering on Grieving during the autumnal Composting series in 2024 and an increasing urgency to process the compounding loss we experience as the continuation of modernity relies on genocide\, ecocide\, omnicide and fascism’s impingement on our basic rights and liberties\, we will hold space to tend to the complex and often unaddressed grief that accompanies these losses and expand our emotional capacity for collective grieving as a skill for navigating uncertain futures. \n\nThe fourth session will focus on The Fourth Gate of Grief\, What we expected and did not receive. This gate provides us the space and grace to acknowledge and grieve the expectations we have held for ourselves and the world around us that cannot be met. In this Sharing Session all participants are welcome to release the grief that arises at this gate to be witnessed and held in the collective well of sorrow. It’s highly recommended that you attend the companion Integration Session offered the following week\, for the sake of group continuity and comfortability\, as well as the opportunity to fully sit with the experience of witnessing and processing the grief at this gate. \n\n  \nRecommended Resources \nThe Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller\, Chapter 3For the fourth session of this series\, it’s highly recommended that you read the section of this chapter subtitled “The Fourth Gate: What we expected and did not receive” (pages 54-63) \nThe Five Gates of GriefA brief summary of each of the five gates of grief \n  URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/good-grief-4-sharing/ CATEGORIES:Sharing Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/photo-1574254706427-213d446e2f2b.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250419T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250419T170000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250203T213522Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T014628Z UID:103062-1745074800-1745082000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Work DESCRIPTION:We spend so much of our time and energy working\, that we never really get the chance to explore the question of what really is work\, anyways? Where did it come from\, and who does it serve? There is no question that in order to stay alive work needs to get done. Living in a time of upheaval\, we sense that there’s very important work to do — and for many of us\, that’s not the work we’re actually doing. \nFurther\, today it is common to meet needs through someone else’s labor\, without reciprocation. Such arrangements are prone to exploitation and are entwined with the greatest challenges of our time. Simultaneously\, under capitalism\, almost all laborers receive less than the full value of their work. Thus\, members of the working class (all who must work for another person or entity to earn wages so they can pay for necessities) are typically working in inherently exploitative arrangements. Additionally\, capitalism relies upon – and is continually subsidized by – unpaid work in the so-called “informal economy” (or non-monetary economy). \nMost of us exist in a state of alienation that amounts to having (at least) two “full-time” jobs – the work for wages and the work for ourselves. This leaves little time for (the work of) pursuing passions\, participating in community\, and pursuing transformative change. To add insult to injury\, as many wage-labor jobs have been automated or accelerated by technology\, there has been an increase in the amount of work we are doing that is decidedly not necessary. Rather than redistributing the work that is essential to more people and reducing our wage-working hours\, or mobilizing around the existential crises we face\, most of us now work faster and longer just to meet our needs and eke out some semblance of individual security in an uncertain world. \nIn this unprecedented time\, it is imperative that we examine our relationship to and reclaim some control over our labor\, individually and collectively. If we divest from the myths of progress and efficiency\, we might find ourselves inclined to re-establish forms of shared subsistence. We might reorganize power and practice prefiguration in our workplaces. And we might even toss out dated and impossible-to-achieve notions of work-life balance in favor of work-life integration. \nIf you’d like to meets more of your needs (and those of your neighbors) with less exploitation\, actually respond to accelerating crises\, and find joy in good work\, start by joining us for this EcoGathering. What diverse arrangements for getting the work done in a weird world can we imagine anew and return to? URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/work/ LOCATION:Hard-Pressed Community Print Shop\, 12 VT Rt. 15\, West Danville\, Vermont CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hp-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250422T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250422T150000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T004615Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T005028Z UID:104243-1745330400-1745334000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Open Hours (Erik) DESCRIPTION:Join Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/open-hours-erik-2/ CATEGORIES:Social Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-20.00.06.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250423T153000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250423T170000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250418T183123Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250418T193823Z UID:104687-1745422200-1745427600@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Examining End Times Fascism DESCRIPTION:A focused\, ad hoc EcoGathering to discuss the analysis put forward in Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s recent article in The Guardian\, The rise of end times fascism. \nPlease read the featured essay in advance\, it will take approximately 30-40 minutes\, as per The Guardian. We’ll gather to discuss. \n \n Register! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/examining-end-times-fascism/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-2.29.26-PM.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250426T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250426T160000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250213T180805Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250423T151917Z UID:103331-1745676000-1745683200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Good Grief DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n \nGood Grief is a group exploration of our collective grief through the frameworks of Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (The Wild Edge of Sorrow). Inspired by our EcoGathering on Grieving during the autumnal Composting series in 2024 and an increasing urgency to process the compounding loss we experience as the continuation of modernity relies on genocide\, ecocide\, omnicide and fascism’s impingement on our basic rights and liberties\, we will hold space to tend to the complex and often unaddressed grief that accompanies these losses and expand our emotional capacity for collective grieving as a skill for navigating uncertain futures. \nIn this Integration Session\, we will focus on working with the grief that was revealed in the last week’s Sharing Session focused on The Fourth Gate\, What we expected and did not receive. Through guided discussion and ritual\, we will allow this newly unearthed grief to move into practice as we venture into a collective Apprenticeship with Sorrow. It’s highly recommended that you attend the companion Sharing Session offered the week prior\, for the sake of group continuity and comfortability\, as well as the opportunity to fully sit with the experience of witnessing and processing the grief at this gate. \n  \nRecommended Resources: \nRough InitiationsAn article by Francis Weller which details the teachings of Malidoma Somé on trauma vs. initiation cultures.  \nThe Four Mountains StoryAn excerpt retelling of the Cree knowledge keeper\, Cash Ahenakew’s story of The Four Mountains from Vanessa Machado de Oliviera’s Hospicing Modernity. \nThe Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller\, Chapter 3 \nFor the fourth session of this series\, it’s highly recommended that you read the section of this chapter subtitled “The Fourth Gate: What we expected and did not receive” (pages 54-63) \nThe Five Gates of Grief \nA brief summary of each of the five gates of grief URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/good-grief-4-integration/ CATEGORIES:Integration Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/photo-1574254706427-213d446e2f2b.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250428T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250428T140000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250203T211026Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T014839Z UID:103053-1745841600-1745848800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Intentional Community Study Group DESCRIPTION:This is a mixed-experience group of people with different skills to research and assess varied models for collective and cooperative land-based living\, sustenance\, and enterprise. Study group members will identify together several possible paths to investigate more fully\, divide up the work of familiarizing themselves with helpful models\, literature\, and case-studies. \nWe will meet in 5-session cycles with breaks in between. This cadence of focused study punctuated by periods for absorption\, reflection\, and implementation is intended to enable participants to sustain engagement and to support each other in moving from theory through ideation into practical action. In this way\, we can balance group formation\, active collaboration\, and openness to newcomers. \nAt the end of the first 10-week cycle\, study group participants will make suggestions about schedule for the next cycle\, including choosing a new book. EcoGather will reopen the study group to new participants. If you are interested in joining for the next cycle\, learn more about the group and apply\, follow the button below. \n \n Learn More and Apply! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/intentional-community-study-group-5/ CATEGORIES:Study Group ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/jwuv9ngb3ue.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250430T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250430T200000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250324T195908Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250430T033600Z UID:104221-1746037800-1746043200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Progress DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n ‘s For this lunar cycle\, we’ll dissect the narratives told to us by modernity\, and how they falsely shape our expectations for navigating the modern world. First up: progress\, and its vital role in the mythmaking of empire. \nOne of the most popular\, powerful\, and pernicious myths of the dominant culture is that of perpetual progress. Watch any car or electronics advertisement\, and you’ll be pelted with appeals to ever-improving technology. Listen to any politician\, and amongst appeals to nationalism and exceptionalism\, you’ll get flooded with appeals to past progress and promises that this particular politician is best if we want to keep advancing. Read any report on the stock market\, and you’ll be invited to celebrate or assured we’ll soon resume the perpetual upward growth of the economy. Progress is used to justify cultural and technological colonization\, economic expansion\, and political power grabs. The myth of perpetual progress (shortened to MPP by some authors like Chris Ryan) permeates the dominant culture and most nations’ self-understanding: we’re all advancing\, moving forwards\, away from a dismal past that’s best discarded and forgotten. \nBut is the narrative of progress at all true? We’re promised that progress will bring us somewhere… better… but better by what standards\, and according to whom? This week\, we’ll explore that omnipresent narrative of progress\, to what extent it drives and justifies modernity\, and all that it misses. \nRecommended Resources: \nDaniel Schmachtenberger’s most recent interview on Nate Hagens’s podcast \nDeath in the Garden podcast: Who Were the Luddites? (start this one 8 minutes in) \nThe World is a Mess\, and It’s Still the Best Time to Be Alive \n Steven Pinker’s Ideas About Progress Are Fatally Flawed \n  URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/progress/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-16.05.18.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250506T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250506T143000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250324T201716Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250506T010343Z UID:104226-1746536400-1746541800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Population DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n Human population is\, somewhat confusingly\, a controversial issue to discuss. Many people understand that having 8 billion humans on the planet creates lots of ecological and social problems\, and maybe the population shouldn’t keep growing endlessly if we want the biosphere to remain intact. Many others seem to believe that we must keep growing the human population for the sake of civilization and the economy\, and questioning human population challenges the sanctity of human life\, or borders on misanthropy or eco-fascism. Certainly\, dominant myths about the supremacy of human life over all others\, and the separation of humans from nature\, informs sensitivity around the topic\, but conversations around population can also easily turn into finger-pointing at poorer\, more populous nations that have contributed far\, far less historical ecological harm. How does human population contribute to the polycrisis? What other factors\, like the demands of global economic system or individual human consumption\, play into the polycrisis? \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nOVERSHOOT Podcast: Progressive Pathways for a Smaller Population with Hannah Evans and Pam Wasserman \nTwilight Greenaway: Can We Talk About the Population? \nDavid Fleming: Population\, Lean Logic URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/population/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-16.16.38.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250506T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250506T200000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250124T193705Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250501T142009Z UID:102907-1746554400-1746561600@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Good Grief DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n Good Grief is a group exploration of our collective grief through the frameworks of Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (The Wild Edge of Sorrow). Inspired by our EcoGathering on Grieving during the autumnal Composting series in 2024 and an increasing urgency to process the compounding loss we experience as the continuation of modernity relies on genocide\, ecocide\, omnicide and fascism’s impingement on our basic rights and liberties\, we will hold space to tend to the complex and often unaddressed grief that accompanies these losses and expand our emotional capacity for collective grieving as a skill for navigating uncertain futures. \nIn this fifth session we will focus on The Fifth Gate of Grief and the last entryway into the Weller’s Communal Hall of Sorrows\, Ancestral Grief. Walking through this gate asks us to address the generations of untended grief and compounded losses of our ancestors\, passed on to us to heal and hold. In this Sharing Session all participants are welcome to release the grief that arises at this gate to be witnessed and held in the collective well of sorrow. It’s highly recommended that you attend the companion Integration Session offered the following week\, for the sake of group continuity and comfortability\, as well as the opportunity to fully sit with the experience of witnessing and processing the grief at this gate. \n  \nRecommended Resources \nThe Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller\, Chapter 3For the fifth and final session of this series\, it’s highly recommended that you read the section of this chapter subtitled “The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief” (pages 63-69) \nThe Five Gates of GriefA brief summary of each of the five gates of grief \n  URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/good-grief-5-sharing/ CATEGORIES:Sharing Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/photo-1574254706427-213d446e2f2b.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250507T103000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250507T113000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T005458Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250424T143009Z UID:104245-1746613800-1746617400@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:EcoGather Team Open Hours DESCRIPTION:Join Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/open-hours-erik-3/ CATEGORIES:Social Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-20.00.06.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250508T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250508T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T193202Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T211505Z UID:104333-1746730800-1746738000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Constructing a Mesh DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n \nIf you are interested in learning more about autonomous communications and being a part of a larger decentralized network of community builders\, or simply to get creative\, or to go on mission-driven local adventures\, you may be interested in receiving support from other interested and knowledgeable folks beginning an organized community Meshtastic project. If you don’t consider yourself particularly interested or savvy with technology – there are plenty of other reasons to be excited – creating whimsical enclosures for the hardware\, helping your community\, connecting with nature\, solving exciting problems and responding to an uncertain world. \nAfter some brainstorming between EcoGather organizers and participants\, community organizers and scientists\, we have decided to embark on a project of collaboratively creating a strategic radio-node mesh that has at least 2 purposes in Vermont (and beyond\, non-Vermont folks are welcome too!) – to communicate without reliance on large centralized communication infrastructure\, and to monitor and disseminate environmental changes. We would like to begin experimenting with using some strategically placed nodes to monitor stream levels to give us some resilience in predicting and communicating flooding around the state\, as well as establishing more reliable and wide-spread regular communication. In this first iteration\, the more people that have nodes and understand the basics of how to use them\, the more functionality for communication there is for folks to innovate and communicate with one another. Beyond that\, we need folks that are excited to go on reverse-scavenger hunts to identify and place key nodes to connect nodes in mesh – basically\, hiking up mountains and climbing trees to stash transmitters so that more folks can communicate from further away. \nIf you are interested in learning more about Meshtastic\, how Meshtastic integrates with other forms of communication\, simply helping be a connector for communication in your community\, mutual aid\, disaster preparedness or citizen science\, we are organizing an on-boarding session to help folks get their set-ups running and plugged in to a wider network. \nTo participate in this event\, we advise watching our presentation on the basics of Meshtastic in advance and purchasing a basic set-up that works for your needs. In the session\, our guides will walk you through getting up and running\, as well as brainstorming next steps for getting creative about community resilience projects and other possible applications we might support each other in experimenting with and deploying. \nIf the cost of purchasing a basic set-up is prohibitive to participating\, reach out to be considered for one of our limited stipends or free basic kit set-ups. \n  \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nConstructing a Mesh Orientation Guide \nPurchase Your Supplies! \nAutonomous Communications Club Resource Guide URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/constructing-a-mesh/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/yz6ouonpxxy.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250512T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250512T200000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250213T181917Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250430T152245Z UID:103333-1747072800-1747080000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Good Grief DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n \nGood Grief is a group exploration of our collective grief through the frameworks of Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (The Wild Edge of Sorrow). Inspired by our EcoGathering on Grieving during the autumnal Composting series in 2024 and an increasing urgency to process the compounding loss we experience as the continuation of modernity relies on genocide\, ecocide\, omnicide and fascism’s impingement on our basic rights and liberties\, we will hold space to tend to the complex and often unaddressed grief that accompanies these losses and expand our emotional capacity for collective grieving as a skill for navigating uncertain futures. \nIn this Integration Session\, we will focus on working with the grief that was revealed in the last week’s Sharing Session as we opened up the fifth and final gate to address Ancestral Grief. Through guided discussion and ritual\, we will allow this newly unearthed grief to move into practice as we venture into a collective Apprenticeship with Sorrow. It’s highly recommended that you attend the companion Sharing Session offered the week prior\, for the sake of group continuity and comfortability\, as well as the opportunity to fully sit with the experience of witnessing and processing the grief at this gate. \n\n  \n  \n\nRecommended Resources: \nThe Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller\, Chapter 3 \nFor the fifth and final session of this series\, it’s highly recommended that you read the section of this chapter subtitled “The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief” (pages 63-69) \nThe Five Gates of Grief \nA brief summary of each of the five gates of grief \nSeeds\, Grief and Memory with Rowen White \nA beautiful conversation relating ancestral grief with seed keeping as a means of remaining connected to the cultures of our ancestors.  \nRoots Deeper Than Whiteness \nAn essay on the historical emergence of whiteness and how it coincides with the forced assimilation and inherent disconnection of European peoples and their distinct cultures and traditions. URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/good-grief-5-integration/ CATEGORIES:Integration Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/photo-1574254706427-213d446e2f2b.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250514T173000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250514T190000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250324T202108Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250325T140825Z UID:104228-1747243800-1747249200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Prosperity DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n Modernity has brought us more energetic and material prosperity than the royalty of antiquity experienced. This prosperity comes at an obvious\, though intensely hidden\, human and ecological cost. Most economists and CEOs want to convince us our levels of prosperity aren’t nearly enough\, and we need more energy and more materials. Certain thinkers\, such as Derrick Jensen\, think that none of this industrial prosperity justifies the costs\, and we should disband with our material and energy wealth altogether in order to save as much life on the planet as possible. Others\, like Jason Hickel\, think that we can maintain relatively high levels of prosperity – every human being can still own a laptop\, for example – and we can still maintain a sustainable existence on the planet. Considering the myth of perpetual progress and the massive human population\, how should we weigh arguments about our wealth? There are plenty of definitions of wealth outside of the dominant materialist\, individualist\, growth-based culture\, so what really is wealth anyways? URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/prosperity/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-16.20.16.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250517T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250517T130000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250203T213812Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250203T213812Z UID:103063-1747479600-1747486800@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Language DESCRIPTION:  \nHow does language shape the way we see the world? What ideas are we more or less able to access\, hold\, and develop because limitations of the languages we speak? What is the value — and the limits — of having a robust vocabulary\, and developing shared\, nuanced definitions of words? Somewhere around 20% of the world’s population speaks English? How might this expand or constrain the diversity of concepts that can be communicated? As Rowen White has said: “If we are bound by the constraints of language and lexicon\, how is modern culture really going to shift in the powerful and positive ways it needs to to restore our collective spiritual power.” \nHow can we can communicate ideas that we haven’t even imagined yet? Can we make up our own words? Should we? And if we do\, how do we do we define and translate them so that we can continue to communicate across differences and with newcomers? URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/language/ LOCATION:Hard-Pressed Community Print Shop\, 12 VT Rt. 15\, West Danville\, Vermont CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hp-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250522T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250522T133000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T184903Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250520T145911Z UID:104324-1747915200-1747920600@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Peace DESCRIPTION:Register!\n \n \n \n \n \n Just as modernity has shaped the narratives of progress\, population\, and prosperity to its own benefit\, there is a story of peace that we’ve been told which deserves some critical analysis and questioning. In a culture where “peace deals” are synonymous with a temporary pause on genocidal bloodshed carried out by an incredibly unbalanced power dynamic\, our very notion of what “peace” actually is has become warped by our conditioning to witness and increasingly tolerate unspeakable violence. The question of peace must hold an aspect of social spatiality… peace where? And for whom? A pervasive “Protect your peace” type of neo-spirituality has arisen in modernity’s hyper-individualized society. It requires its followers to ignore the very violences that their so-called peace depends on\, as well as the conflict that inevitably arises from the unaddressed violences. But there is no peace in existing amongst the comforts of modernity when those comforts are dependent on the extraction and exploitation of other life. \nHow does our ignorant pursuit of modernity’s “peace” exacerbate the many conflicts of the polycrisis? How has our growing inability to address the inevitable conflict that arises\, on both macro and micro scales\, contributed to even more disruptions of the peace we claim to want for the world? In the last session of this cycle\, we will break down the peace narrative we’ve been told\, and make space to build out a new one which acknowledges the inevitability of conflict and our response-ability to address it with maturity and inclusivity. \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \n\n\n\n\n“The Duty of Repair” \nConcluding excerpt from Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRecommended Quiz: \nWhich Conflict Archetype Are You? \nTake this quiz to find out! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRecommended Listening: \nNavigating Conflict with Kazu Haga \nA conversation from Prentiss Hemphill’s podcast Becoming the People URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/peace/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-25-at-14.48.16.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250522T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250522T190000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250219T225142Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250424T143320Z UID:103521-1747936800-1747940400@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:EcoGather Team Open Hours DESCRIPTION:Join Here! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/open-hours-nissa-3/ CATEGORIES:Social Session ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/m9f8vr0jepm.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250525T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250525T123000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250520T144647Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250520T145237Z UID:105066-1748170800-1748176200@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Reimagining the Family DESCRIPTION:We’ve partnered with Upstream once again to host a discussion on their recent episode with Kristen Ghodsee\, Post Capitalist Parenting Pt. 2: Reimagining the Family\, which\, expectedly\, continues their mini series on post capitalist parenting (their first was another EcoGather collaboration with Toi Marie Smith). Join us as we share the difficulties we’ve experienced as parents\, caretakers\, or children under capitalism\, and explore the alternative ways of being we can strive for (many of which Kristen mentions in the episode and her book!). \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nUpstream Podcast: Reimagining the Family with Kristen Ghodsee \n \n Register! URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/reimagining-the-family/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Reimaging-the-Family-Cover.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250528T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250528T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T010138Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250528T180332Z UID:104248-1748460600-1748466000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Dystopia DESCRIPTION:Join! \n \n \n \n \n \n Our realities are shaped by the physical world we inhabit; whether that’s the nature that surrounds us\, the humans we interact with in community\, the food made accessible to us\, or the stories that reach us\, filled with knowledge our own realities or those far away. But just as much as we absorb these inputs from the outside world to shape our understanding of it\, we are also exerting our own inputs into the realities of others. We all contribute to a greater understanding of the physical world which surrounds us\, the Topia we exist in. In this lunar cycle\, we will examine the different Topias\, from the more familiar types found in literature\, Dystopia and Utopia\, to the more generative and less well-known genre of Thrutopia and Ourtopia. \nThe dystopias we familiarize ourselves with in literature have long warned us of the dangerous potential of humanity to create worlds of incredible suffering. But where does the fiction end\, and reality begin? At least 90% of oceanic fish populations are overexploited. There are microplastics in every human body\, in every mother’s breast milk\, as well as our hearts and in our brains. Only 4% of Earth’s remaining mammals by biomass are wild beings – 96% of mammals are humans and our livestock. The dominant culture has created a dystopia for every non-human being\, and for most human beings too – yet our dystopias look different\, and will continue to unfold differently. In this EcoGathering\, we’ll discuss our dystopia\, driven in large part by the human population-consumption dynamics in this dominant culture. \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \n“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel\, Chapter 6 \n(It’s less than two pages long\, and you’ve already gotten maybe half of it quoted above. But maybe give this another read\, and imagine what would be on your own list.) \nSlaughterbots – a short film by Dust \n(This contains depictions of violence and blood – not too much\, but this is a video about theoretical dystopian killing drones – so if that’s not for you\, totally pass on this video.) \nWorldmaking in the Dark with Octavia E. Butler\, with Ayana Jamieson and Sophie Strand \n(This touches on Dystopia and its opposite\, Utopia\, but like any good conversation with wonderful minds\, it wanders about and doesn’t stay just on the topic of topias.) \n\n\n  URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/dystopia/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-21.00.57.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250603T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250603T143000 DTSTAMP:20260403T160438 CREATED:20250325T010449Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250603T151517Z UID:104250-1748955600-1748961000@ecogather.ing SUMMARY:Utopia DESCRIPTION:Join!\n \n \n \n \n \n   \nBroken down into a literal translation\, Utopia means “no place.” This Topia is the territory that is often labeled ‘off-limits’ by an understanding of what is possible\, based on what has been possible. It is where the imagination roams when left unbound and free from the limits of realism. Unlike the dystopic stories we question might be playing out in the real world we exist in right now\, the utopia is inherently fictional. That being said\, it can still serve a functional purpose in world-building. There is incredible power behind the unbound imaginative creative process that occurs when certain limits are removed. New pathways may be revealed for different ways of organizing ourselves into better forms of existence. If there’s any room for delusion in Topias\, let it be a hopeful delusion which allows us to believe that there is always a better way of being. Join us this week as we wonder with unbound curiosity what utopian ideals we might be able to learn from\, comparing lessons from history and literature with our current predicament. \nRecommended resources for this gathering: \nHanzi Freinacht: What’s The Difference between Utopia\, Eutopia and Protopia? \nUpstream Podcast: Everyday Utopia and Radical Imagination with Kristen Ghodsee \nDavid Fleming: Utopia from Lean Logic URL:https://ecogather.ing/event/utopia/ CATEGORIES:EcoGathering ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ecogather.ing/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-24-at-21.04.17.png END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR