About

Reimagining Human~Nature: Living as One

We are a transdisciplinary team of researchers, facilitators and designers creating connective experiences and offering  transformative programs that explore and deepen understandings of the human~nature relationship.

As a learning organisation, we are committed to continuously exploring the underlying question:

How can we embrace the full spectrum of human experience to improve our relationship with life on earth?

We are therefore exploring the theory and practice of ‘noetic ecology’  as a field for opening up to other (incl. cross-cultural) ways of knowing, understanding and relating with all ‘nature’.

Our approach to education uses direct experience as a gateway for opening inquiry and research toward learning that inspires community-based actions in support of a regenerative future.

We believe that we can best support education and society transformation by:

1. Creating meaningful experiences
2. Inviting rigorous open-minded research
3. Facilitating deep reflective learning and
4. Cultivating connected community action

…that together precipitate a change in individual and collective consciousness by embodying a new relationship with earth.

Organisation for Noetic Ecology

MISSION:

To create and facilitate immersive experiences, enhanced education programmes and evaluative research that allows participants to deepen relationships with their self, people and nature – while reimagining regenerative possibilities for valuing diversity and living together as one.

VISION:

Education that aspires toward creating:

  • A united humanity thriving in their experience of connectedness with people and planet.
  • A healthy planet flourishing in biological and cultural diversity.
  • A shared ethos toward experiencing life in a way that allows people to reawaken, remember and reimagine their interconnectedness with nature and each other.

VALUES:

Our core principles that define our culture and guide our practice:

  • Gratitude and genuine appreciation
  • Clear and shared intention
  • Focused and quality attention, including deep listening and dialogue
  • Deep and compassionate connection with open mind and heart
  • Inspired and innovative cooperation creating optimal conditions for all life
  • Conscious and committed action with regular reflection
  • Principled and purposed practice in service of ‘the whole’ (self~people~earth~cosmos)

STATUS:

The Organisation for Noetic Ecology (NPC2019/306713/08) is a not-for-profit enterprise registered in South Africa under section 14 of the Companies Act, 2008. If you resonate with our work and can contribute financially, donations are gratefully accepted and utilised wisely:

Account Name: Org. for Noetic Ecology NPC
Bank: First National Bank (FNB)
Branch Code: 250655
Account Number: 62815892147
SWIFT: FIRNZAJJ

We are the institutional host of the Masiyembo Association and education partner with the Sea Change Project.

Past partners, clients & funders

Client logo
Client logo
Client logo
Client logo
Client logo
Client logo
Client logo
Client logo

Why We Do It

Humanity is increasingly suffering from a ‘separation sickness’ – a disconnect in consciousness – that underlies almost all of our most pertinent challenges worldwide – from local to global scales.

Solving this seemingly requires systemic and cultural transformations of epic proportions. Yet nature shows us that ‘discontinuous change’ – non-linear transformations – are always possible. Think of water in a glass: at some point, when the conditions are right, that seemingly innocuous water can freeze, expand and shatter the glass vessel within which it was contained.

We aim to create those conditions for consciousness. We believe that is our best alternative. This is why we are directing our focus toward education and learning processes that prepare the ground for seeding the profound change required. In contrast to a competitive, materialist and reductionist system of learning, we support connective and collaborative learning that deepens relationships with nature, people, self and source for the greater good of the whole.

We therefore believe in learning that invites open rigorous inquiry (thinking), direct immersive experience (feeling) and committed responsible action (doing) embodied within a meaningful sense of self and purpose (being). Such deep learning also inspires ‘active hope’ for the future.

Our education philosophy is rooted in the conviction that any approach to learning and, specifically ecology, must support fuller understandings of the interconnected nature of reality.

We therefore embrace approaches that nourish our primal blueprint and innate affiliation with the more-than-human world by exploring the conditions that allowed our ancestors to be fully human and cultivate a relationship with nature that is connective, harmonious and regenerative.

We believe it is our birth right to experience the sense of purpose and aliveness that comes with knowing our true self as an integral part of an underlying bond that connects and unites us all.

How We Do It

As a core philosophy and application of consciousness we seek to generate:

…expanded influence through shared intention;
…enhanced awareness through quality attention;
…enduring gratitude through authentic appreciation, and to collectively achieve:
…enlivened wellbeing through deep connection with one’s self, place and community (human and non-human).

As a field (of deep learning and transformative inquiry and practice), we are:

…designing a style of connective learning that nurtures the diversity of human experience and provides a ‘place to land’ for persons wishing to ground and reflect on other ‘ways of knowing’  and embodying the depth of human-nature relations.

…customising learning to participants’ needs by drawing on, applying and integrating modalities such as: Eastern Philosophy, Theory U, Goethian Practice, 8 Shields, Deep Ecology and Integral Ecology.

As a movement (in ecology and the human-nature relationship), we are:

… being part of a growing global community supporting change-makers, story-weavers, path-finders, and nature-lovers who are committed to a shared vision for positive systemic transformation.

…advancing ‘noetics’  by exercising creativity, working cooperatively, living connectively and awakening a consciousness of wholeness.

… sharing a new story for humanity and supporting others in doing the same by connecting people with people, people with places and people with (the many) faces in community.

… cultivating a culture of connectedness that reawakens the human experience of belonging in relationship with all life and with a sense of responsibility toward future generations.

Ultimately, we are bringing people together in ways that allow for remembering our shared humanity, rediscovering our bond with all that is and re-imagining a future as one…

  • Eastern Philosophy

    Taoist, Zen & Buddhist practices for intensifying & stilling ‘life force’ to enable awakened, aware & attentive being

  • Goethian Practice

    Goethian observation & phenomenology for fresh ways of seeing and embodying our lived experience in the world

  • 8 Shields

    8 Shields connection modelling for awakening naturalist awareness and belonging within a regenerative culture

  • Theory U

    Theory U as a meta-framework for profound social-ecological systems change

  • Deep Ecology

    Deep Ecology for open-minded inquiry (thinking), sensorial activity (feeling) & committed responsible action (doing)

  • Integral Ecology

    Integral Ecology for uniting multiple perspectives on the world by honouring all perspectives & dimensions of ‘reality’.

What is Noetic Ecology?

Noetic ecology is about exploring the human~nature relationship through direct experience and different ‘ways of knowing’. It encourages open dialogue, meaningful inquiry and embodied practices to support deep learning and collective action in service of a new story: one that embraces our interconnectedness with the world.

Noetic [from the Greek noētos, nous and noein] meaning ‘a perception’ or ‘intelligence’, pertaining to the mind.

Ecology [from the Greek oikos] meaning ‘house, place, habitation’; the study of the relations of living things to one another and their environment.

Nous refers to ‘matters of the mind’ and whilst often simply translated as  ‘intellect’ (as a noun) it refers more deeply to the innate human capacity for directly acquiring ‘an intelligence’ (as a verb): that is, accessing information, knowledge and understanding aside from using only logic, reasoning and ‘usual’ or habitual modes of perception.

This idea of ‘direct knowing’ or ‘direct perception’ is inherent to most ancient traditions (e.g. Hunter-Gatherer, Greek and Eastern cultures) but has been displaced by the overtly dualistic, rational and materialist empiricism of modern science as the favoured (and often exclusive) means of gaining knowledge of oneself, humankind and our relationship with the world.

Philosopher William James (1902) referred to noetic as “insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect”. For example, the ‘noetic quality’ of a profound experience is the sense of epiphany. In this sense, noetic includes both grounded reasoning and ‘inner knowing’ as acquired through other illuminating forms of awareness (e.g. intuition, insight and revelation) that go beyond what is usually available to our normal senses and power of intellectual reason.

Importantly, ‘noetic’ includes what we pay attention to (noema) and how we pay attention to it (noesis). In practicing how and where we focus attention, noetic approaches can repattern habitual perception and cultivate a shift in worldview.

Noetic therefore encompasses fuller understandings of consciousness and the diverse ‘ways of knowing’ that shape how we perceive ‘the other’ and participate in the world. It acknowledges that multiple – even opposing – realities may coexist.

Ecology is derived from the Greek oikos meaning ‘house, place, habitation’. It is often understood as the branch of scientific inquiry dealing with the relations of living things to one another and their physical environment. The field of ecology seeks to therefore understand how we, as the human species, live in relationship with other species in this shared home we call earth.

Noetic ecology applies insights gleaned from direct and profound experience to shape how humans can live in harmony with the earth and cosmos.

Noetic ecology is inspired by the work of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) which has for decades been at the forefront of supporting individual and collective change through consciousness research, transformative learning and applied practices that support heightened awareness and connectedness in our daily lives.

Noetic ecology is motivated by the view that humans are wired for connection, creativity and co-operation; and can orient consciousness as a quality of awareness to influence how we attune, participate and co-evolve with earth and the cosmos. We have the capacity to thrive when this circuitry is fully engaged.

Noetic ecology is a ‘practice’,  a ‘field’ and a ‘movement’.

As a dedicated practice, it is essentially the art of noticing: the how and what we pay attention to in nature. It is a fundamental appreciation that the quality of attention determines not only the quality of our experience (and the benefits derived from our nature interactions), but is capable of profoundly changing the world we perceive.

As an open field of learning, it applies transdisciplinary approaches to rigorously explore the full spectrum of human-nature experience. Utilising scholarly inquiry, it draws on cross-cultural science and wisdom traditions to further understandings of interconnectedness and how it can best guide and support regenerative living.

As an inspired philosophical movement, noetic ecology invites ‘active hope’ through ‘delicate activism’: cultivating receptivity, awareness and compassion as a basis for authentic action. It provides practices that allow us to see the world with new eyes and to take a fresh view of realities different to our own. It focuses on what inspires us and what we can tangibly do in our lives. It invites us to utilise the power of consciousness – through intention and attention – to generate deep connection with nature, people, self and our greater source of purpose. As agents of change, it requires us to embody what we wish to see – from the inside out.

In practice, noetic ecology is inclusive and pragmatic. At this moment in human history, it recognises that integration is as important as innovation. It therefore embraces diverse modalities that adhere to a worldview of interconnectedness, reawaken the unity of mind-body-spirit and ‘re-member’ our affiliation with earth.

Noetic ecology fuses our primal origins with futurist aspirations. It urges us to remember humanity’s intimate ancestral relationships with wilder nature that shaped our evolution and allowed us to become fully human. From a futuristic perspective, it invites a new story (cosmology): reimagining our becoming in a way that harnesses the collective potential of humanity to act in service of the whole.

Noetic ecology therefore both grounds and elevates the agency of consciousness and humans’ ability to exercise it as the generative power for effecting profound change. Organisations and networks inspired by noetic ecology ultimately aim to co-create transformative pathways for remembering our core humanity, rediscovering our bond with all life and re-visioning a regenerative future…