Seeds of Renaissance Manifesto

A Manifesto for Civilizational Renewal

For all the living beings whose heart burns to see a new world emerge.

Preface

This manifesto is non-sectarian, it is to be alive and not to be set in stone, dead and irrelevant. It is a reverence and celebration of life. It expresses patterns and guiding principles, like a common DNA, from which evolutions may arise. Therefore, we hope it will be taken and evolved into many forms by others.

It asks us to look clearly at the world we have inherited and made, to sense what is dying and what is being born and to ask what each of us is called to do at this extraordinary threshold. It offers the vision and guiding principles for seeding a Civilizational Renaissance: a recognition that the crises of our time are symptoms of a deeper cultural turning and that a profound rebirth is possible.

It is, ultimately, a call to arms to create together a garden filled with a multitude of expressions of a civilisational renewal, united in their sharing of common principles.

Introduction

‘Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.’ – Arundhati Roy

Human civilization has always been a story of transformation – of old worlds dying and new ones being born. We are living through such moments. The crises of our time – ecological, political, social, spiritual – are not separate emergencies to be managed one by one. They are the symptoms of a civilization whose foundations are cracking. And as in every great turning, crisis carries within it the seed of rebirth.

This manifesto attempts to articulate the essence of that emerging vision: the seeds of renaissance and its principles.

Manifesto

We are a movement called to bring forth a renaissance.

We are seed-bearers pioneering a world that works for everyone.

We create a new world through our work.

We are the bridge between the dying past and the future unborn.

So what will be this Renaissance we are seeding? It is yet to be known but we answer to the call of a dawn, calling us to value interbeingness, awakening to the wisdom of the whole, inner-evolution and dancing with the richness of complexity. We believe and witness that there is an innate calling in life to care for the whole, BElonging and a freedom to exist in our individuation. This is the unfolding from freedom to be-wholing. It is liberation intertwined with belonging.

This life movement can not be repressed by fear, war, terror, death, dictatorship because it is in every human heart. Our ability to understand, love, care and contribute is an expression of our intuitive knowledge of the truth of our interbeingness. By doing this, we become authors of tomorrow's future and priests to the dying past.

Life as an art.

In this soil we plant the seeds of a Renaissance.

Our work is a practice of hope, because where there is hope there is action and where there is action there is vitality, life and change.
Our work is mystical, political, ethical, spiritual, religious and artistic.
Our work expresses the good through community, the truth through wisdom and beauty through art.
Our work is to calm our inner landscape so we can listen deeply for the whole which we are always part of.
Our work is to create a space to be with the unknown and the possibility of creation that comes with it.
Our work is to witness joy, darkness, hope, sadness, tragedies and miracles and for those to guide us into living wisdom.
Our work is to inquire and listen for a world that works for everyone and everything
Our work is to let go of and develop what is needed for a renaissance to be born?
Our work dances with the shadow to integrate them, so we are no longer run by them and take responsibility for the suffering it has caused to others.
Our work is to inquire into the nature of reality through embodied empirical practices and rigorous thinking as the quality of our thinking leads to the quality of our speech – we seed the future with our words.
Our work honors our ancestors' efforts whilst learning from their mistakes.
Our work stands to liberate ourselves from nihilism and relativism and to go beyond the limitation of the superiority, equality and inferiority complex.
Our work is a demonstration of the power of vulnerability with others and authenticity with oneself.
Our work is a practice of being with our cognitive dissonance and freeing ourselves from the painful shackles of our discriminating biases.
Our work is understanding and compassionate while being expressed and unapologetic.
Our work is contemplative and activist at the same time
Our work is to sit in silence together, pray and activate our oracular bodies with rituals in an embrace to mother earth.
Our work remembers joy as transformative practice and so we have the inner fuel to pass through times of darkness.
Our work explores impermanence and eternity in touching the ultimate dimension and linking it to the relative world.
Our work is in the emerging interbeing.
Our work is life as an art.

Essay

1. Introduction - Singing the Song of Spring

Guiding question: what is the responsibility of seeding a Renaissance in society - and in this particular moment of profound societal, political, ecological and spiritual crisis?

Like doulas we witness the last breath of a dying past and the first breath of a future being born. Gently tending to this vulnerable moment of death and new life, we water the seed of a renaissance and listen for what wants to emerge from the wholeness of our interbeingness. And from our soul we sing the song of spring - this is the call for rebirth.

We activate a dormant dream and birth it into reality, by seeding a renaissance and grounding what is ethereal into the earth. We hold the vision of what is possible yet not yet there. Therefore we need to hear our song sung back, to maintain hope and faith in the vision of what our heart knows is possible. Like the swallows our song announces the coming of spring as we enter a dark night.

The essay continues: 2. Meaning, the North Star of Humanity · 3. In Between World · 4. Shadow Work · 5. Truth, Faith and Liberation · 6. The Dance of Interbeing · 7. The Healing Link Between Past and Future · 8. Alchemy of the Spiritual, Religious and the Political · 9. Cultural-Political Context · 10. The Art of Life Itself