Ouroboros Residencies
The Ouroboros residencies will be dedicated to creating the conditions to strengthen our connection to these innate capacities by bringing our attention moment by moment to our “posture” and noticing how it in-forms us.
Our lives reflect the systems in which we are embedded.
The patriarchal structures and systems built over centuries have been internalised by all humans.
The unfortunate reality is the values and expectations of these patriarchal structures and systems have resulted in a posture where we as a species have sacrificed our capacity and yearning for greater agency, connection and engagement at all levels of society.
These patriachal structures have prioritised dominance, control and scarcity over empathy, cooperation and adundance.
Critically, these structures and systems have been designed by and work in conjunction with institutions which are being gradually co-opted by entrenched power.
The seismic shifts we need to effectively respond to this meta-crisis, are systemic, global, and urgent, requiring us to access our intuition and creativity.
The Ouroboros residencies will be dedicated to creating the conditions to strengthen our connection to these innate capacities by bringing our attention moment by moment to our “posture” and noticing how it in-forms us.
In the residencies we will consciously move beyond the transformational dynamic of being withness to create what we describe as an “in-formational” space.
This residency is the first in a series of three. residencies. Participants can choose to participate in one, two or all three residencies. For Ouroboros #1 and Ouroboros #2 we will be intentionally dividing the group into male and female for periods during the residency.
The purpose of selecting this structure in Ouroboros #1 and Ouroboros #2 is to use the division as a metaphor for the existing patriarchal structures and so that as a group we are informed from within those structures.
In Ouroboros #3 we will transition beyond this structure, integrating perspectives gathered during Ouroboros #1 and Ouroboros #2 to birth the new posture.
We acknowledge that many of the participants of the residency may not identify with male or female. The purpose of this division is so that each can hear and benefit from the contributions of those who have the lived experience of transitioning beyond entrenched patriarchal structures.
Ouroboros #1
For this first residency we will seek to uncover the capacity of the group to receive “in-formation” to birth a posture beyond internalised patriarchy and how that posture informs a new narrative for perceiving our shared reality.
We want to create a collective field to embody a posture “in-formed” by a disposition of presence, openness, readiness and receptivity.
As a group we will create the conditions to enable the insights to be mid-wifed by the collective field and explore how they “in-form” a posture, a way of being, beyond internalised patriarchy.
Apply
How?
Your attention each day will be directed to harnessing the capacity moment by moment through practices including meditation, contemplation, sitting, pausing, cooking, gardening, playing, working, celebrating and ritualising, noticing how, through the way you practice, a new posture is embodied.
We will harvest the new narrative that wants to express itself through our collective experience and produce an “artefact “ reflecting our expression.
The residency is guided by the following principles:
Being in-formed rather than seeking to be transformed.
Being the generosity of life by holding dynamic emptiness.
The residency devotes time and space to:
Pausing: Embodying dynamic presence
Creating: Co-creating a collective narrative.
Co-Working: Personal work and projects.
We will be guided by the following questions:
- What is the disposition of receiving that allows for “in-formation” to enter a collective field?
- Is it possible to make visible our capacity to receive “in-formation“ and at the same time be formed by this receptivity?
- How does the way we practice allow for “in-formation” to enter a collective field?
- Which inner movement does it activate?
- What are the conditions to allow this posture to arise?
- How can we explore the relational human technology which is constantly adjusting to the whole and co-create with it, beyond individual voluntary actions?
- How can we allow the inner natural technology to activate itself by doing less?
- How can we impress an intention and resist the conditioning of acting on it? How can we study the “space “in between intention and adjusted action? How can we embody the responsive body mind?
What activities will you engage in?
The activities you will engage in during the residency include:
Daily Collective Practices
You will engage daily in the dynamic non-doing activities of sitting, cooking and cleaning together.
Deep Listening Circles
There will be scheduled sessions where we will share together how both a space of inter-relationality and individuality can “in-form” the posture.
Creating a Collective Narrative
A three hour session once a week to create a collective narrative through writing, drawing, painting, colouring, sculpting and collage.
Co-Working
The residency includes time and space for you to continue your daily personal work and projects.
Onboarding (May 8th - May 12th)
During the first week (Monday to Friday) we will dedicate five hours per day to the onboarding of participants through the MVP (Minimum Viable Practices). This approach, based on the four basic practices of sitting, cooking, cleaning and relating, is designed to manifest a collective body through these daily common movements.
Onboarding will give you the necessary disposition you require to allow the posture to unfold within ordinary life.
We consider this process developed by the Praxis Hub as foundational ground to creating the necessary conditions for new perspectives to arrive.
Residency (May 13th - May 28th, 2023)
Daily Schedule (Monday - Friday):
8:00 Meditation
9:30 Collective Care Praxis
10:30 Co-Working Space
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Co-Working Space
17:30 Collective Care Praxis
18:30 Dinner
20:00 Co-Creative Space
21:00 Contemplation Practices (optional)
Weekly Schedule (Tuesday & Thursday)
Tuesday 2:30 – 5:30 Creating a Collective Narrative
Thursday 8:00 – 9:30 Deep Listening Circle
Weekends
Weekends Collective Practices will be reduced to minimum to allow personal rest. The final schedule will be sent to participants before their arrival.
Who is it for?
This residency will speak to anyone who is interested and energised to explore the posture that lies beyond internalised patriarchy and are open and ready to experience, experiment and create collectively.
We will have a maximum of 12 participants and 3 facilitators.
Where is it?
Life Itself Praxis Hub, Bergerac, France. A palazzo in the Dordogne in the medieval town of Bergerac near Bordeaux.
How much does it cost?
The cost of the residency is from 750 to 1350 Euros for the whole month which includes one week facilitation, accommodation and three meals each day.
Facilitation & Hosting Team
Valerie Duvauchelle
Valerie is a passionate advocate for activating new ways of being in the world. She believes that to live fully we need to allow for a radically different relationship to the world and to ourselves.
Her specific interest is in the application of new ways of being in community and seeks to understand the invisible evolutionary impulses that occur when we do things together.
She is a Tenzo cook in the Zen tradition and through her books, programs and retreats brings the universal teachings of this tradition into community living. She is most well known for the design and development of the Onboarding Process which bridges 20 years of learning in Zen temples with conscious community experience.
Her dedicated practice is to cultivate a posture of "being witness” in her life.
She embodies the balance between deep commitment and spontaneous playfulness.
Valérie is a pioneer within Life Itself and co-curator of the Bergerac Praxis Hub.
Victoria Wilding
Victoria is an evolutionary activist with a particular interest in advancing human development. Her focus is on the development of a new level of psychological management and its importance to facilitating large scale systems change. She believes humanity needs to consciously and intentionally develop their social, emotional and cognitive capacities to envision and build systems that serve all life on the planet.
Victoria is most well known for her breakthrough work synthesizing practice and knowledge around presence and meta-systemic cognition. She is quick to get to the core of an individual’s thinking and facilitates deep understanding, new perspectives and innovative solutions.
While Victoria brings enormous and credible knowledge and experience to the table, her real magic exists in her presence. Victoria is wildly irreverent, fun, and always a straight shooter. She has an unparalleled ability is to get right to the heart of a matter with profound compassion and breathtaking clarity.
Lauren Uba
Lauren is a facilitator, educator, public speaker, and community builder. She is the founder of Climate Action Community, an organization that aims to support a collective transition from climate anxiety to climate action.
She explores the intersection between personal wellbeing and community wellbeing in times of crisis, and how we might build momentum for systemic transformation through emotional support, contemplation and mindfulness, resilience building, systemic intervention, and regenerative design thinking. She designs workshops to facilitate authentic expression, being with what is, and sensing the unseen between us.
Her work attempts to bridge modern cognitive science, contemplative practice, systems thinking and climate psychology to unlock the potential for wisdom and cultural evolution hidden within the meta-crisis.
The Praxis Hub
The Bergerac Praxis Hub is gathering groups and communities interested in radically committing, together, to be in kinship with the world as it is. We will respond to uncertainty together, with collective embodied practices that include deep attention to humble activities like breathing, creating living space, or preparing food together.
Beyond the seemingly paradoxical nature of contemplative activism, we carry the intention of the ungraspable concept of a metamodern monastery.
Our vision is to create a space where individuals can come together to explore, practice, and embody new ways of being and relating to each other and the world.
See more about the Praxis Hub here.
The Praxis Lab
The Praxis Lab is an evolutionary research space within the Praxis Hub aiming to define and document through scientific observations the ecologies of practices that foster a disposition of engaging differently in the world.
In particular through collecting data and studying the interrelations between spaces, structures and practices, it aims to make visible how the interplay/relational identity between individuals and their environment (space, structure, practices) shapes their emotional, spiritual and intellectual disposition.
The Ouroboros Residencies and Praxis Lab team will work together to identify, define and articulate how by focussing on the way we practice, i.e the collective “posture”, can catalyze an intentional state of receptivity, of being “in-formed” rather than, or as a premise of, being “trans-formed” into a collective field.
How to Apply
Residency Application Process:
- A preliminary Expression of Interest is completed by participants on the Life Itself website.
- The Hosting Team contacts you to discuss your participation in the residency.
