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Utopia

Broken 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.

In the Shell of the Old

Hard-Pressed Community Print Shop 12 VT Rt. 15, West Danville, Vermont

EcoGather's Vermont based facilitators of community learning are collaborating with Hard-Pressed Community Print shop in West Danville, Vermont to offer a series of EcoGatherings in the Northeast Kingdom. We're eager to share space, snacks, and substantial-talk – the opposite of small-talk –with folks who are craving conversation about who to live well in a time of endings. These casual, cozy events are an easy way to connect in community, practice co-learning, and get connected to EcoGather's globe-spanning cosmolocal network composed of beings and communities ready to courageously confront the collapse of both the natural systems that we depend upon and human systems that are hostile to life. We help each other make and sustain paradigm shifts.

Thrutopia

We can benefit from imagining, ideating, and criticizing utopias and dystopias, but what about right now? Utopias are unachievable and dystopias are undesirable, so what worlds should we inhabit and build, especially now and in the near future? In the pursuit of utopia and in the rejection of dystopia, we encounter Thrutopia.





Join us this week as we explore what thrutopia could look like and mean in this stage of modernity and its ongoing collapse.

Ourtopia

If thrutopia is what might get us through the near future, the near- to mid- to even long-term work of surviving the future, then what about our lives immediately, as we live them in this moment? What brings us joy and aliveness, closer to utopia, in our day-to-day?

There are glimpses and tastes of utopia all around us: birdsong and sunlight; a beautiful garden full of produce and bees; a meal around a crowded table; crisp, slow mornings; warm evenings with loved ones. On this call, we’ll appreciate the ways the Earth has brought us little slices of utopia – ourtopia – and still brings it to us every day.