Introducing The Holon Institute
A new non profit organization.
We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society. – Angela Davis
Hello friends!
Today is the day. I’m so very excited to introduce you to The Holon Institute. We will be hosting a virtual open house this Thursday, August 29th, noon to 1p, to share more about who we are, what we’re up to, and how you can participate. Sign up and learn more here! 💡
The Holon Institute is a nonprofit organization that exists to co-create cultural, social, and ecological conditions that actualize the omnipotential of human creativity.
The Holon Institute is the culmination of many years of dreaming, grief, personal expansion, learning, conviction, and being seen and encouraged. It is the organizational expression of the paradigms and practices I have been cultivating in myself over the last decade.
It’s no secret that life is weird in many ways. We are facing what often feels like an unrelenting stream of daily dissonance, grief, catastrophe, and trauma. Yet there’s so much to be grateful for, and the world is in many ways infinitely inspiring. It’s as if everything is getting worse, and everything is getting better. In my last post I posited the questions “What does it mean to be and to become in this world? How do we create a better world?” The Holon Institute exists to facilitate our collective pursuit to answer these questions.
We also know that the answers and heuristics of the past, those mythologies incubated and born in systems that are now deteriorating, are insufficient for ushering humanity across the civilizational threshold that is this century. We need new ways forward.
To transform extractive and destructive systems, The Holon Institute will work for the emergence of new stories and ontologies that transcend the problems we currently face. In partnership with a diverse community of collaborators, we will co-create new solutions that build on the latest advancements in technology and business while expanding the aperture of possibility for human life. Toward this end, our practice, methodologies, and heuristics can be distilled into five words – emergent possibility through embodied imagination.
EMERGENT
As an organization, we are oriented towards cultivating conditions for emergence. Our world is rapidly changing and we are facing challenges that cannot be solved using the culturally dominant stories, frameworks, and paradigms. The reliance upon predictable outcomes fails under the weight of this era’s unprecedented complexity. The Holon Institute exists to co-create social, cultural, economic, and ecological connections that actualize the omnipotentiality of humanity’s relationship with emergence.
POSSIBILITY
We are dedicated to illuminating new stories of what it means to be in right relationship with soul, soil, and society. This requires us to go beyond assumed conclusions and cognitive biases and open ourselves up to the journey of illumination. Our work and domains of inquiry are driven by the abundant possibility created through exploration and experimentation. We exist to expand the aperture of possibility in the collective consciousness of Western civilization so that we collectively may envision realities previously unknown.
THROUGH
The way out is through, and the way through is together. We embrace and affirm the work of both facing the grief, shadow, and darkness within ourselves and our world and also embodying the joy, creativity, and life-force energy that animates our experience. The only way we will overcome the problems we face as humanity is to face them head on, which allows the process to transform us. Feeling and honoring grief opens us up to joy. Facing and healing shadow invites new creative expression and possibility. However, there is no amount of false optimism that will insulate us from the consequences of extractive systems. This is a collective grief we must face. Making the shift to regenerative systems may be difficult and uncomfortable, and is critical and necessary work to open the door for this planet’s re-emergence.
EMBODIED
Our bodies often know before our minds do. We are committed to listening and learning from the pre-cognitive wisdom of our bodies as we cultivate conditions for new modes of being and becoming in this world. We affirm that all bodies are sacred and holonic in nature – part of much larger ecologies while being an ecosystem in and of themselves. The Holon Institute exists to serve the reintegration of body, mind, and spirit within each human, organization, and system we encounter.
IMAGINATION
The tools for thinking and innovation of our era have been defined by rationality and quantification and have subsequently atrophied our imaginative capacities. To realize a future in which all life can live in right relationship to all life, we must reclaim our inherent potential as storytellers, meaning makers, and pattern seekers. We seek to include all ways of knowing including data, rationality, intuitions, experiences, and creative explorations. Imagining a future that is currently unknown and unscripted, but is inevitably more beautiful, nourishing, and whole than the present, requires a fundamental transformation in the frameworks, concepts, and stories to which we orient ourselves.
There is much more to say, and we will be sharing more in the coming months, along with our website launch in late September. In the meantime, I hope you can join our virtual open house this Thursday, August 29th, noon to 1p. We will share more about who we are, what we’re up to, and how you can participate. Sign up and learn more here. See you there!
Much love, – Joel.
PS. It was no small decision to incorporate as a nonprofit. In short, we want to make our programming and resources as accessible to the broadest swath of society as possible. We also recognize that capitalist systems and structures can’t solve our greatest challenges. This also means we are are currently looking for conscious philanthropist, donors, family offices, and foundations to help us make this vision a reality. If you are interested in learning more about our long term vision and supporting us financially, please reach out. 🙏