Anthropocene

Flash Over: A Dinner Conversation for the Anthropocene

We are living at the incredible transition of one geologic epoch to another: no longer defined by the delineation of layers of rock, but by the impact of a single species on the Earth. The Anthropocene Epoch represents just 0.01% of the whole of Earth’s lifetime, and yet our ability to fundamentally affect change cannot be denied. 

Surrounded by the art of Justin Brice Guariglia and fed by the food of Shelly Boris, this facilitated dinner sought out the flashover point: “the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.” (Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows). 

Some of the themes our 30 Anthropocene thinkers explored were:

Trust + Vulnerability
What happens if we make the discerning choice to focus on a single imperative or conviction, with everything we have––with all the energy we have? 

Nature, Fervor + Expansiveness
When we recognize that we are of nature—that the wildness of nature is in us and always will be– what fierce transformative passion emerges out of you?

Community + Ethical Flourishing
What changes about our process if  we consider communal ethics as an outcome of our projects?

Intergenerational Resilience + Societal Evolutions
What new forms of encounters, interactions, and relationships might be evolving to shape how we face the future possible?

Curiosity + Interpersonal Agency
Can we create new social practices––new rituals, new traditions, new orientations––that help us to be truly with and for each other?