The Emerging Earth Story
Our political and economic institutions are crumbling, after taking the Earth's natural systems to breaking point. This is the metacrisis, born from broken stories about who we are in relationship to each other and the earth.
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In the collective, narratives of separation, domination and fear are the only stories that are amplified. We have inherited a world built on them and they shape us, what we build, what we value, what we think is possible.
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Building new systems starts with healing the narratives both within us and outside us. By recovering the stories that were there before, stories of humans being inherently collaborative, caring and living in right relationship we can begin to birth the stories that reflect worlds we want to inhabit.
more about
OUR APPROACH
Through stillness, relationship with the earth, and community, we go beyond the conditioning of ego/rational mind, and find answers from a deeper place.
Grounding
Orientation
Story Circles
Context
DAY 1:
relationship
weaving
Meditation
Forest Bathing
Digital Detox
DAY 2:
stillness &
nature connection
Nature Wisdom
Council &
Futures
DAY 3:
imagination
Creation & Artifacts
DAY 4:
emergent creation
Who this is for
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Teachers & Educators
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Sustainable Design Professionals
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Regenerative Economy & Finance Practitioners
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Artists, Writers & Storytellers
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Activists, Civil Society & NGO Professionals
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Academics
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Curious Nomad Wanderers
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Your work regularly bumps against the narratives of ‘business as usual’.
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You spend a lot of time doing but yearn for the luxury of being, with peers, in the presence of nature, away from screens.
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You recognise that wisdom matters as much as intellect in the game of changemaking.
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You might feel disillusioned in your own field, looking for inspiration and a community to help you navigate what comes next.
If the intersection of story, ecology and transformation excites you, you belong here.
"Meeting people from completely different worlds and actually talking about healing and regeneration together with so much love and care — that doesn't happen in most rooms. For people whose job is changing the world, that pause isn't a luxury. It IS the work."
— Sadia Hossein, former Impact Hub Dhaka
WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE
A zine or art book shaped by everything the four days have opened. Yours to keep and carry forward.
Practical tools to take home: The Work by Byron Katie and Causal Layer Analysis developed by Sohail Inayatullah — practices you can carry back into your work.
An optional private Jnana Kanda* healing session with diya
*Balinese healing lineage taught by Guru Mangku Alit Ajna, working with prayer and intention to support mental, physical and spiritual clarity.
A traditional water purification ceremony with a balinese priest
Membership of the wider Emerging Earth alumni community — for whom this gathering is the beginning, not the end.
Four days in the Batukaru landscape. Organic farm-to-table meals, walks through UNESCO-protected rice terraces, water blessing ceremonies and time in a landscape that still knows its stories.
Co-Living Shared meals, shared responsibilities, shared presence. Where unexpected ideas are born and real friendships begin.
Work That Inspires This Gathering
From indigenous ways of knowing — particularly Tyson Yunkaporta's five ways of thinking and Robin Wall Kimmerer's work on re-story-ation. From planetary health, we understand that human and ecological wellbeing cannot be separated. Healing has to happen at the level of relationship, not just policy. From Futures Studies, we take the understanding that our work is less about knowing what comes next and more about freeing ourselves from the old stories that limit our capacity to imagine what can be. From Geordan Shannon's Spaces of Care framework, we hold that how we gather matters as much as what we gather around. The container matters as much as the content.
WHERE YOU WILL STAY
The gathering is held at Batu Karu Coffee Estate in Jatiluwih, on the southern slopes of Mount Batukaru, surrounded by ancient protected forest. Halfway up the mountain, the ten-acre estate looks out over the Jatiluwih rice terraces — and on a clear day, all the way to the ocean, the islands beyond, and as far as Lombok. This valley is part of the Subak system, shaped Balinese agriculture and spiritual life since the 9th century, and recognised as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site since 2012.
The Rooms Built from natural and recycled materials, each room opens directly to jungle, mountain or valley. Shared and private options available.
The Water Spring water straight off the mountain, pure, mineral-rich, clean enough to drink.
The Food Three healthy vegetarian meals a day, grown biodynamically, right on the farm.
The Coffee Excellent homegrown Biodynamic Coffee
Why bali?
The Balinese philosophy of Tri Hita Karana holds that harmony between people, nature and the sacred is the condition of a good life. Every morning, without fail, people place offerings at the foot of trees, at doorways, at the edge of the road; an act of daily remembrance that the land is alive and deserves to be greeted and thanked. Yet simultaneously Bali is also changing. Overdevelopment is taking its toll on the local people and natural systems. Emerging Earth is hosted here in the spirit of reciprocity, to learn from the land and to give back more than we take. The offerings are still placed each morning. The mountains still hold. To come here is to be reminded that another way is possible, and always has been.
your co-travellers
DEV
Dev spent over a decade trying to fix the world through policy — working across Rhode Island, Shanghai, Beijing and Bangkok, recognised as an ‘expert’ in tech policy, geopolitics and China. Eventually he arrived at a realisation: the roots of the problems ran deeper than any policy could reach. They lay in stories about who we truly are and our relationship with the earth. That recognition turned his attention inward.
He has sat in Vipassana retreats in the Thai Buddhist Forest tradition, studied Qigong and Daoist philosophy, and worked deeply with Byron Katie's The Work and A Course in Miracles with his teacher GD.
Today Dev is based in Chiang Mai. He hosts the Light Forest Podcast hosting conversations with changemakers exploring the root causes of planetary crisis. He co-founded digi-cnx, and serves as visiting researcher at Chiang Mai University's School of Public Policy, and builds learning journeys exploring how indigenous and spiritual ideas can inform modern solutions. He plays handpan and is learning to grow food and live in the right relationship with the earth.
DIYA
Diya lives in Bali with her family and three dogs. At fifteen, she began to perceive subtle energies, including auras and the emotional states of those around her. That same year, she took time away from school to live in Hampi, where she trained under actor and director Adil Hussain while living simply, close to the land.
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That experience deepened her sensitivity to both the natural world and the inner lives of others. Since then, her path has moved through Bollywood, organic farming, illustration, photography, and design, each step informing her ongoing inquiry into perception and consciousness. She later met her teacher, GD, whose mentorship continues to shape her practice.
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Diya believes that the most meaningful creative work emerges from stillness. She is currently exploring how healing, art, and design can come together in her work.
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She is an intuitive healer trained in Jnana Kanda, a Balinese healing lineage taught by Guru Mangku Alit Ajna, and the author of The Woven Worlds, an unpublished children’s book that came to her in a dream.
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