Council on the Uncertain Human Future
About the Teacher
Why study with them?
The Council on the Uncertain Human Future is a space of deep collective engagement with the unprecedented changes taking place on and with the Earth, our only home.
In some sense, the CUHF is a collective mindfulness practice and skillful means for these times like no other. The Council process itself is both an ancient and new way of making human society. Practiced for millennia as a process of discernment, it can nurture community and give rise to collective wisdom and insight.
In the CUHF, members engage in a process of honest listening and reckoning with the realities of the climate emergency, and the social constructs through which it emerged. By coming present and following a simple arc of questions, we constellate a shared understanding of where we are and why it is happening; the psychic and emotional impacts of that knowing are held collectively. Gradually, presence and trust deepen among participants, allowing for discernment, humility, insight, vision, courage, and commitment to unfold.
Over the course of the process, and as we explore how we might live now, both deeper engagement and momentum for new behavior emerge – behavior that is more likely to reflect values of interdependence, with each other and the Earth. As an evolutionary path, CUHF encourages resilience and a kind of persistence based on listening for what is needed, possible, and life-enhancing. Simple, necessary, and heartening, it invites an overdue paradigm shift.
Launched in 2014 among a circle of distinguished women with strong commitments to climate issues, it has grown to be an international network of almost 500 members, located in academic institutions (Clark, MIT, Swarthmore, Worcester State), institutes (Mind and Life), contemplative communities (Wonderwell / NDF), activist groups and more, nationally (Massachusetts, Santa Fe, Boulder, Bay Area, Philadelphia, Virginia, Hawaii) and internationally (Edinburgh, UK, and Kathmandu). The transition to Zoom has allowed the CUHF practice to grow in unlikely ways. A group of Steady Councils has emerged, and bi-monthly international Zoom events and Councils are held. Learn more of the practice stream, films, readers, and other resources at
https://councilontheuncertainhumanfuture.org
The Council on the Uncertain Human Future is funded by the Christopher Reynolds Foundation and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
In some sense, the CUHF is a collective mindfulness practice and skillful means for these times like no other. The Council process itself is both an ancient and new way of making human society. Practiced for millennia as a process of discernment, it can nurture community and give rise to collective wisdom and insight.
In the CUHF, members engage in a process of honest listening and reckoning with the realities of the climate emergency, and the social constructs through which it emerged. By coming present and following a simple arc of questions, we constellate a shared understanding of where we are and why it is happening; the psychic and emotional impacts of that knowing are held collectively. Gradually, presence and trust deepen among participants, allowing for discernment, humility, insight, vision, courage, and commitment to unfold.
Over the course of the process, and as we explore how we might live now, both deeper engagement and momentum for new behavior emerge – behavior that is more likely to reflect values of interdependence, with each other and the Earth. As an evolutionary path, CUHF encourages resilience and a kind of persistence based on listening for what is needed, possible, and life-enhancing. Simple, necessary, and heartening, it invites an overdue paradigm shift.
Launched in 2014 among a circle of distinguished women with strong commitments to climate issues, it has grown to be an international network of almost 500 members, located in academic institutions (Clark, MIT, Swarthmore, Worcester State), institutes (Mind and Life), contemplative communities (Wonderwell / NDF), activist groups and more, nationally (Massachusetts, Santa Fe, Boulder, Bay Area, Philadelphia, Virginia, Hawaii) and internationally (Edinburgh, UK, and Kathmandu). The transition to Zoom has allowed the CUHF practice to grow in unlikely ways. A group of Steady Councils has emerged, and bi-monthly international Zoom events and Councils are held. Learn more of the practice stream, films, readers, and other resources at
https://councilontheuncertainhumanfuture.org
The Council on the Uncertain Human Future is funded by the Christopher Reynolds Foundation and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
