History

Over the last two decades, scientists, philosophers, helpers, teachers and artists have experienced a turn in their thinking. This turn comes at a moment in our evolution when deep reflection reveals serious questions about the quality of our relationships with the natural environment as well as with one another.

More and more we recognize how much we depend for our survival on our capacity to cooperate. To one another we are bound, caught in an unfathomable web of relationships informing all we feel, do and think we know.

We have felt a stronger pull to mindfulness practices that support us to stay engaged with our commitments while our senses dance with unprecedented quantities of information and stimulation. We are inundated by multiple cultures and languages as our communication technologies link us to a global forum. We are increasingly more sensitive to abuses of power, to the exploitation of scarce resources, and to the obliteration of diversity. We are unified in our support for curiosity, complexity and cooperation.

This Opportunity

Now we have the chance to engage with and enrich one another as we forge ahead. This conference welcomes those who have been working with relational practices to expand the scope of those practices. Together we can discover richer opportunities for building a nourishing and just society in our local communities as well as around the globe. Collaboration of this nature is the very condition on which we depend for our sustainability.

The Relational Emphasis

Taking this relational turn to heart, many of us have joined a revolution, nurtured by contributions from social neurobiology, evolutionary psychology, Gestalt therapy, relational constructionism, phenomenology, postmodernism, and organization and leadership theory. In different ways and in different places we have each been developing practices to face the challenges of an increasingly complex and technologically advanced world.