Please join us and invite your friends for an engaging online program and fundraising event, exploring the theme of Being, Belonging, and Becoming with featured speakers Jeremy Lent (author, The Patterning Instinct) and Tyson Yunkaporta (author, Sand Talk). 

You will enjoy connection with the land, time in community, inspiration, and opportunities to nurture the conditions for transformation at the Whidbey Institute. Registration is free, and required so we can host you well. 

Free Online Program Saturday October 10

3:30 Optional Welcome Slideshow
4:00 Program and Fundraising, including this presentation from Jeremy Lent: The Alchemy of Heartbreak and Hope: A Spiritual Practice for Our Time.
5:00 Break
5:15  Optional Conversation with Jeremy Lent: How Can I Live Into a Generative, Life-Affirming Future? 

Guided by hosts Kate Snider and Kamilla Kafiyeva, you’ll connect with community and be inspired by the people and programs of the Whidbey Institute. You’ll also hear an update from board members Debra Baker and Larisa Benson and staff members Marnie Jackson and Heather Johnson on what inspires and draws us forward in this time of disruption and transformation. 

Can’t attend but want to contribute? We welcome and appreciate your donation via our website.

How do our ways of being, individually and collectively, nurture the conditions for healing and liberation? In these times of intense transformation, how do we create space for deeper and more equitable belonging? Who are we becoming, and what choices will we make today to move us toward the future we desire? 

In this program, we’ll explore age-old patterns that show the way forward for personal, cultural, and ecological healing and reveal our next steps toward the future we dream of—the future we’re co-creating. 

Woodland Wonders orders ended October 1. Sorry! During registration, you’ll have an option to purchase Wonders from the Woods: a gift to transport your senses to the land of the Whidbey Institute. For $25, you’ll receive a carefully curated collection of wonders, hand-selected to support your event experience and bring the Whidbey Institute to you. This collection will be physically mailed or delivered, and you can purchase multiples if you wish to give Wonders from the Woods as a gift to other Gala guests. 

This program is open to all, and we would love to see our friends from all around the world! We encourage you to share this invitation with your friends, family, and colleagues. 

Questions about the program? Email [email protected].

About the Presenters

Jeremy Lent, joining us live, is an author whose writings investigate the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current existential crisis. His recent book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, explores the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the Earth. His upcoming book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, will be published in Spring 2021 by New Society Publishers (North America) and Profile Books (UK & Commonwealth).

Tyson Yunkaporta, joining us via pre-recorded interview from Melbourne, Australia, is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

Host Kate Snider is principal and owner of Floyd | Snider, Inc., an environmental consulting firm, as well as a certified mediator and former Seattle Girls’ Choir board chair. She is a board member of the Whidbey Institute, past board chair, and a guiding force behind our Whidbey Institute 2020 Capacity-Building Campaign. 

Host Kamilla Kafiyeva is a friend, mentor, engineer, and facilitator on the team of Young Women Empowered. She joined Y-WE in 2014 as the Program Coordinator and has been supporting with program outreach, program design and facilitation ever since! Kamilla is passionate about youth empowerment, community building, taking care of the Earth, social equity and artistic expression. She enjoys coaching youth poets, playing improv games at camp, and hosting creative writing workshops.