On May 13th, we once again gathered in our lovely GSS Room to have our second documentary screening night this year. We got to test out our newly given projector in this gathering. We are really grateful for this new addition to our room as it able to project clear and beautiful colors to the screen, it will surely enhance our experience in our activities. Our activity started by people coming into the room bringing along some food and drinks they had prepared to share with each other. While enjoying the shared meal, we talked and touched base with each other, sharing the things that happened since the last time we met (its been at least a month since the last time we gathered together!). The movie night was a particularly special gathering for us as Abhinaya -our friend from Nepal- introduced us to his wife, Prashamsa who was visiting. She also happens to be a biology teacher, and she studied Rhinoceros digestive system for her bachelor's thesis. It was really nice to welcome somebody who is working around the field that we are interested about.
For this documentary night, we watched the documentary An Enquiry to a New Story for Humanity: Change the Story, Change the World that was produced by the Findhorn Foundation. It was an almost two hour long documentary exploring the idea that started from Thomas Berry, an American ecological and cosmological thinker and writer, about the power of world view and how it’s all about the story we are living; the huge and complex global problem we are facing today (climate change, social injustice, biodiversity loss, etc.) is because we do not have a good story. The film started by telling about the old story that is about separation, that nature is separate from us, we humans can do what we like (like overfishing the ocean, put animals in factory farms, pollute the rivers, etc.), and we are somehow superior from nature. The film continued by exploring different topics within the so-called “new story” including ancient wisdom, education, gender, community and sustainability, leadership, governance, economy, self mastery, etc.
After watching the movie, Dr. Nathan Hensley (a visiting scholar from Bowling Green State University, Ohio) came and joined us for the discussion. It was visible in our faces how intense the movie was due to the duration as well as the deep content. When we started the discussion all of us are still processing the movie; it provoked different feelings, emotions and thoughts in each one of us. During the discussion some people shared their thoughts and feelings after watching the movie, some people found the idea of gift economy that was discussed in the movie very interesting, another pointed out that the “new story” is actually not new, it has been practiced by indigenous communities for a long time and most of us agreed. It made us question
the reason behind calling this a “new story”. Some people feel like the movie is full of abstract ideas and lack concrete action plan or strategies, and some say that they are more energized after watching the movie. In general, the people have mixed feelings and thoughts after watching the movie. The movie is really interesting as it challenges our thinking and able to ignite great discussion among us. Some even reported to continue processing the movie and discussion for the following days. We would like to thank you Findhorn Foundation and everyone that is involved in producing this movie and graciously gift it to the whole world. We’d like to thank everyone who showed up to the screening and brought food and drinks to share with and also contributed a really great discussion session. We hope everybody could take something to be inspired, learn and act on from the documentary screening we have this time. Cheers to everybody!!
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