Event Details

Given the unprecedented global crises we face - the climate crisis, mental and physical health crises, and a crisis of consciousness – how do we innovate to care for our fragile future in meaningful ways? Communities are increasingly polarised, and people are becoming more isolated and lonelier, despite our technological connectivity. It’s time to act, yet what do we do? Perhaps this is a time of post-activism, where modern challenges draw on ancient wisdom and ‘urgency demands us to slow down’ (Akomolefe, 2018).

Compassion is central to this new activism, both in its fierce and gentle forms. Compassion offers us the courage and resilience to look at suffering head on, to hold the truth of it without flinching, while alleviating the conditions that disempower individuals and communities. Awareness holds the key to this way of engagement, requiring us to turn within and listen, through ancient practices and rituals. Neuroscience provides insights into the complex human nervous system that works to ensure our survival, while recognising our vast human potential.

Through liberatory mindfulness, compassion, insight and wisdom, we find our innate joy. Through engagement, we are protected and sustained by the work that protects and sustains others. How do we innovate through intuition? By developing daily contemplative practices. This is not a time to seek swift answers, but to rest with the questions that lead us forward, breath-by-breath. In so doing, we regain access to our full humanity and relationship with the natural world, healing trauma, developing resilience, and opening to creativity and inspiration.

Compassionate activism draws us into healing, listening circles; the sacred liminal spaces that ‘set both the oppressed and the oppressors free’ (Clairborne, 2010).

Lucy Draper-Clarke is an author and researcher-practitioner, with a PhD in Mindfulness and Teacher Education. She facilitates courses in mindfulness and compassion, and runs retreats around Southern Africa. Her academic work includes the supervision of postgraduate students at the University of the Witwatersrand, with Drama for Life. Her current focus is on Compassionate Activism for a life-sustaining society. She aims to offer changemakers, activists and meditators the skills they need to alleviate trauma, increase resilience and cultivate wise, compassionate action.