The Pachamama Alliance two-fold mission:

1. To preserve the Earth’s tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians.
2. To contribute to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all.

The symposium purpose is to:

Support participants in expressing their commitment to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just human presence on the planet as a guiding principle of our time.

The most critical issue

and greatest opportunity of our time
and what you can do about it

According to a majority of the world's experts, there is now overwhelming evidence that our modern society is headed for a catastrophe. Leading scientists are telling us that the impact of our industrial system, and the sudden expansion of humanity's ability to harvest the common bounty of our planet for short-term gain, may actually be upsetting the balance of our highly complex and fragile web of life.

There is always a chance of course, as some point out, that the experts are wrong, and that human ingenuity will come up with some kind of technological fix that will avert a global disaster. But with a downside risk so overwhelming, the potential cost so great, it is grossly irresponsible to keep doing what we are doing, and not to give this issue the serious attention it deserves. And yet, it rarely gets a mention in the daily news cycle, and was never even brought up during our last presidential election.

It is as if we are living inside of a dream, sleepwalking toward oblivion, while self-serving, shortsighted interests encourage our slumber with managed news, celebrity culture and other weapons of mass distraction.

It has become clear that our political and commercial institutions are unable to effectively address this crisis, primarily because they don't realize that they are looking at an interconnected world through a fragmented lens. The villain here is not Big Business, the corporate media, the military-industrial complex, or even those who for personal profit seek to clearcut our forests, overfish our oceans, pollute our atmosphere or drain our aquifers. The villain is an outmoded worldview - a way of seeing the world in which such unthinkable acts appear reasonable, sensible, and even intelligent.

Indigenous people of South America, who still live in their traditional Earth-honoring ways, refer to our modern worldview as our "dream" and have urged us, for the sake of all life, to "change the dream of the North." Well, it appears that changing this collective dream of ours will be a do-it-yourself-together project. It will be accomplished by committed individuals working in concert with one another, tens of millions of us, each willing to think and act in a whole new way.

This is one of the generating principles behind the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium. The Symposium explores the link between three of humanity's most critical concerns: environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment. Using video clips from some of the world's most respected thinkers, along with inspiring short films, leading edge information and dynamic group interactions, the Symposium allows participants to gain a new insight into the very nature of our time, and the opportunity we have to shape and impact the direction of our world with our everyday choices and action.

The aim of the Symposium is not merely to learn more about the world, but to grapple and come to grips with the very assumptions that underlie the way we ourselves see the world and our place in it, and with what each of us can do - both individually and cooperatively - to move the world in this new direction.

If you are ready to be disturbed, inspired and moved to action, if you are ready to be introduced to a thriving community of like-hearted, deeply committed cohorts who are actively engaged in awakening from and changing the dream of our modern industrial culture, we invite you to come to the next Symposium.

www.pachamama.org

www.awakeningthedreamer.org