The Seminary

We're living in a time of great transformations. The systems supporting the web of life are fraying under pressure from a civilization inconsistent with the environment that nourishes it. We're polluting sea, sky, and land; species disappear at alarming rates; the climate shifts into states that may or may not support many life forms, including ours.

The hopefulness that characterized previous generations has given way to alienation and lack of confidence in the direction of our lives. Many of us find ourselves in purposeless work that does little more than ensure enough money to buy the consumer goods that don't satisfy us and the simulation of food in supermarkets that we make do with. Technologies that were supposed to enhance human experience increasingly turn us into their tools.

These characteristics of modern life are symptoms of an ever-increasing divergence between the culture we live in and the way the world functions. There are specific laws—we outline seven—that define how life works. Cultures that ignore or actively work against these laws ultimately fail, going up against an adversary they cannot defeat: nature. Cultures that respect and align with these laws thrive.

The Great Unravelling & The Seed of Hope

Most accept the current state of the world as the inevitable outcome of 'progress'. Some are confident we'll increase Earth's carrying capacity through sheer ingenuity. Others see this as human hubris.

A minority is questioning the basic premises upon which this culture is based, increasingly expressing a desire to move to its edges to experiment with different forms of living. People worldwide are rediscovering three freedoms fundamental throughout the human story: the freedoms to move, to disobey, and to create new social worlds.

The Seminary (from the Latin seminarium, meaning 'seed-bed') is an invitation to exercise these three freedoms to sow seeds of a different culture—one consistent with the laws governing life, with potential to fulfil us, make us and the web of life more resilient, and reimagine what it might mean to be human in today's world.

Exercising the Three Freedoms

David Graeber and David Wengrow, in their book The Dawn of Everything, argue that peoples across history and the globe availed themselves of three fundamental freedoms: the freedom to move, the freedom to disobey, and the freedom to create or transform social worlds.

We move in the opposite direction to the bulk of humanity; while the majority moves toward the centre, we choose to move to the periphery.

We reclaim the freedom to disobey by saying 'no' to the expectations this culture has placed upon us: no to the expectation that we contribute to growing the economy in perpetuity; no to commodification; no to accumulation.

The third freedom is generative. The Seminary comes into existence as a living experiment—a process of trial and error, of continuous evolution.

An Invitation to Begin

I'm not looking for followers or believers in a fixed vision. I'm looking for companions—people willing to walk into uncertainty together, guided by shared principles rather than a predetermined blueprint.

Meet Francesco →