The Story

Mission, Vision, & Theory of Change

"The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your emotional maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal"

Joanna Macy

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society"

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Recognising Our True Nature

The majority of western society is currently still in a state of being identified with an illusory separate (false) self. This false self is formed through a collection of experiences and associated thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that creates the story of who we THINK we are. We are collectively attached to thinking and so missing the truth of our reality - which is that we are one, single shared being. When we move from the space of love/shared being (the recognition that we are everything) we start to interact with the world in a completely different way. We move from a sense of wholeness and completion and so we stop trying to get from our apparently objective world and instead we rest in being it and appreciating it. When we move from the sense of separation (fear) we feel anxious, depressed, lost, and ultimately incomplete and project this onto the world, including those around us. We reflect each others' pain and discomfort. We start burning down rainforests, wage war, fall out with our loved ones, and strive for 'success', as we try to defend and protect a false and insecure sense of self.

"It's not enough to simply engage a person. to have them arrive and be included. We need to MEET NEEDS and HEAL through the journey. To PARTICIPATE and CREATE through our own unique expressions. To call forth our essence into the world. From this space our mental and emotional suffering becomes a catalyst, an opportunity, to DESIGN as the LIFE THAT WE ARE"

Amy Ward

(presentation to National Museum Cardiff Read Full Here)

"We need to stop approaching 'people with 'mental health difficulties' and addictions as a problem that needs to be fixed, or to simply tick boxes in the name of inclusion in society. We need to honour, wholeheartedly, and listen, deeply, to what wants to be said to the world from this experience of suffering, and what wants to be created. Our future depends on it"

Amy Ward (Light Touch Integration)

Collective Suffering of an Industrial (Economic) Growth Society

Cultural beliefs, education systems, and ideas about what we are supposed to be doing with our lives are centred (in western society at least) around this illusion of separation which has accumulated in recent times (the past 150 years) as the Industrial (Economic) Growth Society. Living and conditioning our minds has all been focussed on what we can be as producers and consumers as the mass, for the few. We are told what we are and what we should be, losing the sense of connection to our True Self, our unique expression, Nature, other people, and our work. If you are experiencing pain and discomfort, if you are suffering, this is NOT BECAUSE OF YOU ALONE, this is a symptom of a system in a huge state of flux and a collective suffering relating to how we have been conditioned to think, feel, and act. We are in this together! The 'mental health crisis' isn't a crisis of poor mental functioning, but a perfect reflection of what is going on here, now! So, if you are suffering, disconnecting, struggling to engage, you have within you golden wisdom and WE NEED YOU!

Nature as Teacher

(Co-creating a New Earth)

"Love, and do what you want"

Nature has a stunning power to support us to sense our shared being (that can only be accessed when we are experiencing through a state of presence) providing us with the safe ground from which to express ourselves. The non-human living world, because it doesn't think, expresses really easily the qualities of our true being without being distorted by the conditioned mind. Being with nature and learning from nature helps us to feel into our own pure being, helps us to disqualify the illusion of separation, and offers us key patterns to help us observe ourselves, and key principles on how to live life from our True Nature.