Town Anywhere: A day trip to 2035

Justine Huxley, Cofounder of Kincentric Leadership reflects on group collective imagination process to prefigure a future where people and Earth thrive together.

Question:  What do bendable willow whips, cardboard and clothes pegs have in common?  Answer:  They can all be used to build a town, anywhere, 10 years into the future when humans and more-than-humans are flourishing together.  

Sounds unlikely doesn’t it, but this is what Ruth Ben‑Tovim and Lucy Neal taught me when they hosted a workshop at the Kairos Club in London, called ‘Town Anywhere’.  

Our process involved time travel, collective imagination, and dynamic collaborative brainstorming that drew on the diverse human intelligence in the room, as well as inviting us to call in the perspectives and needs of the more-than-human world.  We oscillated between human small group brainstorms, and dialogues where we attempted to occupy the standpoint of Oak, Fungi, Hedge Sparrow, Dandelion, Cow, Bat and other beings.  All this was spliced together with techniques that maximised cross-fertilisation of ideas enabling everyone to tune in to what was emerging in the group as a whole.  

Our first task in our human small group, and our species cohorts was to begin identifying some of the features a town might need for humans and other beings to thrive together.  Once we’d had a bash at that, we began sensing into what our role might be in the creation of such a town.  We wrote our new job titles on a small blackboard and walked around the room holding it and reading those held by others to see what kind of talent and passion we had in our small community.  Then we could navigate towards others whose new roles were similar - and dive into cocreating a venture we could offer in this future world.  When we had the bones of our venture, we met with the town planner to secure a plot somewhere within the town boundaries, and then took the leap to morph into makers, using a pile of everyday materials (here’s where the willow whips and clothes pegs came in) to build a scale model or symbolic representation of that venture.  Finally, we got to visit all the other ventures in the new world, learn about them and make connections with those we could support or collaborate with.  At any moment during the day when we felt to leave all the frenetic human activity behind for a moment and tune in more deeply to Earth consciousness, we could enter the ‘Spirit of Gaia’.  Here a different atmosphere reigned.  It was accessed by parting a circular curtain of Earthy-coloured paper ribbons which shrouded a small seat, and stepping inside.  Here we could disappear, pause and invite a different way of sensing.   Finally, when we were all on fire with enthusiasm for our new town and new lives and had completely forgotten whatever it was we originally did for a living way back in 2025, we were called to time-travel back to the present to reflect on what we’d learned.  

My group of fellow makers devised a network of interlocking circles of ‘Earthcentric Culture Stewards’ whose role it was to keep the community grounded in relationship with Earth and other non-human Earth beings.  Our venture had many facets, including looking after a ceremonial meeting place in the heart of our home town (in parallel with circles of stewards located in other bioregions).  We could offer interspecies rituals to ensure respectful relations between humans and others (collaborating in particular with those pioneering the town’s nature-based and biomimetic solutions ensuring their efforts duly honoured relationship and reciprocity), stewarding a programme which twinned children from birth with a more-than-human ally, and enabling newcomers to form meaningful relationships with the geography and sacred nature of their local river system and water sources. It was pretty cool.  When the time came to leave our village of shimmering ideas, cardboard portals and beautiful willow-woven structures, I was quite resistant to going anywhere.  2035 seemed like a much more fun and fulfilling place to be!       

The future we created was very much in harmony with Kincentric Leadership’s approach, so much was not new for me.  But the experience did reinforce certain understandings and drill them home in a new way.  Firstly - humanity already has all the tools and wisdom we need to shape a  life-sustaining future where everyone feels engaged and included and deeply connected with the more-than-human world.  It is all within our grasp.  Second, the collective intelligence of any group, when stimulated effectively and harvested skilfully, is worth more than any individual genius. When we add to that the wisdom of other species, even if at this stage we are mostly just fumbling for something we can never fully access, we still generate something valuable and potent.  Third, we clearly - and urgently - need more ways of engaging the ferocious transformative energy of our wild, unfettered capacity to dream.   Lack of imagination is part of what is killing the life around us, and thinking outside our conditioned prisons is the only place where true hope lies.  Lastly, there is immense value in crossing the divide from talking about ideas to actually physically making them together.  Even if what we make is of cardboard and string, and not intended for real or lasting utility, there is a particularly vital power in embodiment.  It breaks through locked in patterns, learned helplessness, egocentrism, inertia, despair and overwhelm, liberating the unstoppable force of human (and other-than-human) creativity.  

Thank you Ruth and Lucy and my fellow ‘Earthcentric Culture Stewards’ for a great use of a random autumnal Saturday.  I’m so much looking forward to birthing and inhabiting that beautiful place and wonderful community we created together in 2035!  Bring it on! 

Justine is a writer, facilitator, spiritual ecologist, and visionary whose core passion is awakening humanity to a deeper experience of kinship with all life. She co-founded Kincentric Leadership with Anna Kovasna and leads workshops, retreats, and trainings on cocreating with a living, intelligent Earth. She is the author of Generation Y, Spirituality and Social Change, and holds a PhD in psychology. She lives close to River Lea in Hertfordshire UK and is in love with all things River.