Terra Religata is an international activistic and creative collaborative project based on what I call Reconnection Activism.

At the time of writing, Terra Religata has given rise to a handful of cultural and artistic projects in filmmaking, poetry and music, as well as holistic curriculum design and transformative, sustainability-focused pedagogy. (You will be able to read more about these projects in my blog The Relentless Wave.)

However, this is only the beginning.

Reconnection Activism can happen under different circumstances and come into expression in myriad ways. These expressions may seem to be very different on the surface, but the common denominator is that they all have a shared purpose that guides them:

The symbol of Terra Religata represents this wave.

Two brush strokes in dance; unified in the heart of a mutual whole.

The purpose of Terra Religata is already embraced, directly or indirectly, in more or less consciously articulated ways, by activists all over the world that fervently struggle for justice, peace, ecological balance and climate neutrality, freedom of opinion and the individual’s right to privacy in a time of totalitarian mass surveillance.

The objective of Terra Religata is to increase the awareness of our own and the world’s fundamental – and today critical – need of meaningful and deep reconnection to heal the wounds of the world and make possible an entirely new form of civilization beyond the needle’s eye of our rapidly converging crises.

My hope is that this awareness will help activists to regain their strength and find new ways to work together through deepened and unified focus on the common root underlying our problems and on the path back to wholeness.

If we together make this possible, Terra Religata can become a common denominator; a dimension of depth or a unifying foundation on which already ongoing projects and initiatives can gain new impetus, grow, and bear new fruit.

At the same time, Terra Religata is a call to all who want to participate in this work, or to start entirely new initiatives guided by this vision – old and young, groups and single individuals, experienced and newcomers, tired parents as well as fiery enthusiasts!

To win the increasingly difficult battle for the survival of the Earth against profiteers, tyrants and oppressors of every kind, we need to support each other and build our own global community. However not in the form of any traditional organization, which quickly becomes just another lifeless and creativity-deprived institution. Such organizations can also easily be taken over by the forces that want to counteract their purpose.

Instead, we need to form an open, natural community where relationships and collaborations arise spontaneously in forms that live their own lives without top-down leadership or centralized control.

In the same way, water constantly flows in and out of the wave’s structure, while the waveform itself is sustained. And in the same way, as so called “open systems”, living organisms preserve their bodily functions intact by self-regulation in dynamic response to changes in their environment.

By definition, Reconnection Activism is always anti-hierarchical and anti-elitist. Only on such grounds can a cultural counterforce against the destruction of the Earth grow strong and finally, invincible.

All hierarchical power structures are based on the separation of the few on top from the many at the bottom, and on the internal division among the many which is being imposed on them by the few in order to keep the many “manageable” in a permanent state of disorganized disempowerment.

This is a fundamental example of how division is used actively to divide and conquer at the expense of the vast majority.

When we build an open, living community that doesn’t create winners at the expense of losers, the living force that unites us by its myriad expressions can begin to live its own creative life – just like Nature regenerates itself.

We need to go back to the original meaning of terms like membership and participation – as members together belonging to a mutual whole. A single body that needs all of its cells and organs to live its life to the fullest.

And then, together and in a new way, we can direct our combined potential to effecting the needed practical changes – each one among us active according to that one’s unique passion and ability; in small things and great, from the local to the global.

This can, for example, manifest in the form of climate activism focused on enabling deep reconnection by which individuals become aware of how their assumed responsibility for the perpetuation of life itself through climate-aware choices and actions can give them a profound and healing experience of meaningful participation.

Or powerful manifestations against racism, fascism and the increasing disparties in Europe, the United States and the world – cancers that are all interconnected – based on a message grounded in how and why we are unified and therefore need each other in a vibrant, just and multicultural diversity.

These are just examples of what will become possible when deep reconnection has become our objective and our shared focus.

Who knows what this will lead to?

How quick and deep the change will become?

The time is short, but the important thing is that the time is NOW.

Terra Religata is my own attempt to make a contribution to a new beginning, emerging from a new (and at the same time ancient) perspective on our root problems and their real solutions.

Will this project lead to real change?

That is up to all of us together. As one living body, unified by its infinitely enriching internal diversity.

How, then, does this relate to you?

Get in touch and tell me a little bit about yourself. Perhaps you have already come up with an idea of how you can become a part of the work that Terra Religata represents?

Read more about the forming of a wave by Reconnection Activism.

Follow @TerraReligata on Twitter for immediate updates on #ReconnectionActivism!

And do get in touch to arrange a lecture or workshop with Daniel Hansson in your community, or for your company or organization!