faculty
explore advaya’s teachers

Explore advaya's faculty of teachers, scientists, practitioners, philosophers and storytellers,  who share multidimensional, local and diverse  narratives from across the world.

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Bayo Akomolafe

5 courses

Sophie Strand

3 courses

Satish Kumar

1 courses

Vandana Shiva

6 courses

Veronica Strang

1 courses

Manda Scott

2 courses

Beloved Sara Zaltash

1 courses

David Abram

2 courses

Dr Andreas Weber

5 courses

David Whyte

1 courses

Helena Norberg-Hodge

2 courses

Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic

1 courses

Charles Eisenstein

3 courses

Aisha Paris Smith

2 courses

Brontë Velez

3 courses

Tammy Gan

Tammy (she/her) is an activist-in-progress and digital creator and communicator, based in sunny, tropical Singapore.

Tammy seeks to create digital and physical communities and learning spaces to build towards a more just, regenerative and loving world within our current one. As a builder and storyteller, Tammy seeks to be in service to movements, organisations and collectives that prefigure a better world.

Somatic tools for a joyful reality

In the upcoming six-week online course with Aisha Paris Smith, Joy and the Body, we will step into somatic awareness, exploring body-based practices, and observing the openings, shifts, and releases they facilitate. Ahead of the course, advaya converses with Aisha about what somatic tools are and how they can be so powerful in creating a joyful reality.

Being present to the disorderly character of our times

How do we become present to the disorderly character of our times without losing hope and joy? Situating Minna Salami’s work in an ecosystem of others, including public intellectual Báyò Akómoláfé, writers Elwood Jimmy and Vanessa Andreotti, and theorists Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, we explore how some of her teachings may be applied practically.

Befriending what is going on inside ourselves

Our bodies are our constant companions. Complex and multi-facted, yearning for their expression to be heard, our bodies are with us all the time, and we could live our whole lives refusing to acknowledge that… or come into relationship with our bodies.

“Everything is connected” is only partially true

“Everything is connected” is partially true, but in the words of Donna Haraway, “nobody lives everywhere; everybody lives somewhere. Nothing is connected to everything; everything is connected to something.” Kinship offers us ways to connect through the context of place. This is profoundly important in a time when the abstract notion of the “global village” might challenge our capacity for care, and more crucially, action.

What does it mean to live in reciprocity?

As a function of capitalism, our relationships have become extractive, conditional, monetised, scarcity-driven. Living with a system that seeks to squeeze evermore value in return for less and less inevitably leads to these extractive principles being reflected in our own lives too, in the way we act in relationship with others. By turning to the more-than-human world, we see that we have lost our way.

Why we need the radical imagination

To build and sustain powerful and effective movements, we need to reclaim the radical imagination and ignite transformative ambition. But how?

How do we forge visions in our movements?

Amidst the collapse and fading appeal of metanarratives, can we—should we?—seek to forge and sustain visions within our social movements? If so, how?

We're ongoing projects of emergence

advaya’s Spiritual Ecology study club returns in 2023! Below, a reflection on the monthly theme of our Spiritual Ecology study club. What is emergence? What does it mean to practice emergence? How do we embody it in our lives?

How can grounding ourselves in the present be a radical act?

How can grounding ourselves in the present be a radical act? How does being rooted firmly in the present deconstruct colonial notions of a utopian, imagined “collective” future? How can we recontextualise being in the present with its complexities, nuance, and radical power?

How can we reclaim the apocalypse?

“We are eroding, we are evolving together.” - Terry Tempest Williams

Is the world around us alive?

Is the world around us alive? Can the world around us be reduced to merely sums of parts? Does the world around us have its own consciousness, and hence senses of purpose?

How can we upend “knowing”?

How can we upend “knowing”? How has the pursuit of knowledge in modern science paradoxically gotten us further away from the truth and reality? How is “knowing” actually a process of co-creation, rather than a linear path towards an imagined enlightenment (that defines our anthropocene, a self-centred, misguided age)?

What is the power of the mythic imagination?

In the words of Carl Jung humans have always been mythmakers.

An invitation to stay with the trouble

“It’s time to look in the mirror and reflect on the histories that are mine, that are ours.” - Terry Tempest Williams

The world began with Chaos, Eros, and Gaia...

"[At] this conjecture, [...] [we have] an opportunity to end entirely the harmful repression of chaos, which may be crucial for our understanding of, and harmonious coexistence with, nature and the development of a peaceful global society." - Chaos Gaia Eros, Ralph Abraham

What's at the end of species lines?

In this conversation with advaya, Dr. Patricia Kaishian discusses biodiversity and colonialism; extinction and regrowth; evolution and pleasure; and wild ways of knowing. She shares from her lived experience as a member of the Armenian diaspora, and from her wisdom gained from being a trained scientist.

Wild ways of being

This is the transcript of the third episode of REBIRTH, a limited podcast series produced by advaya, in partnership with Stella McCartney Beauty.

Seeding relationships to the land

This is the transcript of the first episode of REBIRTH, a limited podcast series produced by advaya, in partnership with Stella McCartney Beauty.

Transness as nature incarnate

This is the transcript of the second episode of REBIRTH, a limited podcast series produced by advaya, in partnership with Stella McCartney Beauty.

Cultivating mutual reciprocities

This is the transcript of the fourth and final episode of REBIRTH, a limited podcast series produced by advaya, in partnership with Stella McCartney Beauty.

Relishing the sensuous

We are being called to live a sensuous life. Rather than further developing our minds and intellect, the current moment calls for relishing the sensuous nature of our bodies. This is not a denigration of science, of knowledge. It is an invitation to enliven it. If science has shown us that our bodies have such incredible capacities, why don’t we feel it for ourselves?

Failing with rigour

Can failure be generative? In the context of accountability processes and decolonial work, how do we balance necessary empathy for ourselves and each other when we do fail, with discipline and rigour?

Pleasure is a necessity

In this free webinar, somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach Aisha Paris Smith joins advaya to talk about the necessity of pleasure in our daily lives. We live in a social context in which it is normalised to have under-resourced bodies. Despite the human body having an incredible capacity for pleasure, most of us don't access it. We struggle to relax, to enjoy, to engage. But self-created joy is possible, and we can reclaim our personal guidance system, through touch, care, and attention. This is a radical act, and a necessary one. In this spirit, advaya and Aisha are offering the upcoming course Joy and the Body—and in this webinar, we will focus on why these conversations and practices are so crucial. Aisha will introduce what joy can feel like in our bodies, and how we can begin to cultivate an internal environment that enables us to receive. How does this then change our external realities, whether that is our lives, or our shared world? Why do body-based practices, and focusing on the body matter in this time? Join us to find out, and reclaim pleasure and joy as daily necessities. During this webinar you will also learn about how the course breaks down and connects, and preview the exciting upcoming course.

Seven questions toward a body-led reality

A body-centred life is within reach for all of us. Somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach Aisha Paris Smith speaks with advaya and introduces seven core questions that can orient us towards a bodyful reality. These core questions form the foundation of each session on advaya’s online course with Aisha, Joy and the Body.

Where does the "self" end?

The self, according to Joanna Macy, is “the metaphoric construct of identity and agency, the hypothetical piece of turf on which we construct our strategies for survival, the notion around which we focus our instincts for self-preservation, our needs for self-approval, and the boundaries of our self-interest.”

Accessing the mundus imaginalis with the modern mind

Martin Shaw asks: “So the stories are here, but are we?”

How can we learn to love haunted landscapes?

In “Haunted Landscapes of the Anthropocene”, Elaine Gan, Nils Bubandt, Anna Tsing and Heather Swanson write that “Every landscape is haunted by past ways of life.” But this haunting does not just involve one interpretation of time: “ghosts show us multiple unruly temporalities”, they write.

Let us unearth the cyborgs within ourselves

What is a "cyborg"? What can the cyborg teach us about contradiction, corruption, kinship, and partial, fluid, and liminal identities?

Are we listening to our plant kin?

As we ease into fall, this month we're entering into conversation with the trees around us.

What happens in a moment of perception?

“The world, it seems, longs to receive gifts and to offer new things itself. A new cosmos opens up here; the world of an ethics of the gift.” A world of abundance, and responsibility, opens up when we examine what happens within a moment of perception. What if we saw perception as the gift, and perception as the gifting, in the circle of the gift?

Listening with our whole bodies

This month, advaya embarks on an investigation into listening with our whole bodies. Have you ever listened to your own ancestry and lineage, or listened to our other-than-human collaborators in the natural world? Have you ever thought about listening, about sound, and about how it all evolved to where we are today—a world full of sounds?

Behold the sacred

This month, advaya's study club gathers, for the last time this year, to discuss Sacred Activism. How do we surrender to the real, and behold the sacred, instead of seeing with our culture? What are sacred practices of seeing? How can these different ways of seeing create "productive ruptures"?

Thinking with the ocean, thinking with islands

A reflection on the themes of our course KINSHIP: World as Archipelago, from advaya's Head of Storytelling, Tammy Gan. In this reflection, she discusses the problem of globalisation and generating solidarity across difference, and considers thinking with oceans and islands as a way forward.

Kinship beyond genealogy, lineage, inheritance and bloodlines

A reflection on one of the guiding questions to our course KINSHIP: World as Archipelago, from advaya's Head of Storytelling, Tammy Gan.

Let us collectively rewild the masculine

How can we find healthier masculinities in the aliveness of the world? advaya's Head of Content & Storytelling, Tammy Gan, considers what masculine archetypes can offer us, in a social context where domination-based masculinity has become the loudest voice; and how we may search, both within ourselves and beyond the human realm, to find healthier masculinities that already exist.

The story of power: across agriculture, economics, to technology

In this long read, we explore the throughlines of power across Big Tech, Big Agriculture, Big Finance, and more. Instead of being defeated, however, knowing this story gives us the tools to free ourselves and each other in this digital age.

An all-out war over truth in the digital age

Tammy Gan considers the way technology targets our beliefs, feelings, and identities, and what makes us human. What are the implications of digital platforms and emerging technologies on our humanity? How do we create flourishing futures in the digital age?

Unravelling our inner worlds

Do you know what your inner world looks like? Have you ever thought to find the language, the art, the poetry, to express it? All our lives we have been taught to minimise our inner worlds. It is now time to magnify them now.

Gazing on the cedar mountain

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem that presents a cautionary tale for the main characters in its story. Unlike them, we are not the villain in the presently unfolding story of ecological destruction, but the poem does offer wise counsel for what we can do, and how we can generate productive ruptures for change.

Underneath a Bodhi Tree

Buddhist traditions say that the first human being achieved enlightenment underneath a Bodhi Tree. Whilst enlightenment may be ambitious, the experience of sitting under a tree is unquestionably sublime, and deeply transformative. But what is it about trees that initiate us into such an experience?

The secret to our survival

“The Anthropocene, after all, can never replace Gaia as the dominant ecological force on Earth.” Ahead of our upcoming course with Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic, we sit down with the multifaceted bioscientist for an eye-opening conversation about the Gaian mind, bacteria as the primordial civilisation, how our plants and animals engineer their environments in ecological ways, the sentience and consciousness of all living beings, and more.

An Autopoietic Gaia: biopoetics, creativity, and meaning-making on Earth

Ahead of advaya’s upcoming online course, Biocivilisations, we speak with two scientists and authors who are weaving together the worlds of biology and philosophy to reinvigorate the science of life, and invite us all to reconsider what we think we know about nature, Earth, and the living world around us. We look towards symbiosis as the rule of life, the inherent creativity in all living beings, and the implications of these on how we see the world. What happens if we understood Gaia as autopoietic, enlivened, making meaning?

Cultivating response-ability amidst the trouble

Ahead of advaya's upcoming online course: Re/membering our Rooted Selves, we speak with co-curators Naida Culshaw and Maria Clara Parente on what it means to cultivate response-ability in transitional times. How does making kin and relating differently, re-storyation and shapeshifting, and reweaving ourselves into the threads of the past, help us continue to be present to the trouble, in resilient and continuous ways? This timely and timeless conversation traverses ideas of world-endings, narrative shifting and re-writing, connection through stories and art, and the importance of slowing down, which may not be what you think it is.

Unmasking Dionysus: history, culture and legacy

Ahead of advaya's upcoming online course: Dionysus: Rave, Ritual and Revolution, we speak with curator and host Chiara Baldini all about Dionysus. What is the cultural and social context that the god, also known as Bacchus, comes from? Weaving stories from pre-patriarchal, goddess-worshipping archaic civilisations, to the Roman empire and the Bacchanalia's clamorous and illegal arrival and disruption of it, to interrogating the possibilities of the traces of Dionysus' legacy today, this lively conversation promises an informative introduction into the queer, rambunctious, complex figure of Dionysus.

Queer ecology and collective liberation: the science underground

Ahead of advaya's upcoming online course: Queer Ecology: the science underground, with Dr. Patricia Kaishian, we speak with host and curator Patty, about how the study of mycology, ecology and queer theory can bring us towards a more expansive way of looking at the world. In this conversation, we discuss: how fungi can be our teachers in interbeing, redefining 'normal', and noticing the margins; dissolving the distinctions between humans and nature; what we have sacrificed in constructing the world as we have; and traditional ecological knowledge. How can looking at how we relate and how we think about the world lead us toward liberation?

Our meaning crisis and the new gods of modernity

Ahead of advaya’s upcoming multi-teacher online course Contemporary Spirituality, we speak with host and curator Hannah Close about how the ways in which we seek meaning have changed, what has taken the place of grand narratives and the institution of religion, moving towards healthier sources of meaning and foundations of the ‘sacred’, the ethics of spirituality practices and cultural and religious exchanges, and more. How can we find our place within intersecting ecosystems of meaning in the modern age?

Once upon a time, before patriarchy

Over a thousand years ago before classical Greece, on a paradisiac island, there was a pre-patriarchal civilisation that prospered: Minoan. In this indigenous Mediterranean history, the seeds of Dionysus were sown, later fruiting amidst the mountain dance of the maenads, and then in the heart of the patriarchal Roman empire. How does Dionysus open the door to these stories before patriarchy, reminding us that patriarchy is not the only narrative that exists?

Pleasure is a necessity: resourcing our bodies with joy

In this free webinar, somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach Aisha Paris Smith joins advaya to talk about the necessity of pleasure in our daily lives.